Monthly Archives: January 2012

Learn New Skills- Organizational Effectiveness for Employees and Employers

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Learn New Skills- Organizational Effectiveness for Employees and Employers

Learn New Skills- Organizational Effectiveness Getting the High A

Learn New Skills- Organizational Effectiveness for Employees and Employers

Organizational Effectiveness-the real issue for both the employee and employer

“85% of all employees do not know what is expected of them.”  That my friend’s is the sad truth.

It’s 2012 and a New Year.  For employees: is it going to be just another year for you, or is it going to be a year of excelling at your job and getting ahead in your career?
For employers:  Is this going to be a top performing year for your company, or just another same old, same old, just like last year?

Organizational Effectiveness- the high A

Let’s take a different perspective on this subject.  I remember the good old days when I was a student.  Personally, I’ve never taken a class that provided a grade without asking the most important question upfront, on the first day of the class:  “What’s the high A?”  The second important question that follows up the first is:  what can I do for extra credits?

Here’s the wisdom behind the two most important questions you need answers to in school as well to at work if you want excel.  If you don’t know what you have to do to get the high A, you will inevitably come up short on the grade, or even miss the mark completely.  Conversely, if you know what you have to do to get the high A and you come up short, you have a safety valve from the second question you already asked: extra credits.

These strategies provide the following insight for you: first, you need to show the
teacher, in this case your boss, that you are interested in excelling and that you care about your performance.  And second, extra credit could be the buffer to move that needle one mark, to the high A and closer to above standard performance, keeping you in good standings for future growth and promotions at your job.

Organizational effectiveness- the high A at work

You should apply that exact same philosophy and strategies to work, the very first day you start in a new job, and here’s why.  If I know what’s expected of me, in this case the high A, I now have the framework for providing a standard of performance at or above expectations.  You have to know what is expected of you going into the job.  For those of you that that never found out the first day, well, today is the first day of your understanding about the high A and expectations.  So start today to know what’s expected of you.

Organizational Effectiveness-What great employees do:

  • Ask what it takes to get the high A
  • Ask for and use their job description to guide them to effectiveness
  • Request and review the performance review they will be measured by and then systematically excel at the components and metrics they are measured by
  • Ask their boss what they have to do to get promoted
  • Always ask if there are opportunities to learn and take classes and programs that improve your job skills and core discipline
  • Knowing about additional projects; the extra credits they can take on to support the company and their cause for advancing their careers and in getting the high A

Organizational Effectiveness-What great employers do:

  • Select good people and find ways to motivate them
  • Define clear specific expectations of each employee hired by providing a job
    description and annual performance review at date of hire
  • Praise and give recognition when a job is well done
  • Provide guidance and correction when mistakes happen- we call these teachable moments
  • Care for people and treat them the way they want to be treated, not the way you want to be treated
  • Set expectations that are clear and that use SMART goals- specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time framed
  • They use actions, words, examples and metaphors and vividness to share the mission of the company and the common purpose and goals they share together supporting a common cause
  • They use clarity as the anecdote of uncertainty

Organizational Effectiveness-get them emotionally involved

If your team comes to work looking to enjoy themselves, looking to be stretched, challenged, inspired, and to get involved, then you have a big chance of getting the very best out of them.

Four disturbing emotions for employees:

  • 1 bored- not engaged
  • 2 unfulfilled- enjoys acting on values
  • 3 frustrated- strengths not in sync
  • 4 drained- the job saps your energy

Organizational Effectiveness   Conclusion

Want organizational effectiveness?  Then remove these disturbing emotions for your employees by providing them with a chance to share in a bright future, treating them with respect and fairness and by informing
them of what is actually expected of them.

Want to excel at work?  Then learn was is expected of you and get that high A!!!

George Napoli is both an author: Be Thinkful©, as well as an entrepreneur having coached and trained thousands of employees and entrepreneurs in high level skill sets in Leadership, Six Sigma, Management Training and a wide range of high level- life changing skill sets like thinking, creativity and innovation and change.  I hold Masters Certificates in Human Resource Development, Strategic Organizational Leadership and a Master Black Belt in Six Sigma, all from Villanova University.

