Success Tweet 105: How to Successfully Begin a Conversation

I’m proud to say that my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less is about to go into its third printing.  The other day, I got a big order from Toastmasters International.  You can pick up a copy of Success Tweets at your local bookstore or at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download it for free at www.SuccessTweets.com. 

I’m in the home stretch of a series of blog posts that further explain the career advice in Success Tweets.  Today’s career advice comes from Success Tweet 105…

Conversation tips: be warm, pleasant, gracious and sensitive to the interpersonal needs and anxieties of others.

How you start conversation is very important if you want to be seen as warm, pleasant, gracious and sensitive to others.  Several years ago I read an eBook by Dennis Rivers, called Cooperative Communication Skills for Success at Home and at Work.  I came across the eBook in my files the other day.  Chapter 2 really caught my attention.  It is entitled “Explaining Your Conversational Intent and Inviting Consent.”  Dennis makes some common sense, but seldom seen, points about conversation skills in it.  In summary, he says, “Make sure that you tell the other person what type of conversation you want to have.  Ask him or her if he or she is ready to have this type of conversation at that time.”

Check out some of what he has to say…

“In order to help your conversation partner cooperate with you and to reduce possible misunderstandings, start important conversations by inviting your conversation partner to join you in the specific kind of conversation you want to have. The more the conversation is going to mean to you, the more important it is for your conversation partner to understand the big picture. If you need to have a long, complex, or emotion-laden conversation with someone, it will make a big difference if you briefly explain your conversational intention first and then invite the consent of your intended conversation partner.

“Why explain? Some conversations require a lot more time, effort and involvement than others. If you want to have a conversation that will require a significant amount of effort from the other person, it will go better if that person understands what he or she is getting into and consents to participate. Of course, in giving up the varying amounts of coercion and surprise that are at work when we just launch into whatever we want to talk about, we are more vulnerable to being turned down. But, when people agree to talk with us, they will be more present in the conversation and more able to either meet our needs or explain why they can’t (and perhaps suggest alternatives we had not thought of).  Many good communicators do this explaining intent/inviting consent without giving it any thought. They start important conversations by saying things such as: ‘Hi, Steve. I need to ask for your help on my project. Got a minute to talk about it?’ ‘Maria, do you have a minute? Right now I’d like to talk to you about… Is that OK?’

“When we offer such combined explanations of intent and invitations-to-consent we can help our conversations along in four important ways:

“First, we give our listeners a chance to consent to or decline the offer of a specific conversation. A person who has agreed to participate will participate more fully.

“Second, we help our listeners to understand the big picture, the overall goal of the conversation-to-come. Many scholars in linguistics and communication studies now agree that understanding a person’s overall conversational intention is crucial for understanding that person’s message in words and gestures.

“Third, we allow our listeners to get ready for what is coming, especially if the topic is emotionally charged. (If we surprise people by launching into emotional conversations, they may respond by avoiding further conversations with us or by being permanently on guard.)

“And fourth, we help our listeners understand the role that we want them to play in the conversation: fellow problem solver, employee receiving instructions, giver of emotional support, and so on. These are very different roles to play. Our conversations will go better if we ask people to play only one conversational role at a time.

“To be invited into a conversation is an act of respect. A consciously consenting participant is much more likely to pay attention and cooperate than someone who feels pushed into an undefined conversation by the force of another person’s talking.

“It’s not universal, but to assume without asking that a person is available to talk may be interpreted by many people as lack of respect. When we begin a conversation by respecting the wishes of the other person, we start to generate some of the goodwill (trust that their wishes will be considered) needed for creative problem solving. I believe that the empathy we get will be more genuine and the agreements we reach will be more reliable if we give people a choice about talking with us.”

