A:  A “brand” is being known for something.  You might be known in your organization or to a small group in your industry, or more broadly, to the websphere.  As you know from a product focus, the most important thing to strive for in a product brand is trust in the brand.  I believe the same is true for personal brand.  There are many reasons this concept of personal branding has grown in importance.  In the knowledge age, I can’t rely on your job title to tell me what problems you can solve, you have to tell me or build a reputation (brand).  In order to gain any mindshare, you must be able to succinctly represent yourself because the rate of information has accelerated.  Also, while face-to-face networking will never go away, I would suggest social networking gains in importance every year and without the nonverbal cues from face-to-face, who you are needs to be very clear on the web or your network will get confused.

Of course, individual brand is an independent concept.  It is what “I” am known for.  And I am suggested that your brand is in NO WAY a manipulative spin on who you are.  It is, instead, communicating who you are.  It does no good to your career if you have deep technical skills and have led projects resulting in cost savings and increases in employee loyalty if no one knows about it.  In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Covey explains how interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.  This is really important:  Only by knowing myself—my talents, passions, and vision—and by taking responsibility for my choices regardless of the difficulty of the situation—only then am I capable of building win-win relationships and collaborating to resolve difficult challenges.  The confidence in self, my deeply rooted worth, allows me to be open and curious on the surface of my life.  I don’t have to be right all the time because my self-worth isn’t tied to being right or “winning.”  I’m much more curious, knowing that I don’t know everything about anything. 

If you get stuck in independence and don’t progress to interdependence, you might be effective in building a career, but you won’t be highly effective.

How do you use social networking to grow your personal brand?

What steps have you take to progress to interdependence?

We would love to hear from you.

Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Chief Learning Officer at FranklinCovey

When we say that a person has had a great career, what do we mean? That he or she made a lot of money? Moved spectacularly up the corporate ladder? Became famous or renowned in their profession?

And what about you? Are you looking forward to a great career? Would you describe your current career as “great”?

How do you create a great career for yourself? Can you have a great career and still have a great life at the same time, keeping the things you love – family, friends, work, and play – all in balance? 

The answer is, “It depends.”  It depends on how you want to contribute and how you define balance.   

Based on content featured in the soon to be released book Great Work, Great Career, by Dr. Stephen R. Covey and Jennifer Colosimo, in this webcast Jennifer will share critical, insightful principles and practices to help you discover your great career by discovering what your contribution will be and how you will make it.

 Specifically in this free webcast you will learn:

• How to begin identify your strengths, as summed up by your talents, passion, and conscience.
• Tips on how to craft a Contribution Statement.
• How to use your resourcefulness and initiative to get the job you want and overcome obstacles to making your contribution.
• How to create a network of supporters, both co-workers and clients—who can help you achieve your career goals.

 When: Friday, November 20, 2009
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. CT/11:00 a.m. MT/10:00 a.m. PT
Cost: Complimentary

Register at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/198135273

Source Code: GCCB

Please join us, we would love to have you attend.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey describes Empathic Listening as reflecting what a person feels and says in your own words to their satisfaction so they feel listened to and understood.  Empathic Listening is  not listening to advise, counsel, replay, refute, solve, fix, change, judge, agree, disagree, question, analyze, or figure out. Whether you are familiar with The 7 Habits and are looking for a refresher or new to them all together, here are a few tips to remember when using Empathic Listening.

It is best to use Empathic listening when:

• Emotion if high.
• The other person does not feel understood.
• You do not understand the other person.
• Trust is low in the relationship.

Here are a few Empathic Listening starters, these should help you get started using Empathic Listening.

• So, if I am understanding you correctly you are saying…
• What I’m hearing is…
• You seem…
• You must have felt…
• You feel…about…

What tips have you learned as you have used Empathic Listening in your life at home or at work? We would love to hear from you.

Q: With every working generation, there are changes in what is motivational (e.g., Boomers vs. Gen Xers). As the mix of the generations (and cultures) continues to increase, and new cohorts enter the workforce, what approaches can we use to take advantage of this diversity to build organizational performance?