This post is property of Learn New Skills Blog.  You may reproduce this post only in its entirety, including resource information and maintaining active links.

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New Skills Development Strategies- Innovation And Destiny Part 2

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New skills innovation can change your destiny

New Skills / Innovation starts with a ripple

New Skills Development Strategies-

Innovation Can Change Your Destiny-Life’s Path

The last post laid the groundwork for understanding what innovation is as well as what destiny means.  Here are some specific strategies and techniques that will support your innovation efforts, and hopefully innovation can change your destiny or life’s path as well.

New skills-individuality

Who cares what other people say. Follow the melody of your own song. Allowing for the input of other people will only bring static to the music you are trying to make. If you have an original idea, the key is to be able to get others to understand and accept your ideas.  Don’t get side tracked when you get any negative feedback. If all those geniuses listened to their peers, we would probably still be living on horses.

New skills-be committed to innovation

Spend time on any new skill. I cannot stress this enough, although, please do not mistake this tip to tell you to quit your day job entirely.  This involves some tricky time management, but with a little discipline, you’ll be able to squeeze both in.  “Whatever you give energy to grows”!!!!  This is both good and bad, here’s why.

If you ever had a problem or even a desire to lose weight here is what happens.  The more you think about your problem, or the more you think about a diet, the more significance you place on it and that is not always good.  So when it comes to anything other than innovation, give problems their due time, give diets their due time, but, if you dwell and give either of these two examples too much mental attention, all you are doing is constantly thinking about food.  And, food is the last thing you want to think about when you are n a diet.  Give
problems sufficient time and let them be or you will wonder why you seem down.  Sure, give diets time and give your problems time, but do NOT give it too much mental energy…it will grow and manifest into something bigger than it may be.

New skills-three effective strategies

1  Physical workouts. Take a walk. Run a mile or two. Send all those endorphins running through your veins. Exercising certainly clears and relaxes your mind and allows for anything to pop up.  This is how you begin to find the creative genius within.  Compare this to giving something too much mental energy and you will notice, it is the exact opposite of it.  Quit thinking about it and let it incubate by doing something physical where you clear your mind.  The right answers and solutions will come from the subconscious.

2 Keep track of those dreams. Aren’t some of them just the craziest things that your conscious mind would never have thought of?  If you’ve had these dreams before, and I’m sure you have, this only shows you the untapped innovative power you have lying within. So jot down those notes. Those dreams may just create an innovative spark in you.  Script your dreams before you fall asleep.  It may spark the right environment on what you may want to dream about.

3 Determine your unique style. You can always tell a Van Gogh from a Matisse. You’ll know Shakespeare wrote something by the choice of words on the paper. So it is the same with you. People will appreciate your innovation more because it is uniquely yours and that no one else would have thought of what you were thinking. That will let people see how valuable an asset you are.

Don’t hide behind nifty gadgets, tools or shiny buttons. You don’t need the most expensive set of paints to produce a masterpiece. The same applies to writing. You don’t need some expensive fountain pen and really smooth paper for a bestseller. In fact, J.K. Rowling wrote the first book of the Harry Potter Series on bits of tissue. So what if you’ve got an expensive Camcorder and you can’t begin to figure out how to use the essential features to make great movies.  The artist actually reduces the number of tools he has as he gets better at his craft: he knows what works and what doesn’t.

Learn new skills-where to look for answers and solution: what to think about

  • Nothing will work without passion.
  • What wakes you up in the mornings?
  • What keeps the flame burning?
  • What is the one thing that you’ll die if you don’t do?
  • What do you do better than others
  • What do you see as something you wished you could buy
  • What one thing can you fix or improve
  • If you had the money to change something…

Sometimes people with talent are overtaken by the people who want it more. Think the hare and the tortoise. Ellen Degeneres once said that if you’re not doing something that you want to do, then you don’t really want to do it. And that’s true. Sometimes you just want something so bad you become a virtually unstoppable. And that is passion. Passion will keep you going.

Don’t fret the small stuff-inspiration. You can’t force it; inspiration hits when you
least expect it.  For those unpredictable yet inevitable moments you should prepare. An idea could strike you on the subway, and, you poor unfortunate soul; you have no sheet of paper to scribble down a thought that could change the world. Avoid these disasters. You always have your phone with you.  Send yourself an email note.

