Maurilio Amorim

Author: Maurilio Amorim

  • How Do You Deal With the Email Bully?

    The email bully is my nemesis. Even though you might not have heard this term before, I’m sure you have run into her before.  This is different than the hard-to-deal-with-person who is always difficult or unpleasant. Email bullies are often engaging and charming in person and over the phone; however, they use terse language and are quite demanding through their email communication.

    email bully

    When I see a case of EB come across my screen, my first instinct is to give the person the benefit of a doubt since it’s virtually impossible to attribute “tone” to a short email message. But then there’s the inevitable second and third emails. Then the case is confirmed: email bullying. Here are the symptoms:

    Every situation is an out-of-control crisis.

    Everyone gets copied on the email.

    Rampant usage of ALL CAPS.

    Long and extremely verbose language.

    It’s interesting that the same person who comes across so harsh on an email, often will be cordial and professional on the phone and quite pleasant when you talk with them face-to-face.

    So here’s my question:

    How do you deal with the Email Bully who is charming and cordial in any other form of communication when you don’t have a close relationship with them?

  • How to Choose Your Color

    Finding colors that work best on you is an important fashion foundation. Knowing what colors help you and what colors hinder you will help you look your best. While every rule has an exception, with color shades in the mix, exceptions abound. But here are a few color rules that generally work for most of us.

    If you have dark hair and complexion: Black, white, and jewel-tone (deep) colors work well for you. Stay away from pastels, deep green, and most browns.

    If you have light hair and fair skin: Black, pinks, some pastels like pale blue can look really good on you. Be careful with white because it can wash you out. If you’re very blond, stay away from yellows or you risk the danger of looking like a giant banana.

    If you have red hair and features: Hunter green, dark browns, plums, and some deep blues are good choices. You might want to avoid pinks and bright colors such as bright reds. After all, you don’t want to look like you’re on fire.

    Black usually works for most everyone and it also “hides a multitude of sins.” White is tricky. It can wash you out if your skin is very fair, and if you’re carrying extra weight, a white t-shirt can hug things you don’t want hugged, a.k.a. “moobs” (as in “man boobs”).

    Zac efron what's my color male
    Zac Efron in deep blue looks great. Well, honestly, Zac looks good even wearing a mustard green suit.
    David Beckham blonde pale blue
    David Beckham in pale blue. Pastels usually work best on people with lighter hair and skin.
    red headed male model hunter green
    Deep greens and blues and red hair go well together.

    What is/are your best color/s?

  • The First Christian Tablet Hits the Market

    No more sinful iPad or secular Kindle, now Christians have our own tablet device, and, no it’s not the stone kind that Moses sported around the desert . You’ve read it correctly: the first Christian Tablet, the Edifi.

    The world's first Christian tablet.

    The tablet is more than a e-reader, according to a post on Foxnews.com:

     It also comes with movie-watching capabilities, Christian radio stations, and even a web browser with built-in “safe search,” so the tablet is safe for the whole family. “We put that on there just in case it was given as a gift to a child, so they wouldn’t have access to things they shouldn’t have access to,” said [Brian Honorable, a technology supervisor at Family Christian, the group that sells the tablet]. “We definitely had to tailor it to our customers.” Read more here

    I’m still scratching my head on this one. I thought it was a joke at first, but it is not. What’s your take?

    Do Christians really need our own tablet?

  • What Can Apple Teach the Church about Dealing with People in Crisis?

    Great customer service is a powerful thing. When a brand that’s built on concepts such as “simple, easy, and powerful” delivers on its promise, there’s joy in the heart of the consumer and good will abounds for a long time. Today one of our Mac laptops at the office crashed. It’s a machine. It’s bound to happen sooner or later, but it always seems to happen at the most inopportune of times. However,  Mac’s customer support was stellar. I wish churches and Christian organizations would learn from Apple on how to deal with people in crisis.

    Our 3-year old Macbook’s hard drive crashed. I diagnosed it by the cow-like sound the poor drive made as it was trying unsuccessfully to spin. It needed to be fixed asap. One local vendor wanted $75 to “put us on the front of the line” for repairs. Instead I went to the Apple website, signed up for an appointment at the Genius Bar (Mac’s in-store repair service) at which time the problem would be reviewed and diagnosed just two hours after I had scheduled the appointment, and hoped Apple would be able to help me within 24 hours.

    I had my computer fixed 18 minutes after entering the store, and it was free.

    It was the easiest, friendliest, and most efficient service team I had seen in a long time. Even though the store was full of people, my name welcomed me on the electronic board as I arrived on time for my appointment. The helpful “genius” plugged in a cable that in a matter of a few seconds gave him the same diagnose: a bad hard drive. He told me that even though the computer was out of warranty, Mac’s quality assurance would replace the hard drive (which came preloaded with the operating system) for free.

