Entries from June 2008 ↓

There’s a new study out as of Friday that indicates that black and white people in America think differently. Okay, that’s not really news. What also isn’t news is that many black people feel that white people know little about their real backgrounds, and probably don’t care.

What is news, though, is some of the things this study, presently residing on BlackAmericaStudy.com, has found. For instance, around 71% of all blacks are online, and my personal demographic, baby boomers, has the highest rate of online users. I’d have thought younger people would surpass us, as they do in the general population, but nope.

Another one that was sort of shocking is that 91% of black people consider themselves Christian, but only 46% go to church; not sure why I thought that number would be higher.

One that isn’t shocking is that a high number of black people, 72%, want to invest more money into stocks, but 50% feels banks and other financial institutions don’t understand their needs.

Only 12 - 16% trust the police, government, or other institutions of the same type.

And this piece is disturbing:

• This segment is more pessimistic in their view of their life and future.

• Health: Only 17% believe they have a healthy lifestyle and 49% are stressed about their health.

• Finances: 4 in 10 earn less than $25K a year and nearly a quarter are unemployed.

• It is not surprising that 65% are stressed about their financial situation.

• Future: Only 20% believe things are getting better for them (by far, the lowest
segment).

There’s a lot more information that can be downloaded from the site above, and I hope you take a look at it. Oh, one more thing; it would seem that 51% are more comfortable with being referred to as “African-American” rather than “black”; interesting,…

The latest edition of the TTM Newsletter, Strive To Be A Leader, is now available.

If there’s anything that can start to get me upset, it’s constantly being interrupted when I’m talking. I don’t mean when someone is looking to clarify something I said, necessarily. I mean when you’re trying to say something, or ask a question, and the other person interrupts me to start answering a question I haven’t finished asking, or throwing in detail that I haven’t had a change to give yet. I think it’s rude, but it also proves something else.

Many of us have lost the art of listening. Studies have shown that most people are usually ready to respond to the first few words a person has said and are already working on their response while a person is still saying their piece. This means that, quite often, we miss out on something that might have made our responses more pertinent, and oftentimes people end up either asking someone to repeat what was just said, or giving an answer to a question that wasn’t really asked, confusing everyone.

I came across something like that this week while out of town. In essence, I learned that the people where I am have been doing something for close to seven years that they never had to do. My supposition is that someone mentioned something way back when that someone else decided to run with, then they went to clarify what they’d been told and either asked the question incorrectly or the person answering the question either didn’t wait to hear the whole question or decided to just answer the question that was asked without further probing. This has caused my client to lose a lot of money over the years doing something that they never should have done in the first place.

I’m a pretty good listener, but I’ll admit that there are times when I’m not quite understanding what I’m being told. The art of communications says that sometimes it’s not the listener’s fault, but the listener always has the opportunity to ask for clarification if they’re not sure what the other person said, or is having trouble comprehending it. That happened to me today, where I had someone tell me three times what she was told to do some time ago, and the third time she changed it up slightly and I finally got it. I was listening hard, but her terminology and phraseology wasn’t jibbing with mine, which was leaving me confused. That happens sometimes when you’re in another state and realizing that different words are often used for the same thing.

Of course, if I hadn’t been listening, I wouldn’t have known to ask her to say it again, and the answer I eventually gave her wouldn’t have been close to correct. Listening always gives you a chance to get things right, and it makes the person you’re listening to feel as though they’re a valuable commodity in their eyes. Good leaders and managers have mastered the art of listening.

Of course my wife will tell you that I don’t always listen to her. Sure I do; I just don’t always understand her!

Barack Obama is going to be the democratic nominee for president. It’s an interesting time for me, because I never thought I would see a black man as a viable candidate in my lifetime, and yet, here he is.

Senator Obama is already gearing up for what he’s expecting will be a tough fight. He’s also saying he’s ready for things to become racially charged, which has been an interesting dynamic already in the primaries, and is really expected to heat up in the general election. And, it seems, he’s not alone in believing it’s coming.