A: Synergy is celebrating diversity. So, involve people in the question you are asking and let them come up with their recommendations. Initially, start with small groups of three or four people so they are authentic and genuine in their communication and not “politically correct.” Then, let each small group share analyses and recommendations and begin to synergize at a higher level the question you are asking.

The key to this generational question is to be synergistically resolved through deep cooperation and authentic communication. Employ a great deal of empathic listening and restating another person’s point until that person feels understood. This takes a different mind-set and skill set.

How do you use diversity (the mix of generations, cultures etc…) to build organizational performance? I would love to hear from you.

This question and answer with Dr. Covey was featured in the January 2009 issue of Training Magazine.

HOW do you create a great career for yourself? Can you have a great career and still have a great life at the same time, keeping the things you love – family, friends, work, and play – all in balance? 

The answer is YES – look forward to Stephen R. Covey’s new book Great Work Great Career scheduled for release on November 15, 2009. More info coming soon.

As a husband, father, grandfather and most recently a great-grandfather, I am thrilled with my growing family. They are my greatest blessing and my greatest joy.

Even still I’ve wondered over the years what mistakes I have made as a father. Of course, there are mistakes along the way. Looking back I think one of the things I would have done differently as a parent is spending more time developing informal win-win agreements with each of my children. Doing this consistently and over time, covering the different phases of their lives would have been beneficial.

Because I traveled a lot, I felt that I often indulged them and went for lose-win too often. Instead I would have liked to pay the price to take the time to build relationships through win-win agreements.

You may ask, what is a win-win agreement? Start by thinking about your own relationships with your children. What can you do to create more win-win? You may want to try creating win-win agreements with them to involve them more in decision-making, problem-solving and being accountable. Find a problem or issue you want to work on. Talk openly to your child about their needs or desires (their win). Explain what is a win for you. Then come up with ideas for meeting your child’s needs in a way that will also meet your needs. Set up specific expectations, to-dos and outcomes. I would recommend putting this down on paper and having you both sign it so you can always go back to it in case of questions. This also creates accountability. Will you try this with your children?

I am certain the more you create win-win with your children, the more trust you will build with them—and you’ll model for them one of the most important skills they need to thrive in their relationships not only in the family but in all their relationships, now and in the future.

How will you start to create a win-win with your child today?

Author: Stephen R. Covey

The answer: Don’t ask them to do more with less.

Instead, ask them to do less of what doesn’t matter and more of what does matter.

Morale has little to do with how hard people work or how tough the job is. People will do extraordinary things and work incredibly hard if they feel their contribution matters. Most of the day job consists of carrying out tasks that somebody has to do. If one person now has to do the tasks of two people, you’re obviously going to burn out that one person. Instead, re-think those two jobs. Which tasks truly add value for the customer? Which don’t? Are you asking people to spend time and energy on things that don’t matter much just because they’ve always been done that way?

Talk with the employee about it. What does the person really want to contribute? What does that person think his or her customer really wants? Then start shedding tasks that interfere with those things.

An emergency nurse in a Chicago hospital who found herself all at once trying to manage one bleeding patient, another who was having a heart attack, and another who couldn’t breathe—well, she quit. Who can blame her? Some situations are just ludicrous.

But another nurse, Angela Crawford, moved back to her homeland of Barbados after many years working in a Canadian hospital. There she found incredibly overworked nurses. But after selling hospital administrators on the continuous improvement philosophy she had learned in Canada, every nursing procedure went under scrutiny. Mentors were assigned to new nurses. Procedures were simplified and bettered. She has sponsored health fairs and other methods for preventing disease, thus reducing the workload.

Today Angela is president of the Barbados Registered Nurses Association. She is known as “the nurse who transformed the Barbados health care system” and eased the heavy burdens of hundreds of her co-workers. 

