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Saturday, September 25, 2010
About Sales and other Negotiations
Sunday, August 29, 2010
What would it take to make (sales) training REALLY work?
Have you attended any sales training recently? Or perhaps organized one for your sales team?
One point that keeps troubling me when it comes to sales training (or any soft skills training for that matter) is that I can’t help getting the impression that it’s a waste of time and money for the participants and the organization funding it.
The sales management (often including HR or L&D) spends significant efforts in selecting a vendor, designing with them a program, arranging for venue & catering and not to forget the fees for the vendor.
What is the outcome? Hard to tell. Are the participants happy with the program? Often yes. How much did the participants really apply? In my experience much less than expected. Was it ultimately a good Return on Investment (ROI)? Who knows...
What is missing?
I have attended a number of sales and leadership trainings myself and while I enjoyed most of these trainings, I’d say they were not worth the time and money invested if I look at my actual behavioral change resulting from these trainings. Analyzing why the change didn’t happen, I can see three reasons:
- No clear commitment to any specific (!) changes at the end of the seminar
- No support during the implementation of any changes – when something doesn’t work immediately, one easily gives up and returns to previous behavior
- No framework that reminds me of keep trying new behaviors that lead ultimately to more success
To achieve significant behavioral change that leads to better results, we came up with a number of cost-effective strategies how to overcome these short comings. Contact us to find out how.
Let’s keep progressing!
Charlie Lang
Executive Progress Expert and Founder of Progress-U Ltd.
Executive Progress Expert and Founder of Progress-U Ltd.
Author of the E-Book Stop Selling! Accelerate Your Business in Asia
Author of The Groupness Factor and the upcoming "A New Map for a New Age"
Upcoming Special Events in August & September 2010  August 30, 2010 in Hong KongThe Starbucks Experience click here for more info September 02, 2010 in Hong Kong Sponsored Half-Day Event: How to Become a Professional Corporate Coach click here for more info  September 07, 2010 in Hong Kong - with Guest Expert from GermanyWhat prevents your organization from fully benefiting from coaching? click here for more info  September 14, 2010 in Hong Kong -with Guest Speakers from Israel and Germany The Joy-Care Factor - Achieving personal happiness and better relationships click here for more info Starting in September 2010 in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore Signature Program: Develop Yourself as a Professional Corporate Coach click here for more info |
Sunday, August 15, 2010
It's done! India is confirmed
As some of you know, we are in the process of establishing a joint-venture company in India together with our Gurgaon/Delhi based partner Asha Sridhar.
We got confirmation now that our desired company name Progress-U India Pvt. Ltd. is approved, i.e. officially we are now 'on the map'.
Unfortunately, there is also a software company with the name Progress India but since their biz is quite different, we don't worry too much.
I'll be heading to Gurgaon this coming Thursday as we (Asha and I) will co-deliver already our first workshop with our first client for Progress-U India: the health insurer Apollo-Munich. That's actually a nice coincidence because Apollo-Munich is an Indian-German joint-venture and Asha is Indian (obviously) and I'm German (somewhat obvious).
Friday, August 13, 2010
Stop! to Accelerate
Are you actively involved in social media? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you avoid it? I avoided it for quite some time as I’m already busy enough and I didn’t want to burden myself with even more ‘requests’. Also, I was a bit suspicious if this would be all just a big waste of my time. Nonetheless, I signed up with LinkedIn and Facebook already a couple of years ago but was never very active and somehow didn’t see the point. About five years ago, I stopped blogging and Twitter is something that I never even started as I didn’t fully comprehend the concept behind it. Update August 2010: A few days ago, I signed up for Twitter, restarted this BLOG and became much more active on LinkedIn and a bit more active on Facebook. Why the change of mind? Actually, my mind didn’t change that much. I’m still rather skeptical but I reminded myself of an important principle I dearly believe in: “You don’t know it until you do it.” So I decided to ‘do it’ and will see what happens. Perhaps I’ll come to love it, perhaps I’ll hate it or perhaps it will just become a normal thing to do like sending emails or browsing the internet. What’s your experience? Feel free to share here on this blog. Let's keep progressing! Charlie Lang Executive Progress Expert and Founder of Progress-U Ltd. Author of The Groupness Factor Follow Charlie on Twitter
Stop! to Accelerate By Charlie Lang, Executive Progress Expert Corporate Culture & Senior Leadership Expert @ Progress-U Limited  No, this is not another article that bores the busy executive with the appeal to slow down, take a vacation, and recharge the batteries. No, it’s neither an article that appeals to find more work-life-balance by reducing one’s pace. As you might know, a core part of my work is to coach senior executives. Having been in this line of work since 2002, I sometimes wonder why the majority of my clients truly cherish the time with me. Over the years, I learned to admit that I (and my charm) might only be a secondary reason. The people I’m spending time with in my coaching sessions are typically first or second level executives – Managing Directors, Sales Directors, General Managers and the like. And they all have at least one thing in common: they are super-busy! They are often the ones