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are dynamic communicators.  Dynamic communicators follow the career advice in Tweet 105 in Success Tweets.  “Conversation tips: be warm, pleasant, gracious and sensitive to the interpersonal needs and anxieties of others.”  Inviting people to participate in a conversation and getting their agreement before jumping in is an important, but often overlooked conversation skill.  People who are invited to join a conversation, and choose to do so, are more likely to be better participants.  If you want to become an excellent conversationalist, take a few minutes to explain why you want to have a conversation.  Ask the other person if he or she has the time and is willing to participate in a conversation on that topic.  Your conversations will be better and more productive if you follow this simple common sense career advice.

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 105 and on how to begin important conversations.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Success Tweet 101: Dynamic Communication

Today is Labor Day in the USA; the holiday that marks the end of Summer and the beginning of Autumn.  It’s back to school for kids and a time for success seekers to refocus on their career success goals.  Today also marks the 101st post in my series of posts about the career advice in my latest book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  You can pick up a copy on amazon.com or at your local bookstore.  Better yet, you can download Success Tweets for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

I have been writing this series for the past 20 weeks.  I have eight more weeks to go before it is complete.  This post is the beginning of 20 posts that deal with an important career success skills, dynamic communication.

Today’s career advice comes from Success Tweet 101…

All dynamic communicators have mastered three basic communication skills: conversation, writing and presenting.

The life of a business traveler, especially one like me who travels to New York City regularly, appears glamorous at first glance. People always ask me if I’ve eaten at famous restaurants like “21” or the latest hot spot they’ve read about in Travel and Leisure. 

Most often when I’m in New York and don’t have a business dinner, I dine on Chinese food delivered to my hotel room from a local take out place.  Recently my fortune cookie read, “Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.” I was happy with this fortune, but it made me think.

My talents, your talents, everyone’s talents will be recognized and rewarded if we develop and use our communication skills. There are three types of communication skills critically important for career and life success: 1) Conversation skills; 2) Writing skills; and 3) Presentation skills. 

You need to develop each of these skills if you want to have your talents recognized and beocme the life and career success you deserve to be.  There are a few common sense career success coach points associated with becoming a dynamic communicator.

Become a good conversationalist by listening.  Take an active interest in other people and what they’re saying.  Show them you’re listening by asking appropriate follow up questions to what they say. 

Conversation skills enhance your networking ability.  Networking is an important but often overlooked communication skill. It is helpful when you are looking for a job, but it is even more important when you are happy with your situation. All people who are a career success build and nurture strong networks. 

Networking is an important skill. Successful people have large networks. They have people they can call to help them. They know they can call on these people because these people know they can call on them.  That’s the real secret of networking – look to help others, not just to find out how they can help you.

Write in a manner that communicates well.  In general, this means, being clear, concise and easily readable.  The best way to make sure your writing is readable is to read it aloud before sending it. 

When I was in high school, I was the editor of my yearbook. To raise funds to cover the cost of our yearbook, we sold ads. There were a lot of factories in the town where I grew up. In the past, the yearbook staff had never approached these factories to place ads in the yearbook. I wrote sales letters to all of the plant managers. We got several full page ads from those letters.

One of the plant managers wrote back, asking if I would come to see him. When I walked in to his office and introduced myself, he was surprised. He told me that my sales letter was so well written that he thought I was the teacher who was the yearbook sponsor.  Two years later, I was looking for a summer job after my first year of college. The market was tight. I called this man. He remembered me, and I got a job.

Preparation is the most important key to good presentations.  You have to analyze your audience, prepare a talk that gives them what they want, and practice your talk out loud if you want to be a great presenter.

Presentation skills may present the biggest opportunity for getting your talents noticed and becoming a life and career success. A couple of years ago, I did a talk for a local chamber of commerce. As it so happens, the Sheriff’s department is a member of this chamber. The Sheriff himself happened to be there that day. He liked my talk. About a week later, I got a call from his training office. The Sheriff asked him to get in touch with me to conduct some supervisory training for their sergeants. I never would have gotten this business if it weren’t for the notice I received from a talk at that chamber meeting.

The Dilbert cartoons often focus on poor communication.  I cut out the ones I really like.  Here’s one from a Sunday paper… 

Dilbert approaches his boss (you know, the one with the tufts of hair that look like devil’s horns) and says, “The security audit accidentally locked all developers out of the system.”  The boss says, “Well, it is what it is.”

