WORKSHOP - How to Build Your Company with the Right People - June 27

Online Event Registration - http://www.rightpeople.eventbrite.com/


Powered by www.eventbrite.com

The Leader's Greatest Resource

EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENT E-LETTER

The Leader's Greatest Resource

June 5, 2008 - Number 16

In This Issue:
* Business News
- 40 days Immersion Project - community
- Logo design workshop - marketing

* Coaching Article
- The Leader's Greatest Resource

* What's New at EIC
- Right People workshop June 27
- Website phase two

Business News

Immersion Project

During March and April, an Austin entrepreneur used his business to take him on an unprecedented journey. Pushing through “the dip” per Seth Godin’s book entitled the same requires sacrifice that most are unwilling to endure. Godin promises that those who do are typically rewarded with unforeseen business and personal opportunity. That’s exactly what Tom Baum, President and Principal Founder of TRACEe (www.tracee.biz) seems to have discovered by immersing himself on the streets of Austin for 40 days and nights streaming live video of the homeless population. Tom found that the risks to himself, his marriage and his business, for a good cause, were greatly appreciated by the homeless community and a multitude of partners, sponsors and volunteers. Furthermore, his bootstrapped business (reference: Bootstrap Network http://www.bootstrapaustin.org/wiki/index.php/Welcome_to_the_Bootstrap_Network ) received a much needed infusion of donated dollars, equipment, services, development and visibility. In fact, Tom claims that this 40 days were more valuable to TRACEe and its future than the 40 or so months in ideation and the valley of death that preceded it! Check out the 40 Day Immersion web-pages hosted by partner Mobile Loaves & Fishes (www.mlfnow.org/immersion) and two special news reports generated during the immersion (1) KXAN News: http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?s=8143508 and (2) FOX 7 News: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=10B7F4D7470D551A469173C41EF66A3A?contentId=6249376&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

In this project, Tom is using his technology and social media, with the support of other businesses, to bring the population at-large, up close to homeless people so they can personally assist this group - who are a tragedy neglected. He is currently in the follow-up stage of the project. Check out what Tom is doing and how his efforts are making a huge difference!

Success in Logo Design

Small business CEOs and executives, in the absence of a VP of Marketing, are often faced with the big question: What are our logo, brand, and marketing designs doing for the company? A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend a half-day workshop put on by Tina Schweiger of Spoonbend, (http://www.spoonbend.com/) a branding and design agency. The workshop was a huge success and very valuable because Tina took us through a series of activities supported with education, which both empowered and enlightened all the executives in the room! Many executives don't spend their time analyzing the visual syntax, color, and typography of their logo and marketing materials. We simply don't have the time or inclination!! Which, it turns out, is exactly why we hire companies like Spoonbend. Before, however, we go to a design company, we can be armed with our profile, Creative Brief, whiteboard, and information that can save us thousands in time and fees! Tina's next workshop is June 20th, contact her at tina@spoonbend.com .

Coaching Article

The Leader's Greatest Resource

Regardless the size of the company you work in and your role or position there, when you're in a leadership role, then people are your greatest resource! What's more, it doesn't matter whether you're forming your executive team, working with an intact team, hiring to increase your staff, or collaborating in a network of professionals to support and grow your business, certain characteristics and strategies permeate the companies that cultivate this resource and thereby reap the greater benefits. Through our work, Executive Intelligent Coaching has identified several universal principles and steps to hone and nurture the human capital resource. These principles include:

• sharpening your attention and self preparation
• knowing who the right people are and hiring them
  
• building a foundation for success (with the staff)
  
• knowing when to cut bait and cultivating the right relationships

Understanding the importance of this is critical to a company's future success. First, in the global workplace we're in, the value of people have changed and are now, more of a central focus of the organization. What's more, people want value in their work and they're looking at the values and culture of companies. Essentially, they have become more picky. And, despite the stressed American economy today, knowledge-workers, professionals, and the younger generation often have choices for work because they're willing to trade those bigger paychecks for satisfaction and enjoyment. - They are seeking more balance in their life!