    For all practical purposes, when your computer/phone is not working, your life is not working. Ok, so it’s not a life-or-death crisis, but a work-computer down means you can’t do jack. If you get paid by billable hours, then every hour you don’t work, you don’t get paid.  How much more seriously should professional Christians (church and ministry leaders) deal with real-life crises of those who need them? Some are doing a great job responding and even anticipating such events. One organization that comes to mind is Soles4Souls led by my good friend Wayne Elsey. Their response time and ability to help has always impressed me.

    But for the most part, I find churches and Christian organizations ill prepared to help and resource those who need them the  most. If your brand promise is to share the good news of Jesus as well as His light with the world, you better be ready to help those in crisis, because it is at that point that they’ll decide whether you’re for real or just full of it. It’s not that churches don’t want to serve others. I believe most do. But unless there’s a working system in place to streamline the process, no organization will succeed in proving sustainable help. Intentions are of no help without systems to service them. Apple figured out a simple and effective system to help their customers. I wish Christians would learn from them.

    What Christian organization have you seen perform at a level of excellence? What are they doing well?

  • How I Would Approach My Job as a CIO

    CIOs (Chief Information Officers) have a big problem. The pace of change in technology is mind numbing. With the advent of the App store and the exponential proliferation of apps for just about anything imaginable, organizations are having a tough time managing their Information Technology infrastructure. I remember the days when Microsoft software upgrades were done annually and operating systems lasted sometimes two or three years before a new release would be officially support by the IT department. Now it’s down to a daily occurrence. New software, apps, sites, productivity tools are pouring out at us like a tsunami that cannot be stopped.

    The New CIO

    Since April, 50,000 new apps were added to the App store, making it a total number of 650,000 apps and growing. That doesn’t even count the apps that are being created for the Android devices. If you are the CIO of your organization, or head of IT your life is more chaotic than ever before. IT professionals are dealing with security issues, compatibility, scalability and internal bandwidth to deal with the ever clamoring demands from their internal customers who want the latest version of the software-du-jour that they just cannot live without. And most of the time they have a point. Why wait 6 months for the internal team to build a marketing or productivity  app or microsite instead of buying something that can be downloaded quickly and be operational in a few hours with a very small financial investment?

    This is a losing battle over complete control of all things digital. Most everything today is digital–no, everything is. If I were in charge of IT here is how I would managed it:

    Change the way I see my job. You can no longer control everything digital. If you try, you’ll strangle the organizational growth, lose your job or both. Look as your job as facilitate change and not stop it.

    Figure out new priorities. Data integrity and security are your primary concerns, but systems integration is the new normal. It’s a part of doing business. You can no longer be an island and develop all your tools internally and manage all your digital assets with the in-house IT team. It’s just no longer financially feasible.

    Think API (application protocol interface). Make sure your internal system can talk easily with the outside world. If you have a simple API then you can collect, manage and send out data efficiently. Your business’ success depends more and more on how fluid you can share your data across multiple platforms and devices. Instead of thinking of ways to keep people out, think how you let them interface with you safely and easily.

    What’s your organization’s biggest challenge with IT ?

  • Dealing with Difficult People: The Disrespectful Jerk

    There’s nothing more difficult than dealing with a friend or client who is negative, often disrespectful, and yet completely unaware of his behavior.   In my experience, people who are insecure are also not self-aware. So a heart-to-heart about their self-centered ways usually doesn’t work. They will generally deflect that to you and try to play the victim–which is their preferred position. Sometimes they will apologize not because they think they have done something wrong, but because they think you are mad at them and they want to be back in your good graces. It’s not “I’m sorry I have wronged you,” as much as it is “I’m sorry you feel that way.” See the subtle and yet important difference? Here’s my approach:

    Jerk

    So we need to break the cycle of abuse, and the only way I have been able to do that is to wait until another “infraction” happens. Talking about the past seldom works because of the insecurity and the distorted perception of events. The moment it happens: a snide remark or a slight put down, you need to take control of the conversation in the most calm and rational way possible. Stop it in its tracks. I have said something like this before:
    “Your last comment bothered me.” He will look puzzled and say “Why?”.  And then you need to be honest and calm and let him know why his words were disrespectful. “I was just kidding.” is often the cheap way out.

    “It doesn’t matter if were you kidding or not, the impact is the same on me. As a matter of fact, these types of disrespectful comments have hurt my feelings for a while now. I value our relationship and want to make sure you know that it bothers me.” He can either say “I’m sorry, I had no idea.” or he can blow you off and tell you that you are making too much out of nothing.

    The next time it happens, you do the same thing. If he is not able to see the point, that should be a good indicator that you either accept the status quo and allow for the abuse to continue, or you walk away from the relationship.

    How have you dealt with the disrespectful jerks in your life?

  • Fixing Your Image Problem

    Sometimes your best PR and marketing campaign is not telling everyone of about your “new and improved” product, which, by the way, are the two most over used and no longer effective words in marketing. People don’t really believe that the new and improved is necessarily better than the old. Think about it. What’s your reaction when you see a label that touts that?

    image perception pizza sucks

    Late in  2009 Domino’s pizza had a massive PR nightmare in its hands. Thirty-second spots on national television featured Domino’s own employees saying things like “the sauce tastes like ketchup,” and “the pizza crust tastes like cardboard to me.” The spots were excerpts from “Pizza Turn Around,” a four-minute documentary about the company’s two-year battle to re-invent a better pie…commissioned by Domino’s itself.