Dilbert says, “How does that help?”  The boss replies, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”  Dilbert, obviously frustrated, says, “Congratulations you’re the first human to fail the Turing test.”  The boss says, “What does that mean?”  Dilbert replies, “It is what it is;” to which the boss says, “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

There really is such a thing as a Turing test.  Dictionary.com defines it as follows: “A test proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing, and often used as a test of whether a computer has humanlike intelligence. If a panel of human beings conversing with an unknown entity (via keyboard, for example) believes that that entity is human, and if the entity is actually a computer, then the computer is said to have passed the Turing test.”

This is pretty funny.  It is also kind of sad as it is indicative of the lack of communication in today’s business world.  Scott Adams, Dilbert’s creator, really gets it when it comes to workplace communication problems. 

Beyond Bullsh*t, by UCLA Anderson School of Management Professor, Samuel Culbert is an interesting little book.  Professor Culbert defines bullsh*t in the following way.

“It is telling people what you think they need to hear.  It may involve finessing the truth or outright lying, but the purpose is always self serving.  And while I appreciate the role of some b.s. in keeping the corporate peace, it makes people feel beaten up, deceived – even dirty.  When people talk straight at work, companies make out better because the best idea usually wins.  In contrast, when people are bullsh*tting, they hide their mistakes and the company suffers. Straight talk is the product or relationships built on trust.”

Phrases like “it is what it is” are not straight talk.  They are part of the inexplicable jargon that has overtaken us.  Dynamic communicators say what they mean, in an easily understood manner.  Effective communicators don’t show off their large vocabularies.  Instead, they choose words that are the most easily understood and still get across their point.

Dynamic communicators eschew, I mean don’t use, jargon.  They avoid meaningless phrases like “it is what it is” to explain something.  They use the simplest words possible to get across their ideas.  And they don’t bullsh*it.  They say what they mean.  Follow these rules in conversation, writing and presenting and you’ll become known as a dynamic communicator.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are dynamic communicators.  If you want to become a dynamic communicator, follow the career advice in Tweet 101 in Success Tweets.  “All dynamic communicators have mastered three basic communication skills: conversation, writing and presenting.”  You don’t have to be a career success coach to know that if you’re a great conversationalist, a good writer and an outstanding performer you will reach your career success goals.  Successful people communicate well.  The career advice here is simple.  Develop your communication skills if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 101.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.  If you’re in the US, I hope you’re enjoying this last holiday of the summer.

Bud

Success Tweet 100: Care About What You Do

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 100.  It is the last tweet in a series on becoming an outstanding performer.

Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.

The NFL begins play next week.  If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  I grew up in Pittsburgh.  My dad had Steelers season tickets for many years.  He gave them up only because he moved to Florida.  He learned to use the internet at age 70, so he could follow the Steelers on line.  He really cares about the Steelers.  I’m not that much of a fanatic, but there is no professional sports team more near and dear to my heart than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On Sunday February 1 2009, Steelers won the Super Bowl.  On Monday February 2 2009, Mike Tomlin, their coach noted that because the Steelers were in the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl, he was “a month behind getting ready for the 2009 season.  We’ve got to be thoughtful in how we prepare our football team.”

Some may say, “Chill Mike, savor what you’ve just accomplished.”  However, Mike Tomlin knows that outstanding performers don’t rest on their laurels.  They care about what they do, and they care about their life and career success.  High performers always set higher goals and look towards greater achievements.  The Optimist Creed urges us to “Press on to the greater achievements of the future.” 

That’s what Mike Tomlin was doing the day after he won the Super Bowl, and that’s what all outstanding performers do.  They care about their life and career success.  They set high goals and meet them.   Then they set higher goals and meet them too.  Pay attention here.  This is some important career advice.

