Gen Y.

Smart.

Technically astute.

Global.

Diverse.

Distracted.

Interesting…..

Ready? Equipped? Are they prepared to face the tough world ahead?

Recent studies by Trusted Advisor Associates shows that when it comes to what many consider to be the most powerful tool in your business and personal tool kit, (relationships) they are not prepared. Let’s look at the four levels of internal and external business relationships:

Expertise based

Needs based

Relationship based

…and trusted advisor based

Being a trusted advisor is the highest level one can attain, and, of course, the most valuable.

The studies show that as age increases, the level of trustworthiness increases. There is approximately an 18% difference in trustworthiness between the ages of 20 to 70. The downfall to lacking trustworthiness and struggling in relationships for younger workers, most likely,  is a lack of life and business and life experience. Can trustworthiness be accelerated in an individual?

Accelerating them ahead

“Going against conventional wisdom: trust CAN be taught. Some business leaders make the case that to improve performance, people and businesses should leverage their strengths rather than concentrating on fixing their weaknesses. This makes a great deal of sense in areas of skills mastery. But when it comes to trust, the opposite is demonstrably true. By focusing on their weaknesses, individuals can make disproportionately large and rapid improvements in their trustworthiness, because improving weaknesses has the effect of lowering standard deviation, thereby increasing perceived integrity. By becoming aware of an imbalance in their trustworthiness strategies, individuals can strengthen their overall trustworthiness. By focusing on even minor improvements in their weak components, they can see a major impact on their overall ability to build trust.” (From “Think More Expertise Will Make You More Trusted? Think Again” by Trusted Advisor Associates)

Is your new workforce ready for the onslaught? Probably not. It may be time to address the imbalance.

(For more on the Trusted Advisor Associates study, see What Really Builds Trust. And, for an interesting snippet of Gen Y see We are Gen Y)

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

One of the most important understandings of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) is that ‘the map is not the territory’. We take in information from around us through our senses, in particular our sight, hearing and feelings. We then interpret this information in our own individual way, depending on a whole host of things such as our beliefs, experiences, upbringing, culture etc.

In other words, we create our own individual map of reality – and this is always going to be different from what is  actually ‘out there’ i.e. the ‘territory’. Not only that, every person’s map will be different from everyone else’s.

To be great communicators, then, we must be great observers. Only when we have taken the trouble to stand back and notice how another person is communicating can we begin to understand their map. How do they express themselves? What kinds of key words and phrases do they use? What do their gestures and facial expression tell us? What are they saying with their tone of voice?

A final word: just being aware that other people’s maps are different from our own is a simple step towards communication excellence, as this creates tolerance and a desire to investigate and understand. This alone can help us to create great performance.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

Many reasons for low employee engagement and high employee turnover are given by companies, from unhappiness about having to accept lower pay during the downturn, to high career expectations. These may play a part, but often the perception of employees by management as being less important in creating a competitive advantage than product or service innovation and marketing strategy, is bound to send the wrong signals.

When management and senior leaders recognise that in today’s tough business environment, it is their people who have the potential to create that critical competitive edge that will see companies through this crisis, only then will they change their practices.  Changing practices means honouring the untapped potential in all your people, maintaining training and development initiatives, and creatively coming up with ideas on how to place employees at the centre of your strategic plan.

Only then will businesses find that the tough times can be managed and overcome.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

Ok so this book is about 5 years old. Maybe I am a bit slow getting to it. Doesn’t matter. After about a half dozen people recommended it, I bought it “used” on Amazon.

It is the best book on meaningful connecting and networking I have yet to encounter. There are no voodoo tactics. It is all real. OK, so Keith is smart- he is extraordinary. Doesn’t matter, he is real.

Read it early in your career. Read it when you near the middle or end of your career. Read it. Please.

The following quotes sum the book up better than I can. Why reinvent the wheel?