A CBS News poll showed 30% of Americans harbor some feelings of racial prejudice. For those folks, who say race is a factor in their presidential choice, Senator McCain leads Obama by nearly 20 points, 56 percent to 37 percent, while, at the present time, Obama is ahead of McCain in general by 15 percentage points.

There are some columnists who believe this race, or at least what we’ve had to date, has already been about race, so it makes sense for it to continue. In the challenge against Senator Clinton, Obama clearly lead in the black vote, whereas Clinton not only lead with women, but she led with hispanics also. This has led some of the columnists to say that there’s a double standard against white voters who say they will vote for McCain because he’s white.

I don’t like that argument, but it’s a tough one to debate against because it’s most likely true for the most part. The true is that people will most likely vote for or against someone who’s like them or not like them in some fashion, whether it’s race, sex, religious preference, wealth status, etc. Some people base their candidates qualifications on physical presence or demeanor instead of qualifications. Let’s face the fact that there are more people watching American Idol than watch the political news shows on Sunday mornings put together.

At the same time, it’s an interesting dynamic that age is working against McCain, where 50% of the American public feels that the age of 71 is too old to elect a first time president. I’ll be watching to see how that will play as the political ad season begins in earnest.

Race versus age; are we ready for this election year?

I never think about Josh Groban until I hear a song that he’s singing. He’s got an amazing voice, and I often wonder why he’s not a bigger deal than he is.

Anyway, I came across a beautiful video he did that’s posted on Nick Grimshaw’s Beautiful Summer Morning blog, and rather than just posting the video here I thought I’d do us both a favor and send Nick some love for finding the clip, and also hoping you’ll go and watch the video for yourselves. You’ll feel glad that you did.

I was reading this particular post on the Great Leadership blog, titled Ethics And Leadership, and instead of rehashing the entire tale I’m going to encourage you to click on the link and read the story for yourself. I will talk about its concept overall, though.

Sometimes things just don’t go right. None of us are perfect, so things are going to go wrong from time to time. No one with any real sense is going to get upset over mistakes or breakdowns that occur every once in awhile. What people get upset with are two things. One, not knowing that there was a potential problem, especially if someone else knew about it, and two, allowing problems to keep occurring time and time again instead of making the correction needed to move forward.

I’m someone who’s always believed that it’s better to tell the person I’m reporting to that something isn’t acting right, or hasn’t been acting right, than to let them find out from someone else later. However, I’ve also always believed that if I can, I’m going to offer a suggestion, or go ahead and put through the correction, so that when I tell what has happened, I can also say what was done or can be done to fix things.

As a consultant, oftentimes management won’t divulge things to me because they believe it makes them look bad, but their employees tell me a lot of things. Then I have a chance to get things fixed, which makes employees happy and existing management scrambling instead of embracing the help. Then they feel that they need to explain themselves in front of the people they ultimate report to instead of just owning up to the flaws and being happy that some of them can be fixed.

So, if you discover problems, or someone else discovers them, embrace them and fix them, then move on. Be honest; if you read the story, you’ll see that if you’re not, sometimes you’re found out.

Often I write here about what makes a good leader. Today I’m going to give a scenario of what doesn’t make a good leader.

As a consultant, often I talk to a lot of people to find out what’s really going on in their work areas. Sometimes I’m surprised by what I hear; sometimes I’m not. When I get a chance to educate someone on a concept that they don’t know about, something that the person they report to believes they know, I always relish the opportunity, and those people usually enjoy learning something new also.

Also, as a consultant, even when I’m in a leadership position, I usually like to share what’s going on in the department with other leadership staff, whether they also report to me or not, because I believe that all information shared is a good thing. It gives everyone a chance to understand what’s going on, and, when I leave, it allows them to continue some of the things I might put into practice so that the department will continue to grow.