Mike Tomlin was 36 years old when he won the Super Bowl.  He is the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl.  That’s pretty impressive.  But not to Tomlin.  Because he cares deeply about winning he says he expected that kind of success and expects more.  On the other hand, he is humble.  He realizes that football is a team game.  Coaches don’t win Super bowls on their own; neither do players.  They need one another…

“I’m an unrealistic dreamer sometimes.  I’m blessed, extremely blessed.  I’ve been around some great people – coaches, players, ownership – and I’m a product of that.  That’s my story.”

And a great story it is.  It shows the power of caring about what you do.

I care about helping people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  I care a lot.  That’s why I wrote Success Tweets and I give it away for free.  That’s why I am writing this series of blog posts explaining each of the 141 tweets in more detail.  I care so much about helpingyou achieve the life and career succes you deserve that I’ve committed to writing 700 or 800 words every day for 28 weeks.  I’ve also committed to doing a podcast on each of the tweets.  I do this because I care.  I care a lot about helping you.  And I know that this caring will pay off — for you and me.  The thinking and writing that goes into this work will help me become an even better career success coach – somebody who gives really great career advice.

When you care you do your very best.  This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of my favorite books To Kill a Mockingbird.  There is a passage in that book that has always stuck with me.  It’s in Chapter 11 and spoken by Atticus Finch, the father, played by Gregory Peck in the film.  He’s speaking to Scout, his daughter…

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

It takes courage to care. Because when you care, you put yourself out there.  You do your best.  And doing your best can be a scary thing.  When you care, when you consciously do your best and fail, it is heartbreaking.  But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did your best.

I remember when I applied to graduate school at Harvard.  I decided that I was going to demonstrate to myself how much I cared by writing the very best application I could.  I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook if I didn’t get accepted by saying “I could have written a better application, but I just didn’t spend the time I should have.” 

When I put my application in the mailbox – we still did quaint things like that back in the old days – I was proud of what I had written.  I knew it was the very best I could do.  I was also frightened because I knew that my best might not be good enough.  After all, both of my other degrees were from state schools.  Who was I to think that those kind of credentials would get me accepted at Harvard?

I cared about the quality of my application, so I did the very best I could.  The story in this case has a happy ending.  I was accepted and got my degree.  Even if I had not been accepted, I would have been proud of myself because I cared enough to write the best application I could, and I dared enough to admit it to myself.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are proud of what they do.  They care.  They follow the career advice in  Tweet 100 in Success Tweets.  “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Does your work show that you care?  Or does it reflect an “it’s good enough” attitude?  Take it from a career success coach, if you want to create the life and career success of which you are capable, make sure that how much you care shows in every single piece of work you do.

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 100.  What’s yours?  Please care enough to take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Success Tweet 99: Go With What You’ve Got

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 99…

Get the job done with what you have.  Don’t worry about what you don’t have, or would like to have.

I studied journalism as an undergraduate.  Journalism is a great major.  It teaches you to write.  It keeps you up on current events.  And most of all, it provides you with the discipline of making deadlines.  Bob Farson was my advisor at Penn State.  He never accepted a late assignment.  He never gave an incomplete in a course.  Every journalism student in my day at Penn State heard his mantra over and over again… 

“There is no late in journalism.  You can’t put out a blank paper.  A good reporter will never have everything he wants for a story.  You’ve got to learn to go with what you’ve got and do the best job you can with it.”

Bob Farson’s career advice – “go with what you’ve got” — really stuck with me.  I finished my four years at Penn State, got an MA at The University of Colorado and a PhD at Harvard, and never missed a deadline.  I never asked for an extension, and I never took and incomplete in a course.

I never worked as a journalist, but my journalism education taught me the importance of getting the job done with what I have – and that, in turn, helped me create the life and career success I so badly wanted.

When it comes to deadlines, I find that people make two types of mistakes.  1) They miss them because they are always looking for that one additional piece of information that will bring everything together perfectly.  2) They get so focused on making them that they don’t dig deep enough to find all in information they need to do an outstanding job.