Ferrazzi grew up in rural Pennsylvania, the son of a steelworker and a cleaning lady, yet his ability to connect with others led to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and a prestigious partnership at Deloitte Consulting. His skills at creating and maintaining a network of contacts are nothing short of those of a serious presidential contender. All business hopefuls seek to enter a sphere of players more powerful than themselves, and Ferrazzi says that sometimes all it takes is asking. The book is dense with suggestions. Seek out mentors to guide you and introduce you to the people you need to know and then become a mentor yourself. Use your initial conversation to show the other person what you have to offer them, and never keep score. Make others feel important by remembering their names and birthdays. And don’t be afraid to open up and show vulnerability–it’s a great icebreaker. Ferrazzi presents a whirlwind of ideas to widen your circle of contacts that goes way beyond the usual stale concepts of “networking.” David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The youngest partner in Deloitte Consulting’s history and founder of the consulting company Ferrazzi Greenlight, the author quickly aims in this useful volume to distinguish his networking techniques from generic handshakes and business cards tossed like confetti. At conferences, Ferrazzi practices what he calls the “deep bump” – a “fast and meaningful” slice of intimacy that reveals his uniqueness to interlocutors and quickly forges the kind of emotional connection through which trust, and lots of business, can soon follow. That bump distinguishes this book from so many others that stress networking; writing with Fortune Small Business editor Raz, Ferrazzi creates a real relationship with readers. Ferrazzi may overstate his case somewhat when he says, “People who instinctively establish a strong network of relationships have always created great businesses,” but his clear and well-articulated steps for getting access, getting close and staying close make for a substantial leg up. Each of 31 short chapters highlights a specific technique or concept, from “Warming the Cold Call” and “Managing the Gatekeeper” to following up, making small talk, “pinging” (or sending “quick, casual” greetings) and defining oneself to the point where one’s missives become “the e-mail you always read because of who it’s from.” In addition to variations on the theme of hard work, Ferrazzi offers counterintuitive perspectives that ring true: “vulnerability… is one of the most underappreciated assets in business today”; “too many people confuse secrecy with importance.” No one will confuse this book with its competitors.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore (go get ‘em, tiger! 虎 )

Your relationships.

Whether it be personal or business, your relationships will make the difference.

How will you work on improving your relationships for the new decade?

You decide.

Will you…

Listen better?

Lower your self-orientation?

Show more empathy?

Figure out what you can do for someone else, vs. what they can do for you?

Spend more time caring?

I will. All of the above.

In a decade that is bound to be more complicated than ever, what else could be so simple?

A toast to the new decade.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Tough times require resiliency, especially in a cut-throat business like insurance. Your company’s branding, name and reputation, products won’t do it. It’s all about your people.

With pressure from the economic downturn, a large Singapore based insurance company needed their financial planners to deliver every time.  However, the financial planners were not getting the right support they needed from their direct management. Read how Egyii’s Andrew Sidwell helped turn the situation around. Coaching for sales performance

Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore

“I understand best when I hear, see and do!”

To be competent at any skill each participant needs to understand it both conceptually and behaviourally; have opportunities to practice it, get feedback on how well he or she is performing the skill and then use the skill enough so that it becomes integrated into their behavioural repertoire back in the workplace.

 Through eight years of successful client sales learning and development engagements I have developed the following tried and tested approach that encompasses the most effective learning dimensions to start the process of achieving sustainable behavioural change in your sales team.

To help participants acquire the skills, each Transformational Sales Module follows these steps:

Review of learning outcomes and behavioural standards and how they relate to enhanced performance in the business

Self Assessment Exercise to obtain a baseline performance level

Present Skill Concepts– either through experiential learning activities, case studies or presentations

Modeling exercise that allows participants to observe others exhibiting the desired skill behaviours

Participants practice application of skills and behaviours in structured activities based on job realistic scenarios

Participants receive feedback using the behavioural skills standards checklist to sign off as an indication of their level of mastery

Application questions to provide opportunities to check understanding of how skill behaviours relate classroom learning to real life situations

Personal Action Plans are set  to identify the development of specific personal behavioural changes to implement for successful transfer of knowledge and skills into the workplace

From my experience, this is what I believe to be a formula for learning success.

Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore

“We need to constantly be adding value to our client base,”  a comment said recently by a business leader in the South Asia territory for a major US medical company.

Yes I agree wholeheartedly. But how do salespeople and support teams add value?

Value add can be defined in numerous ways, for example…

Offering the best solutions to a clients’ problems

Support throughout the whole sales cycle- pre, implementation, post.

Overall by positioning the product, the comapny and the salesperson himself

…and more

Value add as defined  by Tom Reilly, who wrote the book Value Added Selling ….”the only differentiation that may exist in this competitive comparison could rest with the salesperson.  Two Fortune-100 companies surveyed their customers to determine how much value their salespeople contributed to the sale; they discovered that 35-37% of the value that customers receive comes from the salespeople with whom they deal. Value added salespeople don’t make sales calls; they go on job interviews with customers. They ask customers to hire them to be their personal representative with the supplier’s company.”

So Tom’s definition of value add  is the salesperson as the company differentiator. I agree.

But, building trust through trustworthiness is also a value add. How? By putting the client first.

When you put the client first, the client sees that you care about him and his interests and not just about pushing a product or service.

And, as Charlie Green says in Trust-based Selling “It is possible for selling to be a genuinely value adding, beneficial process for the buyer AND seller alike.”

You just have to align trust properly. And if you align trust properly, it will be your value add and the differentiator.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Many people believe that improving your performance at work involves attending a training course such as ‘Communicate with More Impact’ and hey presto, they will change!

