REPOST: The truth about yourr job performance

In reality, speaking the truth may cause negative feelings to staff members, but when done skillfully, according to this article, it is much more likely to improve performance, and therefore results.

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We all know a technically strong leader with a well-deserved reputation for harshness toward people. Staff members complain about it. The leader’s peers can’t believe she gets away with it.

All too often, this leader’s annual evaluation is filled with praise for her technical prowess but barely mentions her troubling style with people. The review meeting focuses on her technical successes; as the employee leaves the boss shakes her hand and offers an afterthought: “You could put a little more effort into your people interactions.”

Because the skill deficit is downplayed, no discussion occurs about what success would look like or how it would be measured. The leader exits, thrilled at her great review, oblivious to the difficulty with her style. And the boss secretly hopes she will change her approach. But she doesn’t because she doesn’t know she should. Because no one has told her the truth.

What restrains organizational truth-telling? Fear of hurt feelings or injured relationships. Fear of conflict and confrontation. Fear that a valued technical resource might leave the organization.

It is human nature to quickly tally up the potential cost of speaking out. In reality, speaking the truth may cause these or other challenges, but when done skillfully, it is much more likely to improve performance, and therefore results.

Imagine what losing this fear of truth-telling might yield for your company.

Employee satisfaction grows and subsequently productivity rises. Problems are reported early, before customers are impacted. People bring forward new ideas, no longer worried about offending their leader by suggesting work be done differently.

What truths about performance are withheld in your organization? What cost does the resulting lack of employee knowledge impose on the organization? How are results impacted when the truth is unspoken?

What simple truths about performance do you need to speak for the betterment of your organization?

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Marc Accetta uses his unique style called “edutainment” in conducting his seminars as a life coach. Like this Facebook page for more updates.

How to deal with failure

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We all have to accept that failure is a part of our lives. We know this is true but it doesn't make failure less painful. Below are some ways to grin and bear it:

Acceptance

Allow yourself to feel what you need to feel. You cannot ignore the pain. Embrace it, own it – this will help the process of healing. Accepting failure is also admitting that you have made some mistakes. Analyze the situation to find out what you did wrong but don't dwell too much on the negative. From here you can try to work out how you can learn from your mistakes and eventually find success.

Keep yourself busy

It's hard to get over failures but one of the ways you can speed up the process is by keeping yourself busy. This can be done through a different hobby, completely unrelated to the endeavors you've failed to do; or it could be your new plan of action to correct your mistakes. Keep moving forward and success will come knocking at your door.

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Redefine failure

Don't think of failure as the end. Endings are simply new beginnings. Mistakes teach you lessons that you can apply in life to achieve success. They give you experiences that are necessary for personal growth and maturity. Remember that success is a matter of failing many times to eventually find a solution that works.

Believe in yourself

Once you lose your confidence in yourself, everything will come crashing down. That is not a reason to think lowly of yourself and give up on everything. Failure is giving up without trying again. No matter what, believe that you can be who you want to be.

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Hi, my name is Marc Accetta and I live to inspire other people to live to their greatest potential. Visit my Google+ page for more helpful tips on life and all things in between.

REPOST: 5 Tips For Exceptional Leadership

Becoming a leader is a huge responsibility and not everyone is cut out for the role. This article from Forbes shares some tips on how to be a good leader.

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What makes a good leader? Looking at my own personal growth at SAP, I have found that the Holy Grail of leadership today is engagement. It’s only through truly engaging customers that we’ve increased profitability, and only through employee engagement do we increase productivity. I have been lucky enough to work with an executive coach who truly understands how leaders can inspire teams and foster engagement within both their organizations and their customers’ organizations. This is some of the insight I’ve gained from her on engagement, people management, and leadership.

Build a team of your own personal challengers

A recent article in the Economist claimed that as technology continues to become more intelligent, the role of the leader will center more and more on innovative thought leadership. In order to prepare themselves for this reality, leaders must continually nourish their minds with complex problems, new ideas, and divergent perspectives. To this end, everyone needs their own group of personal challengers; external experts who fulfill that part of their development and growth on an ongoing basis. This could be mentors, coaches, business advisors, or just friends who work in different industries. While it takes some work to assemble and practice, it’s a critical element to developing your breadth of thinking and continuing your growth.

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Convene and intervene
A very helpful leadership philosophy that I have learned is to convene and intervene. On one hand, part of being a leader is cultivating growth which entails convening people under a common purpose and allowing ideas to flourish. On the other hand, it’s about knowing when to jump in and steer the ship which entails helping the team take their ideas and shape them into something meaningful and executable. The leadership philosophy of convene and intervene allows you to be more present in a meeting by taking the onus off getting to the answer and instead focusing on the process of watching ideas grow and then simply shaping them. Not only does this help people feel engaged in the process, it also helps you learn a lot about the people you work with.

Two-to-one

Traditional thinking says that when coaching people, be sure to balance things that are working (positives) with lessons to be learned (negatives). Recent thinking suggests that the magic ratio is not 1:1, but in fact, 2:1. The 2:1 theory is that by emphasizing the positives, you create more buoyancy, leaving people feeling bullish and supported while at the same time having something constructive to work on. It’s so easy to jump right into the issue, especially in a company like ours where urgency can sometimes rule the day. I find myself needing reminders to adhere to this simple 2:1 rule of thumb, but when I do, I am stunned by the results.

Flying high and diving deep

Leadership in a sales driven organization requires an interesting balance of skills: the ability to help refine the details while simultaneously understanding the business with enough breadth to shape the strategy. The balance of knowing when to ‘fly high’ and ensure the overall health of the business, and when to ‘dive deep’ and run right alongside the teams, is a careful balancing act that is imperative to master for the sustainable health of both the business and the team. It can be really unnerving for people when a leader moves from one to the other quickly, which happens when leaders have both skills. Over time, and with amazing support, I have learned that announcing the switch – in a deliberate way – can help people understand what you’re doing. It ensures that people know they’re still trusted even though you need to understand the finite detail, and it allows them to understand that you also see the big picture and are looking out for their long term wellbeing.

Give, give, give, gone

Because there is never enough of it, time is the most valued gift we have to give. I’ve learned that when you have time with someone, give them everything you’ve got – your absolute undivided attention. If you say you’ll do something for them, do it there and then. Make the phone call, find them the document, send the email – but when they leave, move onto the next thing. This means you can always be true to your word, people get from you what they need, and you’re fresh and available to do it again when you move on to your next meeting.

Follow this Marc Accetta Facebook page to learn more about the characteristics of a good leader.

REPOST: 8 Ways to Promote Your Business as a Leader in the Field

To be able to succeed in managing business, having an excellent leadership skills is a must. This article shares the key responsibilities of an excellent leader.

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Clear values, innovation, pricing strategies, passion, and branding are all key attributes that will help to transform new and existing businesses into trusted household names. Yet without excellent leadership skills, a business can quickly crumble. Read on for 8 simple ways to promote your business as a leader in the field.

Strong Values

Strong values lay the foundation for a solid business, so it’s essential that these values are clearly defined from the get-go. Put some effort into the vision statement, instead of throwing something together quickly. Create a truthful set of values that radiates the company nature and intent. Don’t be afraid to make changes along the way. As the business blossoms, its key values will need to be tweaked.

Uniqueness

What makes your business different from the thousands of other similar businesses? A unique selling proposition is essential for attracting customers and standing out from the crowd. Define your niche, then promote it. Once you harness your skills and bring a unique set of skills to the market, your business is destined to prosper.

Honesty

Benjamin Franklin said that honesty is the best policy. This certainly rings true when it comes to leading a business to success. Your moral character, integrity, and honesty will all come into play when leading a business. Set the bar high and encourage a healthy work ethic, and you will find your employees will be happier and more productive in the process.

An Excellent Management Team

An excellent business needs a highly skilled management team behind it. Oracle chose to make Safra A. Catz and Mark Hurd Co-CEOs of the Oracle Corporation.

When asked why Oracle needed two CEOs, Hurd replied, “We’re a big company. This is bigger than the sales force. It’s bigger than Safra and me. Bigger than Larry, Safra and me. … It’s the development team, other teams. We have over 130,000 people. We need a lot of leadership in our company.” Oracle’s CEO shake up shows that it’s not afraid to take risks to make sure the company succeeds.

Leaders can take note from Oracle by choosing to step away from the norm. Companies should always be structured to fit the needs of their own goals.

