That’s what we do.  Our mission statement in fact is : “To help people find a wiser, better way to lead their life and their organization.”

How do we do that ? One day at a time and most importantly with respect and kindness…with a smile through the phone to provide our clients the tools and templates that will assist them in their journey.

That isn’t always easy - sometimes we fail miserably at it but just as quickly as we fall we pick ourselves up and work at being better everyday.   I find it fascinating that many people in the business of writing, training or consulting about Personal Excellence, building Leadership Excellence, don’t practice what they preach.

Anyone can recognize a good idea or a best practice - but to apply it to their own life takes practice . We all find ourselves at odds with someone we do business with because the other party is not concerned with raising their own personal bar of excellence.  The most difficult will point fingers of blame, be offended and be down right toxic and abusive to those they are working with instead of finding productive ways to communicate and find workable solutions.

Sometimes the elephant in the room is YOU - that big ego gets in the way of uplifting the lives of those you do business with.

Today, to counter the negative shouts of those dis-satisfied with the world, we want to share with you a couple of “the best of the best”.  Those in our daily work world who champion the cause of excellence.  And we do recommend their services, products and books to you. Call them.

Once again our dear friend Andy Andrews has shared with us his outstanding blog.

Enjoy

The past few weeks have been dizzying to me.  The
uncertainty of releasing a new book - KNOWING one
cannot control what happens to it - along with the sheer
volume of work and travel that goes with the experience . . .
Well, lets just say it can seem overwhelming.

It is not my intention to bore you with the details of a long
process that in the end might leave you thinking I was
boasting about how hard our team worked.  Instead, my
amazement at what has begun to happen with The Noticer
has sent my thoughts in another direction entirely.

As I mentioned earlier, one simply cannot control what
happens to a book when it is out of the author’s hands.
Neither an author nor publisher can control where it is
placed in the bookstore, how it is placed in the bookstore,
how long it stays in the bookstore, or whether the book
even gets in a bookstore in the first place!  So forget trying
to force a book onto one of the significant best-seller lists . . .
Even Amazon has become wise to the ways of those who
would manipulate its ranking system.

What ultimately happens with a book is simply and purely up
to the readers - word of mouth trumps all.  Therefore it has
been with grateful astonishment that I have watched you begin
to tell others about The Noticer and it’s possible value in their
life. In essence, I have seen a huge team of people do something
that is simply impossible for a small team to accomplish . . .
And I am inspired to think outside this tiny box.

As people who don’t even know each other, who do care and
are willing to work, what might we accomplish that can be so
much greater than a mere book for our community, our nation,
our world, and our God?  And why does our country seem so
disconnected right now?  How firm are we in the actions and
beliefs that have allowed us to become divided along political,
racial, even financial lines?

These are simply questions for us to ponder as we watch this
short video of people who are significantly “apart”, yet have
managed to come together in order to create something incredible.

So I ask you . . . who can we stand by?

Watch this:     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.andyandrews.com%2Fblo

Andy

Andy Andrews

View this blog post and make comments here:
http://www.andyandrews.com/blog/stand-by-each-other/

A few weeks ago, we were host to our Leadership Excellence associate publishers from China, Ken and Winnie Han. Ken had been hitting the conference circuit and the hot tourist sites from Florida to Vegas before he was reunited with his wife, Winnie in Salt Lake City. It was their first trip to the Rocky Mountain West and out our office windows, the mountains seem just a few footsteps away. Even at the end of April, the snow capped peaks made a majestic statement to our visitors from across the world.

The Han’s have a very successful consulting firm in Shanghai China, called Visionary Consulting http://www.vcsh.com , where they are committed to bringing vision and growing leadership to their home country.

Growing leaders – effective leadership, does not recognize the boundaries of governments and politics. It doesn’t seem to matter where in the world we go, there is a natural desire that burns within people to grow and improve.

We had a wonderful exchange of ideas and cultures that will make the time between now and their next visit seem short. The Han’s are great people and we are proud to be a part of growing leadership, building people, and creating vision in China.