who are the first to arrive at the office in the morning and are frequently among the last to leave. Their schedules are insanely packed with meetings and before, in between and after they need to go through their emails, often numbering 100 – 200 per day. Have I mentioned that most of them travel a lot, too?” When every minute of the day is precious, why would they want to add another 3-4 hours per month to their schedules to see me? Interestingly, while many of my coaching assignments started out with some very specific objective to be achieved, they often turn into a continuous assignment and the specific objective seems to disappear. That seems strange, doesn’t it? Very busy executives cut significant time out of their schedule for something unspecific? And even cherish that time? Let me explain what I observed. Did I say that they waste time with me? By no means! They cherish the time with me because they figure that it makes a significant difference. And as I said, I might be only a secondary reason for that – and secondary means that I still have a role to play… What I noticed is that the executives I’m coaching realize through our sessions - which may have started for a very specific reason - that a ‘time-out’ with their coach makes a bigger difference to how they run their business than they would have thought at the outset. They realize that during these 90 – 120 minutes, something almost like magic happens. They stop, yes, really stop – and think. This is part of my job: to really make them stop by establishing certain boundaries to ensure that there will be no disturbances. Take for example, the case of one of my coachees, the only person who is allowed to interrupt our sessions is his wife. My job is not only to stop them, but to challenge their current way of thinking as well, as to trigger new insights. That’s not where it ends. New insights in most cases require a change in action. Part of the process is ‘to nail the action’, to ensure the coachees actually make specific changes in the way they think and do things that will lead to improved outcomes. The last part of the process is to keep them accountable through follow-up and follow-through in the subsequent sessions. Tom, Managing Director of the Global Sourcing office of a European retailer once shared with me the following after I asked him why he still kept seeing me once or twice a month even after 1.5 years since we started his coaching sessions: “Charlie, you know by now how crazy our business is. You are aware of the daily madness and the pressure we get from both headquarters and our customers. Taking these 90 minutes off to meet you every few weeks is a great way of recharging myself for the daily battle.” “You could go to the spa instead. I’m sure that would recharge you, too, and might be even more pleasurable.” I responded. “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t get the same level of inspiration and I’d probably make more stupid decisions which would lead to even more pressure. So it’s not just the 90 minutes that make the difference, but the impact of these 90 minutes on my daily work. That’s something I can’t get in the spa.” One of my friends at Toastmasters and NLP expert Talis Wong insists: “Practice doesn't make perfect – unless you get useful feedback. Otherwise, practice may make you perfectly wrong.” Let me twist that a bit: “Just taking time off doesn’t guarantee gaining great insights. Most of the time, to make a real difference, it takes qualified feedback, as well as effective challenging of current thinking. ” But why pay a coach for that when you could do the same with spouse, friends or colleagues. There are two main reasons why using a professional coach tends to be more effective: • Spouse, friends, and colleagues are all ‘party’ in your life, so they’ll tend to be biased to some extent. Even if they consciously try to be totally objective, it would be difficult for them to avoid being biased. • Professional coaches are trained in the art of reflection and use various tools to get their coachees think on a much deeper level thus triggering more profound insights Stop – Think – Accelerate! What do you do to move faster? Feel free to share on this blog.
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Thursday, August 12, 2010
Are you tweeting? And other news
1. Twitter
This twitter thing has been on my mind for many months now and quite honestly, I still don't get what's the fuss about it. Following my motto: "you don't know it until you try it" I finally signed up on twitter a few days ago: http://twitter.com/keepprogressing (in case you'd like to have a look or send me comments on Twitter).
Any idea how to get a 'following' there? Am still a very green newbie on Twitter.
2. Progress-U News
Am quite excited to share that we have two new colleagues at our Progress-U office in Hong Kong. As our assistant Rosanna Shek - who has been with us for almost exactly 3 years - has decided to expand her experience by working in a different company and perhaps different role, we had to look for a replacement and found one in Vanessa Lui who joined us yesterday. Rosanna will hand over her work to Vanessa and have her last working day on 31st August 2010.
Also, we eventually hired again a Business Development Director for Hong Kong. Owen Wong will join us on coming Wednesday (18th August). He has already experience in doing similar work with one of our competitors here in Hong Kong, so he should be 'up and running' within a short period of time due to his past experience.
I wish both of them a great start at Progress-U and all the success they and we wish.
3. Hot upcoming events
After a hot summer (which is still ongoing here in Hong Kong) follows a hot event season. We'll have 3 special events coming up:
facilitated by Charlie Lang
facilitated by Frank Bresser (flying in from Germany) and Charlie Lang
facilitated by Lenny Ravich (flying in from Israel) and Avi Liran (flying in from Singapore)
Hope to see you at any of these events!
Keep in touch!
Charlie
Sunday, August 08, 2010
The Fish Starts Smelling from the Head
Do you remember when you were back in school? How would you distinguish between an excellent and an average teacher?
A good test would be to see what happens when a teacher is called out of class at mid-lesson. If students still keep working, it means that the teacher managed to truly engage them in the learning subject. More often, you’ve probably seen the opposite - how kids behaved if the teacher wasn’t that effective.
If we look at the workplace, isn’t there a strong similarity between effective teachers and effective leaders? Have you seen teams that perform on a high level whether or not the boss is around? And other teams where performance takes an almost instant dip when the manager leaves the office?
Or does maintaining performance depend more on the kind of people working in the team?
That’s what Marty, Head of Finance of the Hong Kong subsidiary of a large American Media Company thought.
“We just can’t find the right people here who are really passionate about finance, accounting, and controlling. So I have to keep being after them, making sure the quality of reports is right and deadlines are being respected.
It’s quite tiring, but it seems that’s the only way to make it work over here.”
Marty has been working in Hong Kong for the past two years. He was transferred by the New York headquarters due to a successful track record as Chief Controller there.
This is a quite common situation: executives who were able to successfully manage teams overseas struggle to repeat the same success in Asia. So is Marty right? Are there simply not enough people here who are passionate in his field?
In Germany, we have a saying that translates to “The fish starts smelling from the head.” Perhaps you can guess that the fish here stands for the team and the head stands for…the head of the team. So if the team ‘smells’, then there are good chances it started at the head, i.e. the manager of the team.
Getting people engaged in Hong Kong or other parts of Asia might not work exactly in the same way as it does overseas. It turned out that Marty tapped into the limiting beliefs trap.
When his leadership style which successfully worked in the US failed to produce the same results in Asia, he simply put the blame on his Asian team members. He replaced a couple of them which hardly improved the situation.
When this was not working, he changed his leadership style from an empowerment to a controlling approach. Now his results improved somewhat but he felt quite exhausted from continuously checking the work of his team members. What he didn’t realize – as we eventually found out – was the fact that his Asian colleagues were used to a directive style from his predecessor. They needed first to be prepared for a more empowering leadership style.
The paradox here is that on one hand, his people actually wanted to be more empowered which in turn would make them more engaged and at the same time, when Marty tried to do exactly that, it didn’t work because they were not used to this leadership style.
So what to do?
First, Marty agreed that his current style of managing the team is not what he really wanted. So he was willing to make yet another change provided that there would be good chances to achieve what he wanted to achieve: to build a highly engaged team.
Second, Marty needed to open up to his team and share his frustrations without putting the blame on anyone but himself. He decided to run a facilitated offsite half-day event with his team. He agreed to apologize to his team members for his recent directive style. This was difficult for him to do because his own frustration with his team members was still emotionally affecting him.
Third, during the offsite event, after airing his frustrations and offering his apologies, he shared his vision of how to work together and solicited comments from his team. Since the trust level was not yet sufficiently high for his team members to feel comfortable enough to confront Marty directly with their views, the facilitator asked Marty to leave the room and collected their comments.
It turned out that there was actually a close match between Marty’s vision and what his team members wanted. In order to feel more comfortable with taking more ownership, however, they needed better clarification of his expectations. Initially, they felt that he was simply dumping work on them without explaining exactly what the expected outcome was. As a result, they were hesitating which way to go, and this lead to delays and eventually suboptimal results.
Marty was happy to learn that his initial and actually preferred leadership style would only require some modification to work in the same way it did back in the US.
As it turned out, his Asian colleagues could get equally, if not more, passionate than his previous colleagues. All that was needed was confidence in them and a slight but important modification in his approach to leading his Asian team.
Back on BLOG
Dear readers, dear friends,
Wow, it has been 5 years since I've been last posting here, so if you want to read some really old stuff about me, just scroll down.
Things have massively changed since then, but some things haven't: I'm still passionate about coaching and leadership development and I still love writing though in the past couple of years the frequency of my articles has significantly reduced. But I decided to change that and spend more time writing again.
A short update what I'm up to:
- Finish my second book (a business fiction on corporate coaching culture) - first draft completed, being revised now
- Start writing another book "Business Coaching in Asia" together with Sebastien Henry
- Write again at least one article every month
- Help my colleague Asha to get our subsidiary in India started (we already got a major deal from Apollo-Munich insurance) and help our other subsidiaries in Singapore, Shanghai and Tokyo to further develop
- Keep writing very regularly (at least once a week) on this blog
- Get started with Twitter (still no idea how this works)
What are you up to?
Hope to hear from you!
If you have any suggestions what I should write about, let me know here.
The first article in this new series will be published in a moment.
Keep in touch!
Let's keep progressing!
Charlie
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