Archive for the ‘Featured’ Category

@maurilio:

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How to Form a Great Partnership

Partnerships are important part of business as well as ministry. Great partners can help you grow while a bad one can be the death of a dream. While we can easily form a partnership, it takes a long time to break one apart, sometimes with dire consequences. Here’s what I consider before going into a partnership with an individual or organization. Trust. If there’s no trust then you should never, ever go into any kind of partnership. If you get the feeling that the other party is waiting for you to mess up so they can get the upper hand on any situation, run for the hills. Respect. Whether it be business or personal, if you don’t respect the leader of an organization, then you shouldn’t create any kind of partnership, no matter how beneficial it looks on the onset. Once, I went to work for a man because I…

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Trust and Competence: Leaders Must Have Both to Succeed

Some people you trust with your life. Some people you know will get the job done. These are two essential qualities that every leader looks for in building their organization. But unless you find both trust and competence in those whom you lead, you don’t have a dynamic team who can grow your business, church, or not-for-profit. As a matter of fact, without trust and competence, the only thing you have is a mess in your hands. The trustworthy and yet incompetent is often the first to be hired and the last to be let go. After all, who does not love someone you can trust, someone you know will have your back and whom you do not have to worry about what they are “up to?” However, his inability to perform and deliver will catch up with him and the entire team. Sure, he’s a likeable person, but in…

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21

Why Your Next Diet Will Fail

Chances are you have started a new diet this week. And chances are it will fail.  I recently heard a man describe his failed diet attempt with what he called a “food coach.” His predicament is unfortunately the norm and not the exception. After seeing a friend lose close to 40 pounds, this man decided to join the same program and hired his now thinner friend’s nutrition consultant, which he named his food coach. During their first two-hour call he got the marching order on what to do for the first week, including keeping a log of all his caloric intake while using his coach’s advice on what and what not to eat. At the end of week one he had gained 7 lbs.  During the second call, his coached fired him. “Whenever you are ready, you can call me, “ he recounted the conversation to several men as he…

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2

Choosing Best: When Good Is Not Good Enough

Sometimes we need to say “no” to a good idea so we can say “yes” to the best idea.  Stephen Covey puts it this way: “It’s easy to say ‘no!’ when there’s a deeper ‘yes!’ burning inside.” While that approach to both business and personal life might make sense, and we see the validity in waiting for the best, that is no easy task for those of us living in our immediate gratification culture. We often sacrifice the best on the crucible of the good. After all, no one was ever penalized for coming up and executing a good idea. But by choosing the good, we forfeit the satisfaction, exhilaration, the mountain-top view of what only the best can provide. So then why do we settle? Here are a few reasons I do it. I don’t know what I want. It’s easy to say yes to a marginally good idea, business,…

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7

New Year’s Resolutions Revisited

Most people who make new year’s resolutions don’t follow through with them. Statistics say only 12% of those do see their resolutions come to fruition.  I say we need a change of perspective. As a marketer, I’m a big fan of re-purposing, re-packaging something that’s still useful but has been rejected by an audience because it’s perceived as no longer relevant. Our current new year’s resolution fits the category well. Maybe we should call it an annual refocusing, but no matter the label, here’s why I think we should stop and think through what we’re doing: Make sure you still want to go where the tracks lead you. It’s easy to realize you need a life change during a crisis. If any area of your life, such as your career, marriage, or finances are in deep trouble, you know it’s time for a major overhaul. But what happens when you’re…

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32

How Men Should Wear a Scarf

After a few weeks in hiatus, the Fashion Friday post returns. With the weather turning cold, we turn our attention to one of the most basic, and yet, stylish pieces of winter wear: the scarf.  Most of our winter garb is primarily black or dark. A colorful scarf can add style and personality to your winter clothing without breaking the bank. Most scarves are unisex, so look around your wife’s closet, you might even find something that you could pair up with an existing coat for free. So how do you wear your scarf? Here are a few of the most popular styles: Seen on: Everyone from prep schoolers to snowmen. How to: Like tying your shoe—over, under, and pull. Seen on: Guys in suits, Obama … and the English. How to: Drape around neck, tuck into sides of jacket and cross ends under your jacket’s buttons. Seen on: Regulars…

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4

Your Brand Promise and Your Least Paid Employee

The larger an organization grows, the more its brand message and promise gets delivered by their lowest paid employee: the front liner. Whether your business is retail, food services, theme parks, or a church, those first interactions with a customer usually happen with the lowest paid person in that organization. These are part-time sales people, wait staff, hourly workers and in the case of churches, not-for-profits, and ministries, those positions are volunteers who give of their own time to serve. The challenge here is to create a effective system to screen, train, and measure the effectiveness of the front line team. Disney Parks figured that out a long time ago and has created an effective way to make sure that each “cast” member understands the importance they have as spokespeople for the Disney brand. Chick-Fil-A is another organization that hires and trains their front line employees to carry the company’s…

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10

Getting Your Way: The Art of Negotiating.

Life is a series of negotiations. We negotiate our way through traffic, we negotiate with family, with our boss,  with a car salesman, and with our clients. Some of us are better at it than others. But whether it comes naturally and easy or whether negotiating is hard work, your negotiating skills are on the line every day. In the art of the deal, proper communication is critical. Here are a few things to consider next time you want to get your way. Know your non-negotiables. Some things in life, such as your morals and convictions, should never be up for discussion, and they ought to be truly deal breakers. If you don’t know what they are,  you’ll always find your life in the midst of a mess. Figure out your non-negotiables before your life becomes unmanageable. Know what you want. I’ve seen people try to negotiate without knowing what…

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2

Rethinking Regifting

Regifting is considered to be the lowest form of gift giving. After all it is passing along something that didn’t cost you anything and that you don’t particularly like. It’s less like “paying it forward” and more like “dropping it backwards.” However, I would like to offer another perspective. I would like for us to think of regifting as a very positive thing. If we take the position that every good gift comes from God, meaning all we are and possess, then the act of giving to others becomes a true re-gift. Think about it. My children will “buy” gifts for some of their love ones this Christmas. But neither of them has jobs, and whatever money they have is itself a gift from others, mainly their hard-working parents. We give because we have been given. We are able to bless because we have been blessed. We are able to…

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A Dysfunctional Team? Blame the Boss

“I just wish my team would get along,” I heard from a leader not long ago. That’s not an uncommon complaint. But the more I learn about organizational health, the more I blame the leader for getting it in such predicament. In my experience, unrest, infighting among departments or ministries, or divisions within an organization can be traced back to two main factors: lack of clarity and/or organizational culture. And in either case, they are always set from the top down. Lack of clarity allows any good idea to be valid. Without a clear and articulable focus for your organization, any good idea is worth fighting for. I have worked with leaders who want to lead by consensus without a clear focus of identity and purpose. It’s a disaster. Usually the person with the strongest personality within the organization gets his or her way while others resent and get frustrated.…

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