So, the leaders who espouse and actively practice these principles, enjoy many financial and intangible benefits. To begin with, the staff are more appropriately placed in their positions and assigned duties, leading them to be more efficient and productive. They are also more satisfied with their work-life, resulting in improved customer service, less sick leave, increased employee loyalty and less turnover. The staff, in addition, are more collaborative and work together more, which yields a positive contagious culture and builds the reputation of the company, also increasing it's attention as a great place to work!

These principles aren't new and they aren't rocket science! They do, however, have a prevalence and permanence we've not seen before... Stay tuned for more articles on this topic!

Share with us your success stories of hiring the right people, building a great culture, or fortifying relationships with your staff. (contact information below)

What's New

New Workshop

Intrigued by the coaching article today? Are you building your executive team, hiring to increase your staff, creating a business collaboration, or forming a new team in the company? Then this workshop is for you. Sign up to attend the hands-on, half-day workshop that will give you the leadership program to build your company's success! The workshop will be conducted downtown Austin, Friday, June 27. Participation is limited so register now by emailing nschill@exeucutiveintelligentcoaching.com, calling 512. 947.5447, or reserve online at http://rightpeople.eventbrite.com/ to save the tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours of your time and build the positive company morale that will help your business grow!

What: How to Build Your Company with the Right People
When: Friday June 27, 8:30 - 12:00
http://rightpeople.eventbrite.com


Website Phase 2

Thanks to Brian Massey of Conversion Sciences and Rose Holston of Aviso Communications, the Executive Intelligent Coaching website is soon moving to phase two. The site will boast a coaching quiz, more information about the company and our approach, and pages about the different programs. Check out the revised website at the same address: http://www.executiveintelligentcoaching.com/ . What's more, for information on online and social marketing marketing, visit Brian's blog at http://www.customerchaos.com/ and to learn about SEO and keywords, visit Rose's blog at http://www.avisocomm.com/.


____________________________________________________________________

Send this link to your friends today:
http://blog.executiveintelligentcoaching.com

____________________________________________________________________

Register to receive this newsletter in your inbox
http://www.executiveintelligentcoaching.com/
info@executiveintelligentcoaching.com
512.947.5447

____________________________________________________________________

Copyright, 2008 Executive Intelligent Coaching

Business Relationships: Develop the Essential Components and Dodge the Hitch Points

EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENT E-LETTER

Business Relationships: Develop the Essential Components and Dodge the Hitch Points

February 22, 2008, Number 15

In This Issue:
*Business News
- negotiation skills
- coaching resource
*Coaching Article
-Business Relationships: Develop the Essential Components and Dodge the Hitch Points
*What's New
- employee selection
- upcoming presentations

Business News

Negotiation Skills

A few months back I attended an excellent workshop on negotiating! Chad Jewell is an expert negotiator who shared his wisdom with some local business associates. I was one of the fortunate dozen or so who got to attend an afternoon training and what I learned was invaluable! Getting our wants and needs met, with a win for all parties, is a finely-tuned skill that benefits us situationally and mentally. Who better to assist a business owner when looking for their office space than an expert negotiator! Chad and his team exclusively represent tenants in this process. Check them out at http://www.austinofficespace.com/

Coaching Resource
I have known Ted Middelberg for a couple of years now and recently he and I met to discuss forming a professional coaching consultative group. Like myself, Ted is an expert in the coaching industry. He is the president of Systemic Leadership LLC, an Austin-based company focused on coaching executives and leaders at all levels. Ted's judgment and wisdom have been built on 20 years of managerial and executive level responsibilities, followed by another 10 years focused explicitly on helping leaders drive successful results. Weaving this together with his formal training in group dynamics and coaching gives Ted the desire, knowledge and
skills to offer more for his clients than ever before. Middelberg has a BA degree in Economics from Brown University, an MBA in Finance from The Ohio State University and an Ed.D. in Adult Education, Human Resource Development and Leadership from The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a member of the International Federation of Coaches and a certified executive coach. You can reach Ted at 512-653-4757 or ted@systemicleadership.com.

