Making Knee-Jerk Decisions Doesn’t Mean You’re a Jerk

Jul 22, 2015 | Leadership Development

You've just had an urgent problem dumped on your desk, posed to you in a meeting, or presented to you by a client. The situation is tense. Emotions are starting to flare, and all eyes are looking to you to act. What do you do? Do you respond with a knee-jerk reaction? Do you calm the situation with an acceptable solution? Or, do you stop, think, and work to identify a solution that's going to allow you to think, "I'm glad I took the time to think that through"? Do you stop, think, and...

Dealing with Difficult People

Jul 9, 2013 | Leadership Development

We've all come across difficult people in our workplace and typically, we've found that the “safest” way to deal with them is to ignore them. However, by ignoring the difficult behaviors of our team members, we are by default condoning their poor behaviors. We are passively accepting their bad behaviors. As professionals, as leaders, we need to stop condoning their behaviors if we want our team members to stop behaving badly. So what do we do? Interact with them assertively. Most...

Building Business Relationships- “Good Enough Never Is”

Jun 11, 2013 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

I received a call recently from one of my client’s – let’s call him “Bruce”. Bruce owns a technical services firm. Bruce had just received a letter from one of his long-standing customers – and his customer wasn’t happy. Apparently, one of Bruce’s technicians had been sent out to fix the customer’s problem – and he did fix it very quickly. However, when the customer asked the technician what he'd done, the technician replied – “It’s pretty technical. You wouldn't understand.” The technician...

Let Me Introduce Myself

Oct 9, 2012 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

Hmmm, this is interesting. This meeting with the executive team was supposed to start at 9AM and here it is 9:05AM and no one is here yet. Oh wait, I hear someone coming. Let me get near the door so I can introduce myself as everyone comes in. Ah, here's the first person... My hand goes out. "Hello. I'm Liz Weber." The gentleman is a bit surprised but says, "Hey. How ya doin'?" shakes my hand, and starts to walk to a seat at the conference table. A bit surprised, I say, "I'm sorry but I...