Leadership Excellence China had an informal launch in August of last year during the summer Olympics and is now ready to have a formal launch in August of this year. We are excited by the demand and look forward to new opportunities in China with Visionary Consulting as our partner.

Currently Leadership Excellence has several active foreign publishing partners;

Turkey, Korea, China, India and Nigeria to mention just a few. India now also publishes Sales & Service and Personal Excellence as well as Leadership Excellence.  Best wishes to Visionary Consulting in China - we wish them every success.

Even before the first issue of Leadership Excellence was published 25 years ago in May 1984, I was working with Stephen R. Covey on articles and white papers that would later appear in chapters of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership books.  Indeed, the impetus behind publishing the monthly magazine was to facilitate development of these books and promote the practice of principled leadership-leading people based on a set of “true north” principles and “natural laws.” We defined principles as basic tenets-fairness, justice, honesty, integrity, and trust-and self-evident, self-validating natural laws that are always there, always reliable, like the “true north” on a compass.

Covey and I agree on the point that real leadership development begins with the humble recognition that principles ultimately govern. We avoided using the words ethics and values because those words imply situational behaviors, subjective beliefs, social mores, cultural norms, or relative truths-preferring instead to talk about universal principles and natural laws that are more absolute, impersonal, factual, objective, and self-evident.

You may think that when most people talk about values they mean these universal principles, but they are referring to what they value. As evidenced in the news daily, the lifestyle and practices of most leaders are governed by situational and value-based maps, not a principle-centered compass.

The willingness to subordinate values to universal principles and to align roles, goals, plans, and activities with them often takes a crisis: recession, downsizing, loss of job, divorce, strained relationships, lost accounts, or a health crisis. Otherwise, we tend to be busy doing good, easy, or routine things, never stopping to ask if we are doing what matters most. The good then becomes the enemy of the best.

When you have entrenched personal interests and organizational politics, when you set up your self-generated or socially-validated value systems and then develop missions and goals based on what you value, you tend to become a law unto yourself. You try to impress, not bless. Your paradigms and processes never produce desired results because they are based on illusions, slogans, programs-of-the-month, and personality-based success strategies. To align your life and leadership with “true north” principles, you need to keep in touch with something deeper than your thoughts and more reliable than your values. Conscience connects you with the wisdom of the ages and of the heart. This internal guidance system enables you to sense when you act in ways that are contrary to “true north” principles.

Some leaders say that expediencies require lies, cover-ups, deceit, or game-playing.  And some “trusted advisers” -such as PR agents, accountants, and legal counselors-say, “This will be political suicide,” or “This will be bad for our image or bottom line.” Hence, many leaders take a departmental or compartmental approach rather than an integrated, organic, principled approach to ethics. They favor local politics and charismatic personalities over universal principles. When you operate by internal compass, you find that moral options open up to you.

The Role of Leadership

Great leaders ensure that each person is committed to a shared vision, direction, purpose, principles, and priorities. Everyone is then oriented to “true north,” on the same page, which releases talent and energy. In low-trust cultures, leaders either rely on control or have loose cannons everywhere, all pointing in different directions and saying, “This is north.” They lack a common vision and set of principles. Lighthouse principles never change. They are classic, enduring, universal, timeless. This turbulent economy has dissolved old lines of positional authority and elevated moral authority based on character and competence.

To be highly effective today, leaders need to be clearly focused on purpose, centered on principles, and execute on priorities. Sadly, even when the mission statement is hanging on the wall, people wander in contention and confusion as they rarely agree on what constitutes “true north.” Focusing on principles unleashes talent and energy and creates a culture where each person has an internal compass, shares a common focus, and executes around priorities.

Principle-centered leaders integrate principles into structures and systems.  People who don’t honor these principles don’t stay-they either shape up or ship out. New hires are told: “If you join us, you’ll need to live by these principles-or your work here will be temporary.” People soon realize that the principle-centered mission isn’t just about words and slogans. This is the constitution by which every person is evaluated. When you apply the principles consistently, they become behavioral habits. Making and keeping promises is one way to make deposits in your personal integrity account-and in the emotional bank accounts of others.