Ability to Delegate

The ability to delegate is important for creating a well-organized business that will flourish. Leaders sculpt the vision of the company, but they will also need to trust their team to develop this vision and allow it to grow. Delegating tasks is a sign of strength as it proves the company has faith in its staff.

Push Things Forward

It’s important to adapt according to advances in technology and the ever-changing needs of customers. Oracle’s Mark Hurd is leading the company to success with a new cloud subscription strategy that could potentially generate a $10 billion annual cloud subscription revenue. Hurd’s strategies are paying off as a cloud subscription revenue run rate of almost $2 billion was reported in Oracle’s latest year-endings earnings reports.

Study Leaders

Modeling is a system where an individual observes an expert to extract parts of their beliefs, behaviors, languages, and strategies in order to achieve similar results in their own field. While you may not want to delve into the complex world of neuro-linguistic programming, by studying inspirational role models you can learn to improve your skills and become a better leader.

Choose to Inspire and Motivate

Finally, motivating and inspiring your team is important in any business. If you’re leading a start-up to success, you will need to inspire your team to see and believe in your vision.

Incorporating bonuses will reward staff for their hard work and motivate them to work to their full potential, while giving away equity is another way for your team to feel invested in the success of the company.

Leading a business requires forecasting, strength, perseverance, commitment, clear values, and the ability to inspire and motivate while trusting your team to carry out your ideals and visions.

Max DePree put it well when he said, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.”

Follow this Marc Accetta Twitter account for more tips on how to achieve success. 

REPOST: Why practice won’t always make you perfect, despite what Malcolm Gladwell says

The old adage, “practice makes perfect” has been applied to several kinds of learning. But Fiona Smith, a BRW correspondent emphasis that unrealistic optimism and belief can sometimes do more harm than good.

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There’s nothing wrong with positive thinking. It is a hell of a lot better than a wet blanket of negativity that stops you from trying or encourages you to see the worst in everyone. But unrealistic optimism and a belief you can do anything you put your mind to can have some nasty consequences.

Because life isn’t fair.

Despite the popularity of the idea that 10,000 hours of practice can turn us all into masters of our domain, we don’t all enter the world with the same potential. We have different strengths and weaknesses and, if we are lucky, we will discover what they are at an early age and have the opportunity to develop them.

We may even be able to make a living from those strengths and, with enough natural talent and dedicated practice, excel to the point of mastery.

But even if I had dedicated my life to dance, I would never have passed an audition for the Australian Ballet. Even with the best maths teachers in the world, I would have made a lousy actuary. I have no sense of rhythm and my joke that I can barely count has an uncomfortable ring of truth. The danger of believing we can achieve anything, if only we try hard enough, is that it presents an impossible target for almost all of us. (The exception being those with the natural talents, means and dedication to achieve goals they are suited to.)

When we don’t become billionaires by the age of 30 and are still struggling with a mortgage, or when we are still weekend rock stars at the local pub, rather than Madison Square Garden, we may blame ourselves for not trying hard enough.

We may feel that what we have achieved is not good enough, neglecting to give proper credit to the things we do very well.

Practice doesn’t always make perfect

Six years ago, author Malcolm Gladwell popularised the “10,000 hour rule” in his book Outliers .

It is a seductive idea for dreamers but was torn down by a Princeton University study that finds practice does not necessarily make perfect. “We conclude that deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued,” say the authors.

The impact of that practice depends on the area or domain. The more structure-based the domain (chess, tennis and classical music), the more of an impact practice has.

You can study up to be the best. But there are no hard and fast rules to becoming a rock star or entrepreneur and the most unlikely people can be outrageously successful while the seemingly best qualified never make it to first base.

But even in highly structured areas, practice has a minor impact: 26 per cent of the difference in performance in games, 21 per cent in music and 18 per cent in sport.

Other factors that make the difference between stars and the rest include the age at which you start and your genes (which account for well over half the variation).

Despite the popularity of self-belief books such as The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, which states that your thoughts control the universe, even dedicated followers can find such exhortations ineffectual. You have to wonder what could have led the hosts of US motivational talk show The Pursuit of Happiness , John Littig and Lynne Rosen, to commit suicide with helium-filled bags around their heads.

A study by Joanne Wood of the University of Waterloo finds people with low self-esteem who repeat positive affirmations feel worse than those who don’t. However, those with high self-esteem did benefit.

“Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people but backfire for the very people who ‘need’ them the most,” says Wood.