Coaching Article

Business Relationships: Develop the Essential Components and Dodge the Hitch Points
Clients and entrepreneurs I speak with are often driven and motivated to make a decision when they're thinking about establishing a business relationship. Whether you're looking at a partner, a vendor, or client it is essential to rein in the urge to act, refrain from an emotional decision, and withhold a hasty response. Don't only give yourself room, make it a priority to take the time, care, and ethical consideration that is a must in developing positive business relationships. It is during the development of these relationships where business leaders make initial critical errors by not recognizing the warning signs of hitch points that can tell them if a business relationship will or will not be positive. If you're not already convinced about how important it is to get into business relationships that are positive, just think about the nightmare client, vendor, or partner you've had in the past. How much time and energy did that stressful relationship cost you?

Here are some steps to assist you in developing positive business relationships.... Take time to build this relationship:

• to learn their purpose
• to learn what they can contribute and their shortcomings

Focus on quality and integrity:

• maintain the level of work you currently produce and are proud of
• maintain the credibility you have established for yourself and your company

Hitch points indicate that it is not wise to enter into a business relationship because the risks of it turning into a negative relationship are too high. Two primary hitch points include:

• the person's ethics or values are in conflict with yours
• there is a lack of balance in the power

Developing business relationships that are based on mutual respect, open communication, and clarity of purpose and focus will build trust, cooperation, enjoyable work, and a long-term positive and fruitful relationship.

What's New

Employee Selection
At Executive Intelligent Coaching, we recently expanded our services to include assisting companies in their hiring the right people, for the right positions. We come in during the second or third stage of the selection process to interview the hiring person, interview the candidates, and administer and report assessment results. With our expertise and assessments, we give you the confidence that you're hiring the right person. It was in Jim Collins' Good to Great research, which convincingly revealed that great companies have the right people in the right positions.

Upcoming Presentations
The beginning of March offers Austin's entrepreneurs and business people a smörgåsbord of informational and support resources right at our fingertips!
RISE, a Relationship and Information Series for Entrepreneurs, offers numerous free presentations each day, held across the city, March 4th through 6th. Register at: http://www.riseaustin.org/Schedual/Day1.aspx
SXSW Interactive hosts countless panels at the Austin Convention Center March 7th through 11th. Register at: http://2008.sxsw.com/register_to_attend/

Nancy's RISE presentation
What: Creating Executive Teams
When: Tues. March 4th 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Where: Texas State Capitol

Nancy's panel participation
What: Bootstrapping through Entrepreneur Collaboration Networks
When: Mon. March 10th 5:00-6:00 pm
Where: Austin Convention Center

____________________________________________________________________

Register to receive this newsletter in your inbox - go to www.executiveintelligentcoaching.com and follow the instructions from a link on the RESOURCES page.

____________________________________________________________________

Support your colleagues - send them a link to this blog today!
http://eicoachingblog.blogspot.com/

____________________________________________________________________
Copyright, 2008 Executive Intelligent Coaching

Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

Intelligent Coaching E-Brief

Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

October 4, 2007, Number 14

In This Issue:
*Business News
- The Rowan Report
- Austin Open 4 Business

*Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

*What's New
- Emotional Intelligence for Productivity and Relationships
- I Don't Work on an Island! How personality elevates teamwork and leadership in organizations