Only principle-centered leaders who work from the inside out can create a principle-centered culture. Great leaders are loyal to principles. They put principles at the center of their relationships with others, their agreements and contacts, their management processes, and their mission statements.  Since organizations are organic, great leaders nurture people like plants, creating the right conditions for growth.  We need humility to acknowledge that principles govern, and the wisdom to align with those principles in the face of powerful forces and habits.

All leaders need to ask: “What is this company really about? And what are the principles we’re going to live and work by?” The key to long-term success is learning to align with “true north” principles, working at leadership from the inside out, and being proactive to become an island of excellence-and to leaven the team. Principle-centered leaders align their value system, lifestyle, direction, and habits with timeless principles.

as published in May 2009 Leadership Excellence

send for a complimentary copy  - click here Leadership Excellence

This post is from Judith Glaser and her Creating We - The DNA of Leadership newsletter.  Judith is one of our top thought leaders, and is a Champion of Excellence as are all the people she works with.   We appreciate their contribution and invite you to enjoy her article here.

Some of us have worked in organizations where telling others what to do is the norm. Maybe you’ve grown up in a family where parents lectured you about what is right and wrong, and you’ve brought that skill into work.

Lecturing takes many forms. In some organizations, we go to meetings where people give presentations using PowerPoint. We are expected to ‘talk’ our stories so others know what is on our minds or what is important. We give business updates to one another to keep one another informed. Lectures, and all the variations can become the norm. Even email and Blackberry - if out of balance with real talk, can become a form of lecturing at others.

Some telling is normal, but too much telling becomes hyper-lecturing making listeners tune out. Moreover, to compound the situation, we think that because we have ‘told someone what to do’ they get it the way we intended it, so we move on to the next point we want to make rather than checking back for understanding.

Telling has a place in communicating, yet this pattern can turn off and disengage our brains, our relationships and our culture from reality. It doesn’t stop with the two people who are interacting. The message communicates “my way or the highway” or “do as I say,” or even “status quo” which can ripple throughout a team, and organization and become the cultural norm.

Tone Deaf and Blind

The consequence of this pattern is that people stop really listening to one another. They become so focused on telling what is on their minds, that they become tone deaf to the cues and clues that others are sending back about the discussions on the table. The important connection between the two people becomes broken, and they lose their natural syncing, rapport and more so - their empathy for one another.

One-way conversations have associated neurochemistries that actually reinforce the talking-at pattern. It feels great to be self-expressed, and the more we do it the more we want to do it. Talking at others feels good. There is a feedback loop to pleasure centers in the brain, increasing our appetite, and we want more.

Yet we know from our research that every 12-18 seconds listeners stop listening. Their brains need to take a break and digest. When they are being talked at non-stop, their brains need to integrate and make sense of what is being said. Consequently they tune-out and process the information they have heard.

Lecturing has its side effects. If you are a leader and want to develop your colleague’s abilities, capabilities, and performance, you need to know that lecturing rarely develops another’s ability to perform better. Lecturing is a monologue, a one-way conversation.

More often than not, the lecturer does not notice that they have left the listener behind. They are so engrossed in speaking that they do not realize the listener is off on their own mental journey. One-way conversations tire the brain. We tune out and turn off. Two-way conversations allow the brain to breathe and process at the same time.

Lecturing Our Way to Success

Awareness of the lecturing pattern can have a dramatic impact on your life. Ask yourself the following questions and when you find the answers, create your own action plan for change. Do your experiments every day.

Questions to Reflect On:

• What are the communication patterns you are establishing with others?
• Which are habits you are not aware of?
• What is the impact of these patterns on your relationships?
• Who has been open with you and told you that you were not communicating?
• How did you respond to these courageous people?
• Are you open to listening? Are you open to feedback?
• Are you inviting people to share feedback with you?

Communication Habit Patterns are the spine of a culture. We often don’t see them - yet they are the fabric that holds us together. For more insights into Habit Patterns, read Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to WE-Thinking and Build a Healthy Thriving Organization

When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion-that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet-therein lies your voice.

Leaders often sense a painful, Grand Canyon gap between potential greatness and actual contribution. It’s one thing to be aware of problems and challenges at work and another thing to develop the personal power and moral authority to break out of those problems and become a force in solving them.

So asserts Stephen R. Covey, author of The 8th Habit. And his solution: “One word expresses the pathway to greatness—voice. Voice lies at the nexus of talent (your natural gifs and strengths), passion (those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate and inspire you), need (including what the world needs enough to pay for) and conscience (that still, small voice within that assures you of what is right and prompts you to take action).

“When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion—work that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet—you discover your voice.”

Take Four Steps

According to Covey, those leaders on this path to greatness find their voice and inspire others to find theirs. He notes that they often find their voice when they face challenges and take four steps:

1. Tap into your talent. “Tapping into your talents starts with understanding where you excel,” suggests Covey. “It involves recognizing your strengths and positioning yourself to leverage them. To tap into your talent, consider the question: What am I good at doing?”

2. Fuel your passion. “When you take part in activities that fill you with positive emotion, you are fueling your passion,” notes Covey. “Pursuits that spark your passion bring excitement, enthusiasm, joy, and fun. To fuel your passion, ask yourself: What do I love doing?”

3. Become burdened with a need. “When a problem in society lodges itself in your heart and won’t let go, you become burdened with a need,” he says. “Perhaps, the need is an injustice you wish to remedy. Maybe it’s a disease you would love to cure. Whatever the case, a burden gnaws at your conscience. To take stock of your biggest burden, wrestle with the question: What need must I serve?”

4. Take action to meet the need. Once a need has arrested your attention, you can find your voice by taking action, he continues. “A need compels you to do something besides criticize from the sidelines. To meet the need, think about this question: How can I align my talent with my passion in order to meet the need that burdens me?”

A Promise and a Challenge

Covey then extends a promise and a challenge.

The promise: “If you will apply these four capacities—talent (discipline), passion (emotion), need (vision), and conscience (spirit-directed action) to any role or responsibility of your life, you can find your voice in that role.”

The challenge: “Take two or three of the primary roles in your life, and in each role, ask yourself these four questions: What need do I sense? Do I possess a true talent that, if disciplined and applied, can meet the need? Does the opportunity to meet the need tap into my passion? Does my conscience inspire me to become involved and take action?”

Covey guarantees that if you answer all four questions in the affirmative, develop a plan of action and then go to work on it, you will begin to find your voice in life—a life of deep meaning, satisfaction, and greatness—and you will begin to inspire others to find their voice.

The choice to expand your influence and increase your contribution is the choice to inspire others to find their voice, he says. You unleash “latent genius, creativity, passion, talent, and motivation. Organizations that reach a critical mass of people and teams ex-pressing their full voice will achieve breakthroughs in productivity, innovation, and leadership. As you find your voice and inspire others to find theirs, you increase your freedom and power to solve your greatest challenge.” Article appeared in Nov. 2008 issue of Leadership Excellence by Ken Shelton

When I shop my greatest expectation is to receive good customer service.  Whether I am at a cafe, shopping at Kmart or my local grocery store.  I want the employee to smile at me, welcome me and thank me for my business and I can only hope that they will count my change back to me.  This rarely happens.  For 8 weeks in a row, I stopped in at our local Kmart on my way to visit my son to pick up sodas and goodies.  On one occasion, I handed the clerk a $100 bill and she was completely stumped… staring at me with this vacant look of confusion.  She left her till to go get change, came back and shoved it into my hand without counting it back to me, not even telling me how much the change was going to be and no receipt.  As I stood there a little dumbfounded, she proceed to just hand me the purchased items without putting them in a bag.  I thought I would burst !  Only once during that time did a sales clerk at the register count my change back to me and thank me for shopping at Kmart.This type of experience in our community is rampant.

Here’s what Dave Hardman, former CEO of Zions department store here in Utah had to say about customer service.

“The manager of a 1,000-employee ZCMI store during the chain’s heyday in Utah, Dave Hardman saw what worked in customer service and what didn’t.

He told those who attended a seminar Wednesday that it was customer service that brought the chain to dominate many markets in Utah over its more than 100 years in existence.

But when it was bought out by those who didn’t understand the Utah market, Hardman said he watched as a reversal in customer service attitudes brought the stores to their downfall.

“In six months in my store alone, we lost $200,000 in business when we quit offering free alterations on suits,” Hardman said.

Hardman, the president and CEO of the Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce, said understanding customer service can turn around a business’s economic outlook.

“We can get through this economic difficulty we are in,” Hardman said. “Customer service will not only benefit you in the recovery but will also help you in the long run.”

Hardman was giving one of a series of early-morning training sessions the chamber regularly offers for its members and their associates.

“Start today,” he told the about 100 in attendance. “Customer service development starts today and never, ever ends.”

Hardman defined customers as everyone with whom you or your team members come into contact. “Businesses you relate with are your customers AND your partners,” he said.

“Good customer service is felt, internalized and shared,” Hardman wrote in a handout he distributed at the event. “Bad customer service is painful and intrusive; it is broadcast to many potential customers.”

Customer problems are most effectively resolved on the lowest level possible, he said.

He recommended companies create a customer service culture by establishing advisory committees that set standards and then reward employees who exhibit such behaviors.

“Behavior that gets attention gets repeated,” he said. “If you take nothing away but that one principle permeating your organization, I promise you that you will see some change.”

http://www.utahpulse.com/headline_reader/newsletter/?link=http://www.standard.net/live/business/167529/  JaNae Francis, Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Utah

Our Sales & Service Excellence brings to your inbox 18-20 articles every month by the top thought leaders and experts in sales and service.  Tips and techinques on how to survive a downturn in economy. 12 issues for $59.00 a year - the best investment you can make in your employees to save your customers.

Subscribe today by emailing nancy.low@eep.com - We will send you 3 months FREE and invoice your order.

I slipped on some ice this morning on my way to work.

As I lay in pain on the cold sidewalk, my car running, my head in a snow bank, I couldn’t help but worry about “all the things.” What if I broke my hip? I’m late to work now. What if I can’t get up? What will the gang do without me? (I am so NOT that indispensable). I can’t miss work. Oh, my gosh this really hurts.

I did get to work and took several over-the-counter medications to ease the discomfort and got right to my duties. But I couldn’t help but think about how easily and quickly - in a flash, even - your life can change. It makes for a great disability insurance commercial, but the truth is, as important as our jobs may be - and it’s good to be responsible and accountable for your work - YOU matter first.

Many employers/managers ignore the idea that the individual who devotes a significant portion of his/her day to work for them has value or that they’re important. They don’t realize that whatever happens to their employees every day outside the work place, really should matter.

Individuals whose personal lives are out of harmony do not perform well at work. They can’t. There are just too many distractions (and maybe their bum hurts from falling on the ice and they just can’t think straight). So leaders can build a culture that feels safe to an employee or team member. They can provide tools and resources that will provide substance and guidance to those who need to align themselves - salt on the ice so they won’t slip and fall.

The Personal Excellence Plan, created by Leadership Excellence, is that resource. It allows an individual to examine his/her life mission, visions, dreams, and goals and then create a foundation for success in his/her professional and personal life.

Ken Shelton remarks, “The Personal Excellence Plan evolved out of a growing awareness and frustration that reading or hearing powerful ideas alone rarely results in sustained progress.” That’s the slip on the ice.

I’m glad I didn’t hurt myself worse than a bruise. We can easily overcome the bruises when we fall or fail. But the better prepared we are the less likely we will fall and a little bit of “ice melt” is always good.

To order YOUR brand-new Personal Excellence Plan call 801-375-4060.

Nancy Low