Marc Accetta believes that to achieve personal goals, one must be able to shake off doubts and fears and improve self esteem. Follow him on Twitter for more updates about personal success.

Celebrating self-improvement month with a focus on boosting job performance

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September is self-improvement month and there’s no better time to review just how much one has accomplished since the beginning of the year. People often make New Year’s resolutions but it is common for many to fall short or lose steam along the way. With a few months to go till the year ends, instead of giving up entirely, it is better to adopt a stance that insists that there is still some time to complete some of the goals set in January.

With little time to spare, it is best to focus on some aspects in life that matter. One’s job career is a good aspect to focus on as people spend much of their life at work. As some of these suggestions will show, a little can go a long way in improving one’s job performance:

First, make it a point to always arrive early. Resisting the urge to hit the snooze button every morning pays off as getting to work earlier than others gives workers some quiet, interruption-free time to start their day right.

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Second is to let go of the urge to multitask. By focusing on one task at a time, people can do better work, accomplish more, and feel less stressed at the end of the day after they’ve struck off everything in their daily to-do list.

Third, improve on communication. Many hassles and misunderstandings at the workplace can easily be avoided by listening and asking the right questions. Focus on improving communication with others and help improve the team’s synergy to get more things done right.

Finally, remember to find balance. Work is not everything there is to life so learning to limit one’s daily workload is vital to avoid burning out.

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Through his coaching seminars, Marc Accetta has helped inspire many individuals to continue on their path toward success. For more articles on self-improvement, visit this Google+ page.

REPOST: Twenty Invaluable Tweets on Leadership

Jason Nazar shares 20 philosophy of leadership in the form of tweets in this Forbes article.

This week I had the opportunity to attend my first Intuit Leadership Conference, a gathering of the top leaders across the 8000+ person public company that provides TurboTax, QuickBooks, Quicken, Mint and now Docstoc (the company I co-founded in 2007). Getting to meet all these amazing folks, there were a lot of conversations about what it means to be a great leader. So I asked my new friends to share their philosophy of leadership in the form of the tweets below.

I was going to include the name and titles of each of the individuals, until our CEO gave me this first tweet. Decide for yourself which of these rings the most true for you, and share your leadership tweets in the comments below and I’ll share them in return.

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Your title makes you a manager, your people will decide if you’re a leader - @IntuitBrad

Great leaders prepare during the good times, reassure through the bad times, and inspire teams to win at all times - @Wernikoff

Go big or go home; One for all and all for one - @sasan_goodarzi

Great leadership comes from the right mix of heart & mind…neither is good enough on its own to earn both trust and respect - @eileen1651

Good leaders drive, amazing leaders inspire - @tsitovich

Data and experimentation empowers teams by shifting the conversation from “I think” to “I know” - @chapo

Teams are reflections of their leaders; Passion for customers, attention to quality & integrity starts with you - @acce

True leadership is from the heart and if your heart points to the people you lead, great things will happen - @alonshwartz



Discover the timeless advice that the world’s great thinkers, billionaires, writers and businesspeople have to offer. An all-star team beats a team of all stars every time - @rlanesey

The best leaders make you believe you can achieve anything, and coach you to make it happen - @divinecassie

Always hire people smarter than yourself or you aren’t doing your job as a leader - @BarbGS10

Great leaders know when to lead from the front and when to get the hell out of the way - @jmillsays

Leaders think complexly; but communicate simply…if they can’t remember it, it can’t be executed - @jim_mcginnis

Leadership is making the sum bigger than individual pieces; touching hearts & minds to achieve more than ever thought possible – @jensenrickw

Good leaders learn by doing, great leaders learn by listening – @cfdonahue

You know a great leader when everyone on their team acts like one - @IntuitVijay

Leadership is making the team the hero – @hughmolotsi

Inspire a bold vision, listen actively, then empower your team by getting out of their way - @ozdane

Leaders don’t bring out greatness; they recognize it & create the environment where people can do the best work of their lives - @IntuitBrad

Leadership is the fortitude to achieve your goals, and the courage to pursue the right ones - @jasonnazar

People prefer their leaders with flaws, because it makes leadership attainable for the rest of us - @IntuitBrad


Being a life coach, Marc Accetta help people achieve their personal goals. Follow this Twitter page to learn more about his amazing life's work.