Contact Us:
info@executiveintelligentcoaching.com
512.947.5447

Business News

For those of you who prepare and conduct presentations, I have found a resource that I've actually referenced a few times. Don't get me wrong, I regularly search for authorities on specific issues and topics! I guess this just surprised me that for the last two or three presentations I have prepared, I actually went straight to this source thinking, "Can you help me with ...?" and there it was. The newsletter is also hosted out of Blogger, and is called The Rowan Report. Here are a couple of recent issue links: http://rowcom.blogspot.com/2007/08/breaking-rules-with-style.html

and http://rowcom.blogspot.com/2007/08/give-us-handout.html

An exciting new business conference is debuting in Austin next week. Austin Open 4 Business, sponsored by Business District Magazine and others, is featuring dynamic keynote speakers and four tracks of presentations and panel discussions for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the areas of: legal issues; funding; sales & marketing, and human resources. You can expect to find me there, all day! Actually, I am moderating a panel discussion on health insurance. For more information and to register, go to www.austinopen4business.com . This conference is inexpensive and here is your opportunity to attend for even less - enter the discount code, MAG1408.

Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

For small businesses, independent consultants and sole proprietors, having a network of trusted experts around them can open the doors to exciting possibilities for business development. The business opportunities can have the look of one of two different paintings. Let's call one painting our Reciprocal Spiral and the other painting our Innovative Dance. The first painting has circular rings spreading out from the core mass at the center. The second painting has lines of different thickness and color, which intersect the central line and create splatters of a whole new color.

Our Reciprocal Spiral is made up of the people who independent business owners are most connected to in work, but who do not work inside their individual business. These are people who support each other in some aspects of their businesses; they likely provide their services or products to each other in some fashion, consult with each other, share social or business associations, and have a fairly sturdy relationship based on mutual trust and respect.
BENEFITS:

• thought-partnering
• business assistance
• emotional support
• innovation and creativity
• introductions and referrals to our businesses

The beauty of the relationships in our Reciprocal Spiral is that a level of trust has been established here, unlike the simple connections made in networking groups. Reciprocal trust, respect, and assistance with other independent consultants, sole props, small business owners, and start-ups largely increase the presence, impact, and reach of the small business!

Our Innovative Dance, on the other hand, occurs when two or more independent proprietors come together and form a novel product or service. The resulting product or service is a unique synthesis of these two or more experts, who may be from very different industries. These businesses team together to create and sell their innovative, very likely, niche product or service. The benefits of teaming up and collaborating with these partners, if you will, are that it adds a whole new dimension to each of the businesses; it may also open up a whole new market for them. But, the benefits to the internal workings of the business owner are invaluable. Motivation is spurred, creativity is inspired, and the workload is shared! The commodity of time is something a single business person cannot ever get enough of.

In both, the Reciprocal Spiral and Innovative Dance models, the business that was once a singular entity, now becomes a "boutique" - a collection of businesses who exude greater credibility, can serve a wider scope of customers, and meet more of the customers' needs. While this article is designed for sole props and small businesses, the principles can be applied in larger companies as well. In some companies it's done all the time. Using your network of co-workers to help get things accomplished and teaming up with certain co-workers to innovate and meet other demands, takes place in the greatest companies all over. Collaboration is the key and fine-tuning the collaborations so that they yield a strategic powerhouse is what eludes many. Stay tuned for upcoming information and resources that map the path to the powerhouse.

What's New

The start to this fall has been equally exciting and busy for Executive Intelligent Coaching. An article I wrote entitled, Emotional Intelligence for Productivity and Relationships, has been published in the newest edition of Business District. It is in the People Matters section and lists action steps for business owners for hiring and leadership. You can read the article online at: http://www.abdmag.com/people_matters_emotional_intelligence.htm



My first video training program is in the finishing stages and will be launched and available on Amazon very soon! I have collaborated with producer Joshua Shipsey, of Communication Simulations, Inc. www.commsim.com , to create, I Don't Work on an Island! How Personality Elevates Teamwork and Leadership in Organizations. Look for future news on the event launching this program.


_____________________________________________________________________

Support your business and colleagues - send them a link to this blog today! http://eicoachingblog.blogspot.com

Register to receive this newsletter in your inbox - go to www.executiveintelligentcoaching.com and follow the instructions through a link on the RESOURCES page.

