10 STEPS TO DEVELOP A STRONG WORK ETHIC

Globally, there is an enormous emphasis on education and skills preparation for future employment. Many employers indicate that a strong work ethic ranks at the top of the list along with proficiency in a chosen profession, however, not many employee understand or are even aware of what they need to do to meet these work ethics standard. Below are a few steps to develop yours.

1.    Step 1

Arrive to work at least 15 minutes before you're scheduled start time. This offers the ability to mentally prepare for tasks. Plan to work the time and days agreed upon. Schedule all appointments outside of the times you've committed to your employer. A great attendance record is an essential attribute of a strong work ethic.

2.    Step 2

Maintain a professional demeanor at all times. Be cordial and friendly to all staff in the company. Refrain from allowing your home life to spill over into your employment environment. Conversations should focus primarily on work related issues. Respect yourself and others.

3.    Step 3

Put a positive spin on negative comments. A positive attitude is crucial to having a strong work ethic. Bring a fresh perspective to problems at work.

4.    Step 4

Developing a strong work ethic involves taking initiative. Attempt to solve problems at work independently. Use your training materials to assist in locating a solution. Be confident and self-motivated in your ability to handle job responsibilities.

5.    Step 5

Honor your commitments. Being dependable creates confidence in your capacity to handle more responsibility. Seek to serve the interest of the company's goals, objectives and mission. Do your part to create a productive place to work.

6.    Step 6

Strive to do the job right the first time. Quality and quantity of work is a direct reflection of personal character and integrity. A productive worker with strong work ethic takes the time to produce quality work. Take pride in your work.

7.    Step 7

Respect what others contribute to the work environment. Concentrate on your job and commitment to a proactive attitude. Be a team player. Help others at work without being asked.

8.    Step 8

Go the extra mile whenever necessary to ensure that your verbal and written interactions with others are productive. Communication skills are an indispensable asset to any organization. Use empathy and self control when diffusing disagreements.

9. Step 9

Find the good in every situation. Negativity is infectious and ruins morale. Enjoy the position you hold in the company and give it your best.

10. Step 10

Do not worry about non-productive employees. Refrain from comparing yourself to those who are not meeting the company standards.

Unless you’re particularly spritely in the morning, it’s unlikely that you’ll literally jump out of bed and head to work full of an endless supply of energy, but if you follow the tips above, you’ll greatly increase your ability to foster a healthy approach to work. Also remember that having a good work ethic does not mean keeping your eyes glued to your computer monitor. It includes knowing how to take care of yourself. Getting proper sleep. Eating right. Taking time to relax and recharge. Keeping your priorities in life clear helps you maintain the proper perspective at work.

Do have a lovely week ahead.

A message to all product managers out there

You may be feeling great about finally being a product manager or feeling far from being a high performer in your company. You may also think you've scored big points with the engineering team or maybe, you think you're failing your customers and bosses.

Whatever the case may be, I attended a 2-day Workshop on New Product Development and Product Management a few members of my team recently and I couldn’t but share the idea it implanted in me. I came to understand that as a Product Manager you're valuable to any company. However, first, you are valuable to you! You are in that company because you possess skills that endear users to your organisation and make your company invaluable to its customers. You are the communication channel everyone must plug into to effectively satisfy customers.

 As you work with designers, programmers, engineers, business developers, marketers, sales personnel and analysts, you are the single source of truth for your product and the voice of your user.  Oh yes! You are an advocate for the user. Your company needs your exceptional skillsets to exist and remain in business.

So, to all product managers out there, however you may feel, know that your company needs you, your team trusts you and most importantly, your customers depend on you to meet their needs. All you need is to put on your A-game at all times and open your mind to new ideas, knowledge and exposures. They all equipped you with the right skill-set to help you accelerate your career in product management.

I stumbled on this ProductDive and I thought it may be useful. ProductDive is an empowerment organization that provides you with the right skill-set to help you accelerate your career into product management. They are currently offering the first AIPMM accredited product management course in Nigeria, you may look it up on https://productdive.com/.