    The “our pizza sucks” campaign worked. After the episodes aired, Domino’s posted a 14.3 percentage increase in sales per store–a record for the fast food industry. And since 2011, the company’s earning have soared another 20 percent to $105.4 million on revenues of $1.65 billion (up 5 percent).

    Domino’s could have taken the safe route and launched their new and improved pie by hiring the best food stylist in the business (yes, there are people who make a living by “styling” food for photo and video shoots) and proclaiming their new and better pizza. Instead they told the truth and exposed its issues to a large group of people who might not even had known about the company’s negative perception.

    Could telling the truth in a blunt and open way, help your brand? Well, first I assume that you have both identified and fixed the problem. Otherwise you risk losing even more ground by creating a promise you cannot deliver on.

    Can you see an ad from a church that says “Boring No More! Come try out our new preacher. We promise you won’t fall asleep.”

    Think about your organization. How would this approach help you grow? 

  • The Problem With Potential

    I decided years ago not to hire on potential. It was one of the better business decisions I have made.

    Unrealised-potential

    Everyone in our team has potential. Lots of it. But that’s not the reason they work here. They have a place in this team because they were able to harness their potential and produce, create, develop and ultimately perform the the task needed by the organization.

    I meet people on a regular basis that amaze me on how much raw talent and potential they have to succeed in their professional careers. However, some of them never do. They don’t have

    discipline,

    self confidence,

    inner motivation,

    focus,

    goals,

    that allow them to harness the raw talent into something useful. After all it’s not fair to the rest of the team to deal with a member who has the ability but for whatever reason might perform to their potential.

    Do you think I’m being unreasonable?

     

  • Resentment and the Choice of Forgiviness

    “Burn me once shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me,” and so goes the old saying. Most would say it’s a wise saying. But as I reflect on it, I don’t think it is what God expects from us.

    forgive forgiveness

    Those words came to mind recently as someone asked me for a second chance. Immediately my mind went to “burn me once . . . .” I was ready to give him a piece of my mind, but I realized that if God dealt with me the way I was intending to deal with this man, I’d be dead by now. Way dead.

    Then I thought of the words of Peter, the Apostle, as he asked Jesus a poignant question:

     Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

    Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matt 18:21,22)

     While it might feel better to hold people accountable for their actions and to make them feel the weight of their transgressions by withholding your love or friendship, it’s not the right thing to do. And not just because it’s a principle in scripture. As I released my grip on my righteous indignation, I let go of the resentment I felt justified to carry along with me. Forgiveness, then, became more liberating to me than to its intended recipient.

    I have walked with people who hold close in their hearts a lifetime filled with resentment and bitterness toward those who have wronged them. Some of whom have been dead for decades. Their conversation is filled with stories and memories of the painful price of the human condition.

    I don’t want to live like that.

    So what will I say or do if I get burned twice by the same person?  It’s shame on me, I guess. But I’d rather live with the culturally-imposed, artificial shame, than the corrosive bitterness that unforgiving produces.

    When was the last time you chose to forgive someone?

     

  • 3 Questions You Should Ask Before Jumping into a New Business

    I have made a lot of mistakes in my business career. Thankfully, I have made some good choices that have paid big dividends and today I’m blessed to work with some amazing people as a part of a growing, dynamic company. But some mistakes still haunt me and I often like to share them with friends who are embarking in new, entrepreneurial waters. Recently I was talking with a friend who is assessing the possibility of buying an existing business or folding it into something he wants to do. I asked him to answer these 3 questions:

    1. Is this something I enjoy and have the aptitude to do? If it’s just about the money, you’ll eventually tire of the long hours and hard work it takes to make something successful. Also sometimes after a couple of very strong margaritas you might be tempted to start a business with your drinking buddy. Don’t do it. That seldom works. Not that I would know from personal experience, of course. Remember, every day you are doing something you don’t like is a day you give up in pursuing your dreams.

    2. Is this a business that can be managed better and produce more profit, or is this a fading business model that no matter how well it runs, it will never be profitable again? I would not want to run a newspaper even if you gave me one. It’s a difficult business. 75% of all newspapers in the country lost money last year. Those who didn’t have smaller margins than ever before and are staying afloat by shrinking their workforce and overhead. So don’t be lured by the idea of “getting in” cheap.  Because the “getting out” might just do you in.

    3. Do I really understand the risk?. No one starts or takes over a business with the intention of failing in it. Statistically most will not make it. Understand your “walk away” point and its total costs is an important exercise before jumping into any new venture.  You must realize that your total cost is more than just your initial cash and/or work equity. Walking away from a failed business can be crippling, including personal bankruptcy if you are a personal guarantor for the business debts. If failure means losing everything you have built, make sure you are willing to start over from scratch.

    What else would you add to this list?