New skill- the essential 4 components to effective innovation:

1 Finding the pain- defining the problem

2 Research and development

3 have an effective innovation strategy and model as a check list for effectiveness

The new skills that make up the skill set required to be a great innovator:

  • develop your creative prowess
  • become a better problem solver
  • you need to be a great thinker and decision maker
  • you needto be able to get people to understand and accept your ideas

Notice…I mean really take note of the tools and skill sets required to be a great
innovator.  Innovation starts at the development process.  The key is to develop these skills so you can be a better innovator. Remember, innovation and improvement is a constant process. Think about your job or business. You get hired or start a business, learn the position or how to market the business, grow these opportunities: then and only then can you start to influence the company from the position you are in, or grow the business to the next level.  The proverbial learning curve.

The same is true of the innovation process.  It starts with developing from where you are through a specific set of steps in sequence, through to the final step which is breakthrough thinking.  With the right skills and tools you can easily
improve your innovation techniques!

I hope this post helps you bring more innovation into your life. Keep in mind that you’re doing these things for your own satisfaction and not anybody else’s. But soon enough they will noticed, and if you’re good at innovating, you will see the starts of what I call “the ripple effect”.  Everything should start to build from this effect…and while a tsunami may not occur from the ripple effect, the longer you keep those ripples rippling (if that’s even a word) and it will in fact grow beyond your wildest dreams.  And that my good listener’s is how you change your life, your destiny and your life’s path.

If you want to learn new skills to innovate and change your life, pick a copy of our Be Thinkful E-book on sale now.  We bring all the high level skills you need to innovate, become more creative and become a better problem solver-most important of them all: influence and persuasion where you get others to understand and accept your ideas.  Our chapter on innovation and change gives you that strategy and sequence model in one place, along with the other skill sets required for innovation.  A skill set that can change your life!!!!

  • New skills to learn about:great thinking
  • problem solving
  • decision making
  • innovation and change
  • influence and persuasion

All the skills that make up the complete skill set at http://www.bethinkful.com/.  I must say it is one of my best efforts when it comes to info books so far.  It’s on
sale now for $7.95 and comes with a free E-Book called Abundant Thinking….  Here’s a PS.

PS.  All great leaders today have an abundance mentality and the poor manager or business owner has a scarcity mentality. Do you know the difference?  Let me know your thoughts and I will tell you my version of the difference.  The difference between them could be the difference between wanna be’s and rising stars and fast tracking-top performers.

If you like what you read, pass it along and share it with friends.  Thank you, and here’s to a healthy and prosperous New Year to us all- from Learn New Skills Blog.

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New Skills Development Strategies Innovation Can Change Your Destiny-Life’s Path

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New Skills Development Strategies

Innovation Can Change Your Destiny-Life’s Path Or Help You Become A Fast Tracker In Your Carrers Or Business

New Skills- Innovation Can Change Your Destiny- Life's Path

New Skills- Innovation Can Change Your Destiny- Life's Path

New skills development strategies-  what’s in this title?

Besides some  great insight on innovation, we also use the term destiny for those listeners  that believe “destiny prevails, ”and for those doubters that believe destiny does  not exist let alone prevail,  we use the  term life’s path as the meaning behind destiny.

New skills -defining innovation

What is innovation? According to Merriam-Webster, innovation is:

Main Entry:   in•no•va•tion: noun

1 : the  introduction of something new

2 : a new  idea, method or device

New skills –innovation quote

 “Without change there is no innovation,  creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a  better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”- William Pollard

New Skills- what is destiny noun/

1.The events  that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future.

2.The hidden  power believed to control what will happen in the future; fate.

New skills destiny quote

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It  is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be  achieved.” –  William Jennings Bryan quotes

New skills- a new year

With the New  Year and the birth of 2012, most people view the holiday as a reflective  period, as they transition into a New Year.   The New Year for most people is about stopping or quitting something  they don’t like and want to change about themselves, or it’s the creation of promises  for an improved and better you.