Remember practice makes perfect…This might be the surest way to improve your skills easily.

Cheers.

Lets talk about Failure

Failure is a sobering experience.

Dreams and plans for a desired future are shattered in a single moment. And it's irreversible. It's final. Now, you must go back and start again.

But... Do you know what the worst part about failure is?

It's that you knew you were going to fail the entire time. You just chose to ignore it, to sweep it under the rug, to focus on the positive.

This voice had been whispering to you the entire time, it told you what would happen. The signs were there, the writing was on the wall, you just chose to ignore it and hope for the best (aka wishful thinking).

But you didn't know if the voice was telling the truth or not. That was until the failure happened. It's in that moment that you realized the voice was right all along. That is the worst part about failure.

Experiencing failure is a crucial part of development. I can tell immediately whether somebody has "been there" and "seen it" before.

Once you've been there and experienced it, you're never the same. Before failure, you didn't know where that line was. The line that you can't cross, because doing so means death. You're blissfully unaware.

But after failure, you know exactly where that line is, and when you're on the wrong side of it, you can't just sit there and tolerate the inevitable.

You have to do something about it, you have to push yourself, push others, talk about things nobody wants to talk about, and be "mean" in the eyes of those who haven't seen what happens when you don't do what's required.

Failure gives you survival instincts, and once you learn from it, you start optimizing for business survival, not what others think is "a decent effort".

So... If you're an entrepreneur reading this piece...

You know exactly what I'm talking about. You know what that failure voice is whispering to you. You can see the foreshadowing.

The only question is: What are you going to do about it?

You can continue blissfully unaware —or— you can change the trajectory while it's still possible.

Changing the trajectory means looking at everything in your business: the people, the culture, work ethic, values, habits, products, decision making patterns, competitors, market trends, technology, finances, everything...and start to make necessary adjustments where needed.

Start now before it's too late.

If there's one common lesson to be learned from the diverse experiences of  successful business owners, it’s that there will always to overcome obstacles and plans to mitigate. No one goes from zero to hero without breaking a sweat or feeling that all hope is lost.

This is likely one reason why the vast majority of startups fail. Somewhere along the way, those business owner(s) came up against a major hurdle --lack of budget, dissatisfied customers or an unexpected competitor -- and fell so hard they didn’t even try to get back up.

Yet, when it comes down to it, there is always a way forward. It may not always be obvious, comfortable or even smart. But if you’re going to succeed, it’s up to you to find it!

Motivating your Sales team

I have been managing the sales unit of my organization for a couple of years now. This has given me the opportunity to connect with lots of people that ordinarily i wouldn't have met, C-level executives, Top government officials etc but most importantly fellow sales leads, who are the thrust of this piece. If there is one thing that I have noticed we all have in common is the fact that we struggle to get senior managements to trust us to make good business decisions for the company.

My observation was corroborated by the statistics released by RainGroup, which shows that 66% of companies’ executives don't agree their sales managers have the skills needed to manage the sales department and coach other sellers.

There is no gain saying that sales managers are key to unleashing vision of the founder and the potential of the sales team, but most organizations rely on promoting top performers in the hopes that they'll bring others on the team up to their level.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Sales Coaching and training is all that is needed to transfer the department or unit from one that sucks to an exciting high productive unit. Coaching no doubts delivers great suggestions and techniques to enable sales managers to get the best out of themselves and their teams. One challenge most sales leads usually have is how to embed the tools and disciplines into our daily routine, however, an important step starts with the coaching and accountability sessions.

 It is important for senior executives to pay more attention to sales manager to implement a proven sales coaching process, giving them the skills they need to unleash the sales performance of your team by using the following objectives:

1.           Motivate sellers

2.           Focus on seller actions

3.           Help sellers execute

4.           Advise sellers to win

5.           Develop the team

The ability to do all of this—and do it well—is often the difference between a top-performing team and an average one.