None of this was in Angela’s job description. Like Angela, you can use your own resources and initiative to help your people do more of what matters and less of what doesn’t. And then watch morale rocket upwards.

How can you start to do less of what doesn’t matter and more of what does matter? What else is going on in your organization? We’d like to hear from you.

You can find these and other ideas for thriving in this challenging new era in our book Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times.

Click Here to watch archived webcast

Who would have thought a couple of years ago that giant corporations would be toppling overnight? That gas prices would rise sky high and then collapse again within a few days?  That the economic boom would implode into the worst recession in 50 years?

But even in unpredictable times like these, some companies still perform with excellence. How do they do it? What principles do they follow? This blog is a place where we will discuss exactly that. It is a place where we can share insights and successes.

The book Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times, a new book by Stephen R. Covey and Bob Whitman, chairman of FranklinCovey, captures four key principles for getting great performance in good times and bad.

First, winning companies slim down to a few key simple goals with clear targets and careful follow-through. Everybody in the firm knows the goals and what to do about them.

Second, winning companies maintain high levels of trust with their customers, employees, and suppliers. They are totally transparent about their commitments, what they can and can’t deliver. Only the most trustworthy companies survive the kind of turbulence we’re in now.

Third, winning companies do more of what matters. The mantra in tough times is “do more with less,” but the real question is “more of what?”  Winning companies focus on giving more value-not just cutting back.

Finally, winning companies recognize that everyone gets scared when things get uncertain. Instead of allowing themselves to be paralyzed by fear, they channel their anxiety into results. They unleash people’s best ideas and energies instead of suppressing them or micromanaging them.

Over the next few weeks we will talk more in-depth about these each of these principles, principles that we believe can help any company win, no matter how rough the ride gets. What principles have you found that are helping you win in these wild times?

Times have changed. One of the things I often tell people is that you can’t do a job-search the way you used to. Most people have relied heavily on a job application form and a resume. Typically, that just doesn’t work anymore, although those are useful things and most times necessary. In today’s world you have to adopt a new mindset for finding and securing a job-and not just a job but work that you would find meaningful.

The new mindset is: be a solution, not a problem to a prospective employer. When you call or submit your resume, it likely goes into a pile with perhaps hundreds of other resumes or applications. This is a problem for the employer; you are one more person they have to deal with.

However, what if you took the time to really research the company you want to work for? Read and research about what’s going on right now in the company. Find someone you might know to talk to about what they’re dealing with and what they’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t know someone, make a call to find someone in the company who might be willing to spend a few minutes with you. Network with their suppliers or one of their clients to get a better understanding of the company, department or person you want to work for. Between the Internet and networking, you can piece together a picture of what would be of specific value to them. From there you can see if your experience, talent, skills, and passion match up to what they need. Now you can creatively position yourself as a solution and differentiate yourself. Get a conversation started in the company by presenting yourself as a solution to their problems not as a person looking for a job.

The tougher things get the more creative and solution-oriented you have to become. Be a solution, not a problem-and you’ll significantly increase your ability to land a new job.

To learn more about how to advance your career, take charge of your life and become a highly valued employee join my career development webinar series at: https://www.franklincovey.com/tc/publicworkshops/dr-stephen-r-covey-webinars

Certainly, independence is vital; however, the problem is that we live in an interdependent reality. Our most important work, the problems we hope to solve or the opportunities we hope to realize require working and collaborating with other people in a high-trust, synergistic way-whether at home or at work. Having an interdependent mindset, skills and tools are vital, especially now as we work through challenges unlike anything most of us have ever seen in our life time.

The principles found in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are all about helping people learn how to understand and build interdependence. The more we really understand and practice the habits, the more we will build the core skills and character necessary to successfully respond to the many challenges that will inevitably come our way. As a result, we will be able to manage our fears and insecurities, and take charge of our lives-which, in turn, can reduce our fears and insecurities.

Are you focusing on practicing interdependence? What differences have you seen in your life?

Click here to learn more about my summer webinar series on job security and career development.

Author: Stephen R. Covey