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A Weekly Letter With Tips and Ideas to Improve How Your Life and Business Work - and Other Interesting Things that Catch my Eye!
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September 30, 2017 - Issue 17-40
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Good Afternoon.
In an interchange this week, I was reminded of the value of respectful treatment of our fellow human beings in our interactions.
Be Kind...Even When You Feel Less than Charitable!
In my experience, disrespect in communication accomplishes nothing other than to alienate people from each other. Respectful treatment and communication with all around you, and especially those with whom you're working to accomplish something, achieves far more than sarcasm or negative criticism. Even when someone has actively caused you harm, "burning bridges" is seldom warranted. You don't have to interact, or do business, with the person who affronted you - just forgive them, and leave them alone. Forgiving is one of the healthiest things you can do, and carrying around a grudge is one of the unhealthiest! When you are angry about someone, or even some thing, that person or thing cares not about your anger. You're the one who suffers - let it go!
Sometimes these conversations can degenerate into a situation where one side tries to prove itself "right" and the other side "wrong". I will submit here that trying to prove oneself right, or others wrong, serves only to prove the arrogance and insensitivity of the prover.
This week I'll address this topic of respectful treatment of each other, especially in a situation where someone made a mistake that needs to be corrected, in my comments and in an article by Minda Zetlin.
Read on, and enjoy!
John Stevens at Unity Copywriting
Marketing Support for the Business Coaching Industry
Office and cell phone: 814-590-3854 or 603-835-3215
In Argentina: +54(country code) 9 3868 459586
Skype: johnbstevens1943
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Please Help me Spread my Message Where It's Welcome
Please remember to pass this letter along to anyone you think will enjoy and benefit from it, and/or might like to receive my messages every week. Just click the "" link at the bottom of this one, or here. If this message was forwarded to you, and you'd like to join us regularly, please click on the "SIGN UP FOR EMAILS" link below or here. You'll be automatically added to my mailing list, and I guarantee that will not generate other promotions. Your privacy is of the utmost importance to me. If you'd rather not receive these messages any more, you're welcome to click the "UNSUBSCRIBE" link here or at the foot of this message. I'll miss you, but I'd rather send these ideas to those who find benefit in them.
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Is It Really Necessary to Criticize This Person?
This is a good question to ask yourself before getting into any active discussion of someone's mistake. Many times you can find a part of the task they did well, or at least satisfactorily. Sometimes that good performance mitigates the mistake they made. Complimenting them on that positive aspect of their performance may actually shed a negative light, for them, on their mistake without the need to even mention it. Most, realizing that they made a mistake, will correct it on their own, likely more effectively than with any comment from you.
Perhaps they have correctly, on other occasions, performed the task on which they made the error. Especially if that was within a few days of the offending incident, positive reinforcement of their correct performance will usually have the effect of turning them away from the negative performance.
If It Must be Addressed...
Sometimes the error is so grievous that it must be addressed head-on. Maybe it seriously impacts the company's bottom line. It may put the company in a risky position with respect to legal liability. Sometimes it might pose a physical safety concern that's unacceptable. If the infringement of rules or appropriate behavior is serious enough that it must be stopped immediately and not allowed to repeat, then the passive methods of addressing it that I described above may be inadequate.
Nonetheless, even in those extreme situations, it's always important to remember that the whole point of criticizing someone's actions is to cause them to change their behavior and thereby improve the results achieved by the organization. Maintaining their self-esteem through constructive criticism is invaluable here. My friend Brian Tracy has commented that, "Negative criticism of a person has about the same effect as smashing a malfunctioning computer with a hammer". Unlikely to improve results!
Coaching on How to Improve
When someone on the team "screws up" - does something, or fails to do something, that demands correction - many leaders consider dealing with this the most difficult task they face. If you criticize constructively, you can do it without disrespecting anyone, and with an eye to using the incident to improve the team's performance. Constructive criticism entails digging into what led to the error, coaching on how to do better in the future, and on what can be done to mitigate the result of the misstep.
Minda Zetlin
offers some great advice on how to handle this with aplomb in this
article
.
The next time you're faced with errant behavior by someone around you, you may want to consider these thoughts and advice. They work anywhere - in business, in social situations, in families, or anywhere people interact with each other.
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Do More of What You Love Doing -
and What
You Get PAID For!
Do you coach business leaders on ways to improve their businesses? If so, when you're face to face, or on the phone, with your clients, that's the work you signed up for, that you love...AND that you get paid for.
Writing effective promotional, or even just conversational, material - very important in staying top-of-mind with your prospects and clients - to attract new business takes hard, focused work. If you're doing that writing yourself, it diverts time and attention from your work with the clients you're already helping. Your coaching work, also very demanding, distracts you from your promotional writing, likely making it less effective. I can focus on your promotional pieces while you put your time and effort toward your most important work.
Call Unity Copywriting today and learn how I can eliminate this distraction for you, and keep you in touch with your important sources of business. Let me help you with a regular e-newsletter (similar to the one you're reading - these are my specialty) or other pieces to help you build relationships with your prospects and clients. I'll go to great lengths (not necessary the length of the message, unless you want it that way!) to describe how you serve your clients, and how prospective clients can benefit from working with you.
Put My Experience to Work for You...
As a business coach for several recent years, and before that having worked in various operations management roles during a long and varied career, I've been practicing and studying leadership and teamwork for over 45 years. With this background, I'm uniquely qualified to explain the benefits you offer to your clients and prospects. I love writing about this work and I'd love to talk with you about how we can work together to promote your business most effectively. Please let me hear from you!
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I Welcome Your Thoughts!
How do you handle a situation where someone has made a mistake and it falls to you to address it? How does your boss handle these situations? I'll be most interested in any thoughts or comments that spring up for you relative to these questions.
Do the ideas in any of my messages contribute to making your life and business more enjoyable and effective...or, do you have some reservations about them? I very much look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences and learning from them.
If you email or text me whatever's on your mind, please give me a phone number or a Skype address, or send me a Skype contact request (see my Skype address below), and mention that you read my newsletter. It's really important to mention this - with all the spammers, phishermen, etc. out there, I'm very selective about my connections on networking services. If your name is unfamiliar to me, I'll consider your contact request when you tell me the reason you want to connect with me, and...
Conversations are often necessary to discuss complex ideas, and conversations occur only in real-time, two(or more)-way exchanges; hence my request for your call or the information I need to call you - this will allow us to have a real conversation about your thoughts. Email and other forms of one-way communication are data transfers, and very useful for many types of communication. However, they are extremely limited in their ability to convey the ideas, emotions, and inflections that characterize conversations (it's estimated that words, which are the total content of an email, convey only about seven percent of the total import of a message - sure, you can add emoticons, which help marginally, so maybe the percentage becomes 10 or 12 - still very limited). So please call me or tell me how to call you.
Just dial 603-835-3215 or 814-590-3854 if you're in the United States or Canada. Of course, if you call from outside North America, you'll need the +1 prefix. If you're calling from Argentina, you're welcome to call my Argentine number, +54 9 3868 459586.
Help me Spread my Message Where It's Welcome...
If you know someone you think will find value in the ideas I discuss each week, I encourage you to forward this to them, using the "
" link here or at the end of this message. If this was forwarded to you, and you'd like to hear more, please click the "
SIGN UP FOR EMAILS
" link below, or here. You'll be automatically added to my mailing list, which I
never
sell, rent, or even add a name to without permission.
Your privacy is enormously important to me.
On the other hand, if you'd rather stop receiving these messages, simply click the "
UNSUBSCRIBE" link here or at the bottom of this message. I'll promptly remove you from the list...and I promise you won't hurt my feelings. It's my desire to send these ideas only to people who find them valuable.
Join me here again next week for more unique ideas on life and business...and
thanks for reading this week's letter.
Have a wonderful week
, and contact me
to discuss how we can join forces to add value to what
you
do. Our investigation as to how we can mutually benefit from working together is totally on me - no obligation or cost will arise from that conversation. You won't pay me a dime until you hire me to write something for you.
Be well, my friends.
John Stevens
Marketing Support for the Business Coaching Industry
Office and cell phone: 814-590-3854 or 603-835-3215
In Argentina: +54(country code) 9 3868 459586
Skype: johnbstevens1943
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About John
Throughout a career spanning over 45 years my management style has been one of building teams to bring several competent people together to focus on a common objective.
As I transition to life in the Argentine outback, my focus will shift to helping other business coaches and advisers get their message out to their prospective clients. With my first-hand knowledge of the benefits of effective business coaching, I am uniquely qualified to work with business advisers of all stripes convey their message.
Read More >
Contact Info
John B. Stevens, Freelance Copywriter
Phone: 814-590-3854
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