The Target Audience.

Let's talk about Target Audience.
Do you know that if you do not know who your target audience are, you will keep struggling in business? Your target audience are those who wants your products. It is not everybody that wants what you have to offer. As a business person, you need to be able to understand who wants your product and who doesn't. Lets carry out an exercise this morning 📝 Take a note pad and list out all the people who you know would be interested in your products. Write down where these people can be found both online offline. Are they married women, young ladies, students, men, youths, stay at home Mum, Nursing Mothers, churches, secondary school pupils? Etc. While you devise a means to reach these people offline, there are online groups where you'll see a large number of these particular set of people. Search for those groups, join and connect with them. It's time you stop pitching to the wrong audience Have an amazing week🦋

How to Speak Up in a Meeting, and When to Hold Back

I recently spent a month interviewing the group heads of a large financial services company in order to understand how their direct reports need to communicate as they move into leadership positions. Again and again, I heard the same comment: “If you are in the room for a meeting, we expect you to speak up. Don’t wait for someone to ask you.”

In many organizations, our leadership readiness is measured in part by our willingness to speak up in meetings. How we speak off the cuff can have a bigger impact on our career trajectory than our presentations or speeches, because every single day we have an opportunity to make an impact.

While much of my work focuses on women in leadership, everyone can use meetings as an opportunity to move up in their careers — and bring others with them.

Here are three strategies for speaking up effectively, followed by three warnings for when you should hold back.

Strategies for Speaking Up Effectively

·         Prepare a few bullets in advance. One senior executive I worked with was deathly afraid of public speaking early in her career. In order to overcome that fear, she challenged herself to speak up at every single meeting and prepared comments or questions in advance. That executive is now a role model within her organization and is considered one of the most confident and authentic speakers in her industry. Don’t wait for inspiration to hit in the meeting; prepare in advance.

·         Ask, “why you?” This is a question I recommend people ask before they craft a presentation, walk into a meeting, or even prepare for a networking event. It means, why do you care about what you do, about your organization, or about your role? Answering this question helps you connect with a sense of purpose and builds your confidence. It reminds you that you’re speaking up not to show off but because you truly care about the subject. It reminds you that your credibility doesn’t come solely from your title or years of experience but can also comes from your commitment and passion.

·         Pause and breathe to build your confidence. Speaking up in a meeting takes courage. You have the ability to affect the trajectory of the conversation, potentially guiding your client towards saying yes to a deal when your colleagues have taken the meeting off track. Pausing and breathing helps center you and strengthens your voice so that when you do speak up, you speak with the full weight of your conviction. While you pause, ask yourself, “If one other person in this room has the same question, am I willing to ask on behalf of that person?” The answer should build your confidence. A client recently shared that she had used this technique to ask a question — in public — at a large conference, and her question changed the direction of the entire panel discussion, shedding light on a critical issue that the panel had been avoiding.

With that being said, sometimes it’s the person who says the least in a meeting who has the most power. Your executive presence comes from being strategic about when you speak up in addition to what you say. Here are three warnings for when you should hold back.

Warnings for When to Hold Back

·         If you’re only trying to show off. We’ve all had the experience of sitting in a meeting or on a conference call that runs late, where everyone is trying to wrap up, and someone is rambling about a topic the group had already moved on from 30 minutes ago. Right before you speak up, ask yourself why you are speaking. If you are speaking up just to show how much you know, it’s better to let someone else talk or let the meeting run its natural course.

·         If you are trying to empower others on your team. I had a pivotal moment in graduate school where I received feedback that I spoke up too much in class. Why was that a problem? A classmate said, “You become a crutch for others. We can’t wrestle with the question being asked because you jump in with the answer. Sometimes leadership is about letting others find their own solution.” Ten years later, that comment has stayed with me and has deeply influenced my leadership style. In the meeting, let members of your team speak up in order to build their own relationships of trust with your clients. Giving others an opportunity to speak in a meeting is one of the most powerful ways we can build their leadership skills, raise their visibility — both internally and externally — and give the client a more comprehensive sense of support from your whole team.