However, what sometimes happens is the present leadership, instead of feeling like they’re getting a chance to progress, feels like they’re being shown up, not so much by me as the consultant, but by the people who may report to them. They feel as though they’re being made to look bad, as though they’re not doing their job, and they don’t like it. So, unfortunately, they’ll go and confront the people who talkd to me, or another consultant, and complain to them about being made to look bad in some fashion.

That messes things up in two ways. One, it makes the people who talk to me feel as though they should have kept their mouths shut because maybe I’ve made things worse. Or two, it makes the person who went to them look petty and small in their eyes, which isn’t good because I’ll be leaving at some point, and if their own credibility has been damaged, then things will definitely be worse when I leave.

Some of you may ask why I shared the information in the first place. There’s two types of information in situations like this. There’s confidential information, which of course you never tell. Then there’s departmental or employee improvement, which you share because it’s why I’m there in the first place. However, knowing that the leadership might react in such a way, it makes someone like me suddenly wary of sharing any information, and of course that defeats the purpose of why I’m there, and doesn’t end up doing the client any good.

Real leaders don’t worry about whether they may look bad or not when someone offers help. Real leaders never chastise someone for telling the truth, or for asking questions, or for trying to learn more so they can do whatever they need to learn so they can be better. Bad leaders only care about how they look, and nothing else, no matter how much they pretend.

How did I handle this particular issue? I didn’t; the employee stood up to the other person, told it like it was, and that was that. There’s something about long time employees in that they’re not worried or scared of anyone else. That, plus being in a union seems to give people some courage also.

I met Warren Whitlock online, first after he posted a comment on my blog, and later on Facebook, where I learned that, among his many talents, he’s also a book marketing strategist. Fascinating stuff, if you ask me.

1. What is your business?

I’m involved with a variety of businesses, often taking an equity position in compainies I help. I’m best known for BestSellerAuthors where we use online marketing to help authors get new readers, sell books and make the best seller lists.

2. What made you decide to go into this business?

I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my life, and strated using online media in the early 1980’s. I was asked to co-author a book in 2003 and found that I enjoyed working with other entrepreneurial authors on that project.

What I’ve learned is that the vast majority of authors fail because they don’t look at their book as a business. The most successful authors have a business and marketing plan.

Now I help my clients with online marketing and social media, and train authors who are just getting started with my free course at http://BookMarketingStrategy.com

3. What types of challenges have you had along the way?

I have several new idea for my clients and partners every day. There just isn’t enough time to focus on each one.

I’ve had to learn to give away most of my ideas. That has helped in two ways.

1) Giving is now my passion. I love helping others and see them succeed

2) By focusing my attention on projects, I get more results.

It’s not that one project is better than others. The books and businesses that succeed have the best plans, resources and attention.

4. Have the positives outweighed the negatives, and if so, how?

Once you unlearn the training that you’ve had that you need to work for a big company or do things like the crowd, you can start living life on your own terms.

I can’t imagine ever working on a job now. I find that I love working with people, but on my terms.. when and where I want.

5. What would you recommend for anyone looking to go into business for themselves?

Get started right now. You only have one life to live. Don’t waste another minute living someone else’s version of your life.

One of my favorite songs from my youth is “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” by McFadden and Whitehead. Truthfully, like most other kids, I knew all the lyrics of the song, but never just sat down and thought about what any of it meant. Many, many years later, it happened to hit me that this was about as motivational a song as one could get.

First, here are the lyrics of the song, with some clipping to cut out too much redundancy:

Ain’t no stoppin’ us now,
We’re on the move.(We’re on the move)
Ain’t no stoppin’ us now,
We got the groove.(We got the groove)

Yeah, that’s it, and they turned that into 3 minutes and 18 seconds for the most part. However, this video, which is a true flashback from Soul Train, is 20 seconds less, and of course they’re lip synching. So what; it’s the message that counts; the dancing is just for fun:

First, tonight’s newsletter, Breaking Down The Barriers To Communication, is available. Also, I forgot to post the last newsletter, People Will Leave Your Life. Read and enjoy.