Both are problems.  When I say go with what you’ve got, I mean you need to find the right balance of gathering all the information you need and still making the deadline.  Avoid problem number 1 by realizing that you’ll never know everything you want to know about a given subject.  I’ve been a career success coach for 20 years, and I still learn new stuff about career success every day.  Avoid problem number 2 by getting overly focused on the deadline.  If you do, you run the risk of not doing as good a job as you can on any given project.

Go with what you’ve got only after you do an exhaustive information search and make sure that you have all the information you can possibly find and still make the deadline.

In a post earlier this week, I mentioned a great little book QBQ: The Question Behind the Question by my friend John Miller.  If you find yourself needing information or materials to get a job done right, don’t ask, “Why won’t people give me what I need to do my job?”  Instead ask yourself, “How can I get what I need to get this job done right and on time?”  The answer that question will put you in charge.  You’ll be better able to go with what you’ve got to get the job done well.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people meet deadlines.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 99 in Success Tweets.  “Get the job done with what you have.  Don’t worry about what you don’t have, or would like to have.”  Take personal responsibility for doing the work with what you have – or getting what you need to do to do the work well.  If you don’t have what you need, do whatever it takes to get it.  Take personal responsibility for making sure you have what you need to do your job well.  Taking personal responsibility for getting the job done – with what you have, not what you want will set you apart from the pack and put you on the road to the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 99.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.  I really appreciate it.

Bud

Success Tweet 98: Do Your Job Well and Things Will Work Out

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 98…

Don’t worry about getting credit for doing the job.  Worry about getting the job done well – accurately and on time.

Harry Truman, 33rd President of the United States, really got it right when he provided this bit of career advice, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

Many years ago I was assigned a joint project with a deadbeat for a partner.  This guy was bad.  He was a triple threat – not so bright, a big ego and lazy.  As the project wore on and we were nearing a deadline, I thought about going to my boss and complaining that he wasn’t carrying his weight.  I decided not to do so. 

I slogged on, got the project done well and on time and submitted it – with his name and mine on the finished product.  I was feeling kind of resentful, because I was worried that even though I did all the work, he was getting half of the credit.

A couple weeks later, our boss called me into his office.  He said that he wanted to compliment me on the fine job I did on the project.  I bit my tongue and said, “Gil and I worked on that project together.”  My boss said, “I know Gil’s work, and I know your work.  I could tell that you did all of the work on that project.”

I said “thanks for noticing.”  He said, “I assigned you that joint project as a bit of a test.  I wanted to see how well you could work with others.  I figured you would get frustrated with Gil because I knew he wasn’t up to doing quality work on this kind of project.  I wanted to see what you would do.  You did the work, and didn’t rat out Gil.  I’m proud of you for that.”

We can debate his leadership style here; I don’t think it’s a good idea to treat the people who work for you as lab rats.  But this story makes an interesting point about the career advice in Success Tweet 98.  Do your job.  Do it well.  Don’t worry about who gets credit.

It’s been my experience that people in positions of authority can identify good work when they see it; and that they can differentiate the work of the people who report to them.  If you consistently produce high quality work and results, you will get your due.

Take it from this career success coach.  Focus on getting the job done – well and on time and you will get the recognition due you in the long run.  And creating life and career success is a long run – a marathon, not a sprint.  As the old saying goes, “The cream rises to the top.” 

Delivering high quality work, consistently and in the long run will get you noticed and help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.  Stay focused on your work, get creative with your ideas.  Make sure you cross all of your t’s and dot all of your i’s and you’ll succeed.

The common sense success career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people deliver high quality work, consistently and over the long run.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 98 in Success Tweets.  “Don’t worry about getting credit for doing the job.  Worry about getting the job done well – accurately and on time.”  Most leaders recognize the output of the people who work for them.  That’s why it’s important to focus on doing a good job on every job – no matter how small.  You’ll be building your brand and portfolio in your manager’s mind.  In the long run, producing consistently high quality work is the best way to get the recognition due you — and the career success that will come with it.

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 98.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud