Nine months later…

I’m in my office with John Logan from the VRRI in Calgary. And by the way, I probably should mention here that I hadn’t yet closed one deal in the 9 months…But I’m giving him my pitch, my best stuff…trying to get him to lease space and open another bottle recycling depot.

After 45 minutes he looks at me and has this weird smirk on his face….and he says… “Herky, you’re the WORST real estate salesman I’ve ever met!” Well…I was a little taken aback…I mean, what would YOU do if someone said that to you? You know, I can’t remember what my thought process was at the time, so I don’t know how I came to say what I said, but here it is… “Ummmm…ok John…..the WORST huh….and may I ask why you think that?”

“Herky, you’re just too nice a guy….you don’t have that killer instinct. You should have made this sale 30 minutes ago.” John Logan and I ended up going for lunch that day, and he told me that I should be in the helping profession, and he invited me to take a tour of the VRRI where he worked. I was blown away as I saw mentally and physically handicapped folks doing all sorts of incredible things like running bottle depots, doing piecework for AGT that no one else had the patience to do, and serving 400 meals a day in a restaurant.

At the end of the day, I asked John how someone like me could end up doing something like this. He told me about a place called William Roper Hull Home, still in existence today, a place for severely emotionally disturbed youth. You didn’t need a diploma or degree in those days. What they looked for in the interview, was whether or not they felt you had the aptitude to work with young people. I went to the interview and got hired to be put on their 6 week probationary training program to see if there was a fit. I was so enthused about this work, that after the 3rd week, they hired me.

John Logan changed my life. Over the last 35 years or so, I have worked with at risk youth in one capacity or another, and I STILL do. Working with young people is one of my passions and it gives my life tremendous meaning, something I may not have discovered without John Logan’s help. What he taught me, which I have never forgotten, and I have benefitted from over and over again, is to be OPEN! I could have shut down with John in my office that day, I could have become defensive, I could have dismissed his comments as being ridiculous. Instead, somehow I had the wherewithall to use him as a mirror for me. To keep my ears, my eyes, and my heart OPEN!

Moral of the story? STAY OPEN to all that happens to you in, and DON’T WORRY about failing. You just never know when the next opportunity will come along to change your life…

Sometimes in life, it’s not success that defines us, but failure. How we choose to respond in these situations can have a tremendous impact on our lives. Here’s a story about one of my failures that changed my life forever….

I graduated from high school with a 53% average…and because of that, I was unable to go onto post secondary education, and believe me, after my experience in high school, I had no desire to. I hated school with every fibre of my being, which is why I became a teacher….I KNEW I could do a better job!

Besides, I always liked to work..I had been working since I was about 10, and I took a lot of pride in my work. My dad always said “Son, it doesn’t matter what you do in life, just as long as you do it well…” I think he invented that saying because I’ve heard it many times since, and it stuck. To this day, my work ethic is pretty solid and I always strive to do a great job.

I had been working in a couple of Ma & Pa discount stores in Montreal after high school, and as the 3rd party in each situation, I was deemed the store manager. I was having a pretty good time… lots of responsibility at work.. had my own little place, a downstairs bachelor apartment in NDG in Montreal….there was a chinese restaurant close enough for me to walk to late at night if I got the munchies, life was pretty good, and then at the age of 20, I got “the call.”

Phone rings…

“Hello?”

“Herkelah! Is that you? It’s your brother-in-law! How arrrrrrrrrre youuuuuuu?”

“Gary?” Hey, I’m good thanks. This is a surprise. How are you?

“I am fantastic…I am EXCELLENT…I couldn’t be better… and I’ve got a hot proposition for you!”

“Really? What’s up?”

“I’m expanding into a totally new business…commercial real estate…and I want YOU to be my Main Man.”

“Me? You want Me? Ummmmm…Gary, what IS commercial real estate?”

“Ha ha…what a kidder! You know what a strip mall is right? Right, well, I’m going to build them, and YOU’RE going to find me tenants.”

“Gary, You’re crazyI have no experience doing this. I have no idea what to do!”

“Herkelah, I’ll pay you $500 a month, you can live at our house until you get on your feet, I’ll buy you a couple of suits because I know you don’t own any, and I’ll get you a car…..Whadda ya say?”

“ A Car? OK..I’m in….”

Tune in next week to see what happens……

 Julie: “What? That’s what you called me in here for? What about all the other people that come late? I don’t see you talking to them. And besides, I work WAY harder than most of those people when I am here.”

 Employer: “Julie, we’re not here to talk about anyone else. I value your work here and appreciate all the effort you have put in over the years. Now we need to take care of these lates.”

 When you’re a manager or a supervisor, having a difficult conversation like this with one of your staff about their work performance is just that….it’s difficult. If you choose not to have it however, or put it off, the behaviour youre trying to correct may never change, and having the conversation about it gets even harder.

My advice to you is to do it as soon as possible, and in order to help, I’d like to share a 5-step process that you can use.

 Step #1 – Preparation – You need to prepare yourself in terms of thinking about what you want to get out of the conversation and what you want the relationship with your staff to be after it’s done. Ultimately, you want the staff person to acknowledge that they need to change a behaviour and that they are willing to try somethingto do just that.  If you want to maintain a professional relationship with your staff member, then you need to treat them with respect, and acknowledge that there may be some extenuating circumstances going on in their personal lives. You also want to prepare the staff member by letting them know that you have something difficult to say to them.

Step #2 – Get to the point – Don’t sugar coat or talk about something else to ease into it, just get it done!

 Step #3 – Link – Make sure you link how the change in behaviour that you’re looking for fits in with company policy and values. It’s important for the staff member to see why you are bringing this up and where it fits in the organizational scheme of things.

 Step #4 – Plan – Come up with a plan together on how to change the behaviour. It’s crucial for the staff member to participate in this process in order to have some buy-in from them. It’s also a good idea to set a time limit for how long the plan should be in place.

 Step #5 – Follow Through – Make sure you set up a meeting at the end of the time limit you agreed upon and evaluate how things are going. Be prepared that changing behaviour doesn’t always happen right away and you may, in fact, need several difficult conversations for the same situation. Be patient!

Here’s a video to show how to have one of these difficult conversations…

 It’s true that Presidents, political leaders and corporate CEOs for example, are all faced with countless crucial decisions that they must make on a daily basis, and those decisions can be very stressful. One of the things that so vividly illustrated this point to me was the TV show called “The West Wing,” which debuted in Sept. of 1999. It was a show that I watched religiously almost every week for 3 years and it changed my life!

If youre not familiar with it, the show was set int the west wing of the White House and centered around the fictitious administration of President Jed Bartlett. Each episode was filled with situations whereby the President or one of his staff had to make decisions that  dramatically impacted people’s lives. Needless to say, along with those decisions came a high degree of stress. While the show also captured moments of joy, laughter, celebration, tenderness, and even silly child-like antics, the drama that is the life of a President, was the focal point.

 As I continued to be seduced by the show over the years, I eventually began to wonder how people like Jed Bartlett could handle so much every day in the same 24 hours of time that I have.  I finally realized that the key to doing this successfully was my “attitude.” What I mean by that is, when I’m having what I consider to be a stressful day, I believe I myself contribute to the stress level I incur because of my attitude. I convince myself, for example, that no human should have to endure so much in one day, and therefore I deserve a beer and maybe lots and lots of chocolate for doing so. Consequently, my attitude, and the behavioural choices I make because of my attitude, can affect how stress impacts me and my body.

 Theresno question that the decisions that folks like you and me, political leaders and CEOs, have to make during a day can create a lot of personal stress, and we know that stress can have a significant effect on us physiologically. Just consider stress-related symptoms like; insomnia, headaches, back and neck pain, heartburn, nausea, anxiety, tics, and a host of other things. Is it just our bodies that come into play here though?

 But what about the brain? What role does our brain have in triggering these physiological symptoms? Can our attitude, or in other words, what we think about stress, limit the negative impact it has on our bodies? I did some research on these questions and came across a Dr. Jeffrey DeGroat, a clinical psychiatrist and stress specialist, who suggests that how we approach stress, in terms of our attitude, will either cause us problems, or allow us to grow. Who am I to argue with a clinical psychiatrist?

 So how much is too much? Well, what is stopping you from handling more stress on a day-to-day basis like President Jed Bartlett and other leaders in society have done? What is stopping you from changing your attitude towards all the things that come at you on any given day? What is stopping you from turning those stressful situations into opportunities for growth as indicated by Dr. DeGroat?

How much is too much? Well, if we’re willing to change our attitude, and look at stress as opportunity, we can raise the bar and the sky’s the limit!

A sample of what the President in The West Wing has to deal with…

Recently I attended a camp run through Rotary International for my 14th year in a row. The camp is designed to help teens develop leadership skills, build self confidence and work in teams. With 60+ teens, and 20+ youth and adult leaders, the potential for chaos is great. Yet, at this camp, something magical happens each and every year. Don’t get me wrong, we have our casualties as well, and some students end up going home prior to completing the weekend.

But there’s an “intention” at this camp to make things work. And when people set an intention, a purpose if you will, and their behaviour is consistent with that intention, good things tend to happen. At this camp, for example, we really emphasize stepping out of our comfort zones and taking risks, both physical and emotional. Now clearly, if the leaders were not willing to do this, then how can we expect the students to do this? The notion of “do as I say, and not as I do” comes into play here and it just doesn’t work.

Yet, my experience is such that many organizations, groups and families function under that very philosophy. If we step into my career development world for a moment, how can we as career practitioners expect our clients to do anything different in their lives, take risks and step outside their comfort zones, when we don’t? What credibility do we have by insisting that they do all the work and we remain locked into our “usual” unchanging lives?

Look in the mirror and ask yourself…”Where do I do this in my life? Where am I asking people to change when I’m not willing to?”

And speaking of hypocrisy…

Where do you get your information? What or whom is your source? Does your source impact the reliability of the information? And if so, how and why?

Take this publication for example. Are you more likely to believe something is true because you read it here as opposed to The National Enquirer? Why? The National Enquirer has one of the largest newspaper circulations in the world, and the massive financial resources it has allows it to buy exclusive stories from people. Yes, occasionally, we read about someone suing the Enquirer for printing something false, but not that often, and this happens to other publications as well. 

How about information that is passed on through word-of-mouth. Are you more likely to believe something that is said to you by a close friend or family member as opposed to a homeless person for example? Why? Is it because that friend or family member is more trustworthy? Have they ever betrayed your trust? Has the homeless person ever betrayed your trust? Chances are you never saw that person before so they wouldn’t have ever betrayed you.

It seems to me we carry around some pretty significant stereotypes when it comes to these things. In my opinion, ANY bit of information that we read or hear about is actually pure GOSSIP until it is corroborated. Why would we believe something someone says without doing some research to see if it is actually true? Have you ever believed something someone has said and later found it NOT to be true? I know I have.

I am also guilty of passing on information that I have heard from someone WITHOUT confirming it. Usually I do that because it’s something juicy and I have nothing better to do with my life than to pass it on and see how others react. I admit this behaviour is juvenile and often destructive, and my awareness if the first step to recovery.

What about you? 

Here’s an interesting take on gossip…

So what is community? Dictionary.com (yes, there are other sites besides Wikipedia where you can find out stuff!) defines community in the following ways;

So what do they do? Without some research, experience, training or coaching, the activity can turn ugly for both the facilitator and the facilitated. We’ve all sat through those sessions where we felt that if it went on just a minute longer, we might be inclined to slash our wrists! This is not good.

What if that didn’t need to be the case? What if it were possible to become a GREAT facilitator? What if you could learn a few of the key techniques to GREAT facilitation in 40 minutes or less? What if having that information and utilizing those techniques helped remove the fear or frustration of facilitation?

It is possible! I will be presenting on this topic in Calgary this week but you folks who are reading this get a “special preview” of the content! Here are 10 tips to becoming a GREAT Facilitator!

1) BREATHE! Do NOT underestimate this simple yet powerful tip!

2) Use powerful images and few words in your PowerPoint presentations

3) Avoid using your Industry’s jargon….keep the language simple!

4) Communication – Pat attention to the formula: Verbal=7%, Para-Verbal=38%, Non-Verbal=55% – What you DON’T say and HOW you say things are more important than the actual words you use

5) Ask “Killer” questions…you’ll have to come to one of my sessions to find out what they may be…smiling

6) An Inch or a Mile? – When you’re given the opportunity to do something, DON’T settle for doing it in a safe, “small” way. Take the full mile and give it everything you have!

7) Retention – participants need to hear, see, read, demonstrate, practice and teach what they are learning in order to retain it.

8) Engage! _ How to engage your audience

9) Dealing with difficult participants – again, you’ll have to come see me live for the answers to this one

10) Humour! – Figure out how to incorporate humour into your facilitation or presentation…jokes, songs, videos, etc.

Good Luck!!!

Here’s a cool little video with some good tips…