Wednesday night I had quite a scare. Ihad come back home on Tuesday night for a seminar on Wednesday, which was great. Then I went back to my consulting assignment Wednesday evening, so I could be there early enough Thursday morning.

I was just starting to talk to my wife through instant messaging, and she had asked me how I was doing. I wrote that I was suddenly not feeling well at all, because I wasn’t. She asked me what was wrong, and I said I wasn’t sure, but that I had this feeling that I wanted to get into bed, and I’d talk to her in the morning. I didn’t even make it to bed before the chills took over my body. I’d had this problem once before this year, so I first turned the heat on full blast in the hotel room, then got under the covers in my sweats and wrapped the blankets around me. Nothing doing; the shivers were coming from inside, and for the next three hours I shivered and tried to get warm, occasionally dozing for a moment, but basically not sleeping at all. While the chills were there, even the hot air in the room didn’t feel all that hot.

When the chills finally broke three hours later, I had still not broken a sweat, but I started feeling better. My body was sore, and I had to cool down the air so I could breathe better, but otherwise the worst of it was over. I heard from a pharmacist friend of mine that I might have had food poisoning of some sort both this time and the last, as there was also a brief bit of nausea. Since I ate all my meals outside of the house, I couldn’t even begin to pinpoint what I might have eaten that could have brought the problem on.

Truth be told, I’m not always so cautious when I’m on the road and eating out all the time. I’ve had stomach problems with food that’s not even spicy, but rich. The problem is that it’s hard to know when a problem might be around the corner, and you might not know what’s coming. Whether it’s something with you personally or with someone you know or work with, surprises, both negative or positive, can be only moments away from changing so many things.

And, as I mention the passing of Tim Russert as a negative thing, something that was shocking and surprising, it reminds us all that not only might we not get another opportunity to fix something up at a later time, but we need to try to pay attention to those small things that might keep us safe and on an even keel, whether it’s business or personal. It always pays to take care of your business, no matter what.

As a management consultant, one of the toughest things to do from time to time is to find a way to get the people on my side. Well, let me clarify that one a little bit. Often, people expect one of two things from a consultant. One, they expect them to know all the answers; two, they expect them to know nothing.

On the first point, because they may expect a consultant to know everything, they offer very little, wanting to sit back and wait for the consultant to impart a great deal of wisdom on them. Sometimes consultants acquiesce to that request, but if they do without talking to the people and asking questions, it’s worthless information.

On the second point, sometimes people are jaded because they’ve seen a number of consultants come and go, and they don’t believe anyone is going to be able to help them solve their issues, let alone take the time to try to learn anything about what they actually do. I’ve seen that also, as many consultants will waste time with what’s known as “high level” assessments that offer no meat as to what’s really going on or how to really solve any issues.

Today was a good day for me. I got to offer my opinion on a few things, and I actually showed one department that something they’d assumed for years was incorrect, and it may help them do a part of their job better. I also went to bat for another department, learned some interesting information that I was able to impart on both them and someone else, and got my first real thank you since I started on the project. Gotta love those “thank you’s”, because that means you’re making a difference, and any good consultant wants to help make positive differences.

Of course, managers should be doing the same thing as often as they can. Too many times I see the failings of people in leadership positions who learn one thing, then keep going back to the well on that one thing and using it as the excuse for everything else. Truth be told, often there is one solution for many things, but it might have to be applied differently. Also, if you use it as a crutch or an excuse for not getting things corrected, you’ll end up looking more like a whiner than like someone who can quickly assess an issue and then help to solve it.

This is when finding problems is a good thing, because every new problem is also a new opportunity. When we look at things that way, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. And you just might pick up a fan or two along the way.