·         If your comment would be better left for a one-on-one conversation. Senior executives consistently offer feedback on their direct reports in my training programs by saying, “They need to learn when to leave something to a one-on-one conversation.” So many difficult conversations within an organization can be mitigated by talking privately to someone — in person whenever possible — rather than addressing the issue in a group where the person will feel defensive. This applies to email as well as spoken conversation. Before speaking up or hitting “reply all,” ask yourself, “Would this be better said privately?”

Speaking up in a meeting is one of the single-most effective ways to raise your visibility and build a relationship of trust with your clients and colleagues. Practice it strategically every single day and you will have a powerful impact on your career and in your business.

By: Allison Shapira

Build an organism, NOT a pyramid

This week I've been inside a small room creating keynote slides. Basically compiling my knowledge into training others can use to grow their business This is always an excruciating process. To go from being a "doer" to a "teacher". When you're doing, you're in flow, you don't think, you just do instinctively and intuitively. Coming out of that zone, reverse engineering your flow, turning it into step by step instructions, assigning words to things, making it understandable — this is an excruciating process. You have to enter another world. Anyway, I'm not here to tell you about that... I'm here to share some of the training I've been working on: "How to Hire and Manage a Team". One of my key insights on this topic is the importance of org structure. Most people structure their companies like pyramids, you want to structure your company like an organism.  Here's an illustration: ·         Structure — Is extremely important, it gives emergence to behavior.    ·         Adaptation — A pyramid is built vertically, it can’t change its structure, it can’t adapt to change, it is what it is and cannot change. An organism’s unique ability is “self-organization”, it adapts/evolves by changing its structure. A cybernetic autonomous control system. ·         Pyramid — This is the typical “command and control” hierarchy. It’s extremely slow,  breeds politics, authority, communication issues, bureaucracy, bad products, manipulation of truth, bad talent, death. ·         Organism — This is the non-typical “self-organizing” distributed team. It’s extremely fast, breeds results, innovation, organic communication, meritocracy, great products, respect of truth, top talent, adaptable to change, sustainability. If you're trying to grow a business, hire a team, structure teams, their interconnections, and deal with communication chaos — Don't build a pyramid. Build an organism. -Sam

A new way to handle a bad day at work

Even the best jobs come with bad days. Which can happen for a lot of reasons. Sometimes we get into slumps. Things can get crazy or weird in the office. Our own mindset can slip into dark territory. Whatever the reason for a bad day, it's a good idea to limit the number of them. This week's post gives you a better toolkit to do just that. And more. Because you not only need to better understand the causes of a bad day. You need to know how to face it. Once you're through to the other side, you need to recover. Maybe most important of all, you need to learn the lessons that a bad day can teach you. All of this strengthens you and helps you to grow as a professional and as a person. I hope you can use these ideas to make it a great week this week, even if a bad day should rear its ugly head. Thanks for reading. Have a great week! From: Tom

Do you like Mondays?

Do you like Mondays? Somebody's life satisfaction can be measured by how much they love/hate Monday's. The more they hate them, the more their life sucks. The more they love them, the more they love their life. Mondays are an unavoidable cold taste of the truth. When I was drifting through life with no idea what I wanted to do and no passion for anything other than playing video games all day. I hated Mondays because they ended my artificial weekend delusion. When I joined my company, i started doing something I truly loved -- I stopped wasting time on video games because I didn't want to escape from a life that I loved. Monday's went from my worst nightmare to my favorite time of the week! When I was a little kid, I dreamed of a utopia where everyday was a Saturday and the weekend never came to an end... By carving my own niche from this business, I made that dream a reality. When you love what you do, everyday is a Saturday. Do you want to love what you do for work? Carve a niche for yourself in it. To your success.