To really improve our performance, we need to address the whole person, not just one behavioural part of it. For example, you cannot effectively change a behaviour if you have a belief that contradicts it. If I want to be great at connecting with people but have a belief that nobody can be trusted, then I will find it very difficult to achieve my goal.

So let’s look at this ‘whole person’ that is you. You can be seen on five different but related levels. At the top is your identity, which asks the question ‘Who am I?’. This is where you determine your role in a particular context, and decide your mission. If you are unclear about your purpose in life or in a particular situation, then you will find it difficult to motivate yourself and to focus on the right action to take.

Second on the hierarchy is your belief system. Your identity and mission will naturally affect your beliefs and values. Change your identity, and you will have to change some beliefs. These beliefs and values determine what you do and how you do it. You can have beliefs which open up great opportunities for you, but you can also have beliefs which severely limit your performance and achievements.

Third on the hierarchy is your capabilities, which give you the skills and knowledge you need to achieve your purpose and fulfill your role in life. They form the level of competence you need to perform at the level you want in order to achieve your goals.

Your capabilities help to determine your actual minute-by-minute behaviour or actions that you take in order to move you towards your goal and achieve your purpose. So your behaviour is fourth on the hierarchy. It is often assumed that our behaviour is something we can change through learning or willpower, but as you can see from this holistic picture, our behaviour is determined by what we are capable of doing, which is determined by our belief system, which is determined by our sense of identity and mission. To be really effective at the level of behaviour, you want to make sure that what you are doing is in alignment with your capabilities, beliefs and values, and identity or role. When these are in alignment, then you are congruent, and you feel strong and confident.

Last but not least is the environment, the fifth level in the hierarchy. We often say ‘I was just in the right place at the right time’, which emphasizes the importance of context for success. You can have the right behaviour, skills, beliefs and sense of purpose, but if your environment does not support these higher levels, then you are unlikely to succeed. And you can have some control over your environment. This writer spent many years working in an industry that just didn’t suit his temperament or talents, and try hard as he might, he didn’t achieve success until he entered a new industry.

So pay attention to yourself. Listen to your still voice which suggests a purpose for you. Change a belief if it was useful when you were small but serves you no purpose other than to hold you back today. Look at your skills and competencies. Are they going to be the right ones or enough to help you achieve your purpose? And become conscious of your behaviour. Get out of auto pilot mode and function as if on manual pilot, with greater self awareness and attention to what you are doing all day long. And finally, make sure you are in the right place for you, or that your arrange your environment to support you rather than work against you.

For more information see Self Management & Relationship Management.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

(I am have just come back from United States as we speak so this write up is timely. These are general comments on business and society in the United States, which certainly afffects the whole world,  as I see it today. )

Values drive beliefs and beliefs drive actions. Most of us are aware of this.

The Allen/Coolidge family (my relatives) followed three (amongst many) important personal, work values and beliefs:

The “Protestant work ethic.” The Protestant work ethic is “based upon the notion that the Calvinist emphasis on the necessity for hard work is proponent of a person’s calling and worldly success is a sign of personal salvation.” (Wikipedia) Max Weber, a German economist and sociologist, penned a book called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He believed that the Protestant work ethic (under Calvinism) was the driving force for capitalism. Capitalism (whether you like it or not) has clearly brought America its success, wealth and abundance today.  An interesting article to read on thsi matter is Whatever Happened to the Work Ethic?by Steven Malanga of City Journal.

Honesty. “Honesty is speaking truth and creating trust in minds of others.” (Wikipedia) Speak the truth. Never lie. Honesty is so vital to my family values and beliefs, that, my Grandfather, as a state Congressman, quit politics due to his belief in the lack of honesty in government.

Loyalty. The definition of loyalty is “feeling of duty: a feeling of devotion, duty, or attachment to somebody or something.” (Encarta) Loyalty was and is used across the board for our personal/family and business matters. Unfortunately, the term “loyalty,” from a business perspective, has been diluted with loyalty programmes for repeat buyers. This is not loyalty- this is convenience  for the buyer. Real loyalty, like trust, is personal.

With these values and beliefs, all we Americans prospered and continue to prosper. We need to continue to lead in such manner.

OK maybe I am a little old fashioned. But a lot of these and other important values and beliefs have been diluted or lost over a short period of time (sometimes I even tend to sway off track).

Many influences around us have affected these values and beliefs including:

Our immediate surrounding personal and business environments

The need for instant gratification and results (short term Vs. medium to long term thinking)

Greed

Transactional based scenarios

Think of “me” vs thinking of “you” 

…and more.

I believe that working hard (and of course smart), honesty, and loyalty are important in our personal and business relationships. Let’s go back to basics. It certainly is a lot easier.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore