Take your guard down when considering connection requests on LinkedIn. You will be pleasantly surprised at the new perspective you can gain.
You may have seen through reading my blogs or watching my videos that the way I consult firms is a little different. I skip the pleasantries and I cut to the chase. I’ve been called a lot of names in my life, but the one I favor most is Instigator. Now, I know labeling someone as an instigator usually has a negative connotation. People associate an instigator with a kid on the school yard stirring up trouble. And, honestly, I may stir up some trouble. But it leads to the results that my clients crave.
We push people to authentically connect with companies in multiple ways and on multiple levels – both intellectually and organizationally. It’s not just as simple as sending a Facebook friend request or LinkedIn connection invite. Connecting is about truly understanding the issues and trends in their industry, and attaching how those issues affect all parts of their business; ranging from their customers, to their stakeholders, employees, investors and internal operational teams.
Does it disturb you that college students are graduating with an astronomical debt load and no jobs? It should! What do colleges and universities owe students, parents and stakeholders? What do we owe our kids? While education is a pathway to prosperity in an era of global competition, the value of higher education has come under the “needs reform” headlines…
Make the “right” business connections and leverage them to benefit in multiple directions…”The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell lessons learned…
In working with leaders, we have discovered that many organizations have been frustrated that they cannot solve their problems by just handing leaders a new directive, a new book, or sending them to a new one-day management program at the Hilton. The truth is that each organization is uniquely complex, therefore no one has a “Cure-All” or special sauce that will solve all your problems. Even so, here are some tips from a recent issue of Fast Company magazine entitled “How to Lead in a Time of Chaos” by Roberta Mauson on how great leadership is created and a special sauce ingredient from Richard Branson, founder and chairman of Virgin Group of more than 400 companies and the fourth richest citizen of the United Kingdom, according to Forbes 2011 list of billionaires.