You Vs "The Wall"

If you want to be an entrepreneur, you've got to learn to deal with "walls".

Walls are obstacles that stand between you and what you want to achieve.

They are plentiful, and once you get over one, the next one is bigger again.

To succeed, you must develop the tenacity of going over a wall, under a wall, through a wall, making friends with the wall, and basically figuring out why the wall doesn't matter. Losers are terrified of walls. Winners love 'em.

Success doesn't hinge on the walls your encounter, simply your reaction.

Ready to begin the journey?

It starts from here.

To your success.

DELAYED GRATIFICATION – The Secret to Successful Life

I was thinking about something interesting this week, after I finished reading a book titled Strategic Thinking published by Harvard Business Review. One question has always fascinated me: Why do most people find it difficult think? Why do they cause themselves problems and fail to "see" that they are the architects of their own predicament?

The one thing I've found that smart successful people have in common is long-term thinking and a mind that's wired for delayed gratification. The one thing all the non-smart unsuccessful people have in common is short-term thinking, and a mind that's wired for instant gratification.

People who succeed in life are able to think far into the future, set a goal for themselves, reverse engineer it back to right now, and then get to work on the small. seemingly insignificant mundane tasks required to get there. Successful people’s actions don't create effects, feedback, or rewards until a distant time in the future. And they're totally ok with that, that's normal.

Unsuccessful people don't think out into the future beyond a few months, they don't set goals, they don't reverse engineer, and they never get started on the mundane tasks required to get there (because there is undefined). Their lack of future vision means they can't optimize their daily decisions and actions, so they fallback to, and optimize for, shorter-term rewards.

I have realized that reading a book is slow, there's no flashing lights, there's no feedback. The gratification doesn't happen until you get deep into the book, which is 30m-1h (beyond most people’s ability to concentrate). Most successful people read books, most unsuccessful people watch social media, Movies and what others do. If you want to succeed in life, un-hook yourself from instant gratification and start training your brain to enjoy the pattern of delayed feedback.

Another analogy I will like to use “FAT”. Being fat is the same as being unsuccessful (in your brain), How? You may wonder. Obese people have short-term thinking, instant gratification brains. Their mind has been trained to crave instant feedback from glucose (sugar), even when it comes at the cost of their health, and makes them fatter.

They don't want to be obese, they want to lose weight, but they can't take the actions required today in order to make that distant goal come true. Their brain has been trained to go for the instant reward (sugar) right now.

What's fascinating is that unsuccessful people’s brains work the same way. Being unsuccessful is the same as being obese, the same as using debt. The sacrifice of long-term desires, for the instant reward of now. Having a better today at the devastating cost of tomorrow, and denial of that fact.

Don't be like this. It's not good.

For me, the first task that needs to be cleared is self-actualization. You need to be aware of yourself and be discipline enough to implement the changes. If you want to know how I trained my brain to go from the confused, neurotic, instant gratification, social acceptance seeking, problem creating mess it was -- to -- the problem solving, focused, intentional, and always aspiring for greatness but still far from perfect brain it is now, Hang on,  i've got something for you!

You don’t need to limit these “training exercises” to big things.  You can train yourself every day with small rewards for small delays. In fact, this may be more effective because you get more practice. For example, I have trained my brain to only request for breakfast when I have completed a task for the day. This could be sending an important email, assigning tasks to subordinate or even planning the day’s task.

You can also do this yourself by promising yourself a treat at a later time if you do XYZ and then actually following through.

Tell yourself you can buy that new pair of shoes after you put in 100 hours of study time and then actually buy them if you do it.

Tell yourself you can treat yourself to pizza after you have completed two workouts this week, and then actually eat the pizza.

Each time you assign stakes and follow through, you are training your brain and teaching it that delaying gratification is a good thing.

After a while, you’ll find that delaying gratification becomes a habit and you’ll be accomplishing more meaningful things in your day-to-day life because of it.

Practice these steps and thank me later!...