_____________________________________________________________________

Executive Intelligent Coaching, Copyright 2007

Business Professionals on Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

Intelligent Coaching E-Brief

Business Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

May 24, 2007, Number 12

In this Issue:
Effortless Understanding
Skill Sets
Work Performance and Environment
Management
Entrepreneurs and Collaboration


Contact Us:
www.executiveintelligentcoaching.com
info@executiveintelligentcoaching.com
512.947.5447



Effortless Understanding of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence are skills for the workplace, family, and community that impact our happiness, motivation, stress management, and conflict resolution. If we think about what I call the triangle of success there is cognitive intelligence at one point, technical expertise at another point, the final point is emotional intelligence. It represents more than a dozen skills that encompass knowing what your feelings are and how they impact your actions, managing tendencies that are not helpful to a situation, understanding and incorporating others' perspectives, and fostering collaboration and productivity in others.

Tonja O'Neill, MBA, CEO of Soverex, a professional speaker and turnaround communications consultant, describes emotional intelligence as: acting in mature, intelligent, respectful, and common sense ways.


Emotional Intelligence Skill Sets
We are not born with emotional intelligence skills. These are things that we learn and master or not, as we go through life. They are the subtleties that help us, for example, resolve a disagreement between team members, know our limitations when we're starting a project, change our approach for the demands of a situation, and expertly meet a customer's needs. We can strengthen our emotional intelligence skills. We can learn from watching others, become aware of which skills we do well and which ones need to be improved, look for opportunities to refine the skills, and commit to improving them.

Tina Schweiger, President of Spoonbend, a strategic design agency, notes that these are skills that help you deal with all types of people. Emotional intelligence is a skill set that you don't learn in school. It is the intangible aspects that help us to be better leaders.


Emotional Intelligence Impact on Work Performance and Environment
In the global workplace of today and the challenges we're presented with to have knowledge-intensive, service oriented, and continually changing work that needs to be done, emotional intelligence skills are crucial to our success. For example, how flexible are we? How easily can we work with this team, then that team, and then yet another team say in a given year? How do we handle having one manager this month and a different manager next month? Obviously, strong adaptability, optimism, teamwork, service, and influence skills are very important.

Michelle Stinson, President of Impression Edge, a promotional products and marketing services company, reports that people often don't realize the impact these skills have on their relationships, environment, and performance at work. She describes emotional intelligence as our coping skills and ability to face issues that affect our work performance and environment.


Emotional Intelligence and Management
In managing our subordinates or managing our customers, we need to be skillful at handling our own emotions and display empathy and integrity, be adaptable, take initiative, and read the currents around us.

Diane Dean, M.A., owner of the The Learner's Edge and Organization Development for Tokyo Electron, relates that we can't manage others unless we first can manage ourselves. In this world of violence, it is more critical than ever that we are able to manage emotions and have an effective framework for handling this. The tendency is for people not to take responsibility and blame others, which is not effective.


Entrepreneurs, Collaboration and, Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence skills are our relationship management skills. They are manifested in: how cooperative we are, how we cultivate relationships, and how we support others.

Bijoy Goswami, Founder of the Bootstrap Network - an open-source community for bootstrap entrepreneurs and Co-Founder of Aviri - an innovation capabilities company, reveals that 0ur success is based on our ability to collaborate with each other which requires a high degree of emotional intelligence. This is seen in the Bootstrap Network; where the folks who are collaborating together, display strong emotional intelligence skills.


To listen to Nancy's recent interview addressing emotional intelligence on the Business District Hour radio program, click on the link http://abdpodcast.abdpodcast.com. This interview starts about half way through the program.

___________________________________________________________________

Would you like to learn more about our unique programs for
happiness in the workplace?
Contact Nancy Schill, M.A. at nschill@executiveintelligentcoaching.com or 512.947.5447.

___________________________________________________________________

Support your business and colleagues - send them a link to this blog! http://eicoachingblog.blogspot.com