So let’s  look at this subject as a way to potentially make 2012 not only a great year,  but potentially one that will change your life, your so called destiny and life’s path.

New skills innovation, change and creativity

You can’t  talk about innovation without talking about change and creativity.  At the core of innovation lies the need for  improvement.  That’s where the change
comes in.  At the core of innovation lies  creativity.  Creativity is clearly the
catalyst for change, innovation and improvement.

But  innovation is not about stopping smoking, quitting biting your nails or a way to  support the promises we make to ourselves in the form of resolutions.  So keep reading to learn more about what we  mean when we say:  innovation and change  your destiny and life’s path.

To do that,  we need to dial in a little deeper into innovation, sometimes referred to as an idea.  An idea is useful only to the inventor unless it is offered to the public. If the idea improves some product, process or service for the public, then that idea transforms into an innovation.

An innovation can be big or small. Brand-new, or just a bit different: it doesn’t
matter. An innovation can be clearly complex or seemingly simple.  Innovations are often thought of in terms of technical achievement, but can also be a design or process improvement: how you do things. A new product idea, something that solves a problem for example.  The type, industry and style of innovation are irrelevant:  an innovation’s impact determines its qualification.

By now, you are probably asking, innovate, me changing my life, my destiny by innovating.  I don’t see it, or this isn’t me.  And hey, by the way, how many people really develop breakthrough innovations that can change their lives anyway?

OK, I can agree with these truths about true breakthrough innovation, but let’s go a little further to get our arms around innovation as a basic skill set that can
work for you before we move on looking for the next quick fix or shiny push
buttons that just don’t exist.  Along the way I will also show you how to innovate at work to grow personally and professionally…maybe even get you promoted by being seen as a Fast Tracker and go to person.

New skills- and three types of innovation

  1. Sustaining innovation- these are incremental variations, small and minor changes to a theme or project
  2. Breakout  innovation- those that significantly increase the level of play with an existing category.
  3. Disruptive innovation-something just short of break through innovation: yet large enough to cause a disruption to the current way of doing things

New skills-one simple action can change your life and your business-my personal story as an example.

So I’m playing golf on a really hot afternoon: mid 90’s and I can’t seem to drink enough water.  I’m in the middle of a sand trap 165 yards from the green when I look down and see a putter in my hand.  If you’re not a golfer, you may not realize that as a big problem, since a putter is used for short distances and rolling the balls on greens.

So now I realize I am probably dehydrated.  I get through the round and start thinking about how I can drink more water to avoid this problem in the future.  Everyone knows water is bland and not really fun to drink.  But when I think back to times when drinking it was easy, I remember the tastes and flavors of water that some eateries served:  lemon water, cucumber water,
even basil water.

Next was my AHA moment when I realized the common denominators were all flavors.  To make a long story short, I jumped both feet into the world of flavoring and developed the first natural flavor drops to enhance the taste of water specifically then on to tea, coffee and dairy products.

The brand is Yum Drops Flavoring and it is now the number 1 natural flavor concentrate and flavor drop on the internet, with over 50 flavors, serving 23 countries and with 165 sales affiliates.  True story and a real life example of how innovation can change your life and affect your life’s path and with some mental energy and diligence, you can do the same.  It surely changed mine.  Check out my innovation at www.yumdropsflavoring.com

New skills-the power of innovation

Innovation is actually an inherent talent.  That means everyone has it.  Surprisingly many of us don’t think we have this skill.  Let’s look at the power of innovation.  If you’ve ever marveled at somebody’s creative prowess, guess what, you can create and innovate too. It just takes time. Everyone is born creative. The box of crayons in kindergarten was not limited to those who possessed potential; because the truth is, everybody has potential.

You know how long it took to learn to ride a bike, or drive, or to never commit the same mistake again? It’s the same with innovation. It takes some practice and a lot of time before this skill set comes easily-when you want it, at the snap of a finger.

“A single harmless snow flake can cause an avalanche.”

Our next  post will teach you the keys to innovate and once you have them, you can open  the doors to them anytime you want, in any area of your life: work, play,  whatever.  Along with that, I will even give you the insight and strategies to make 2012 a year of innovation, improvement and change, so that even you can in fact: change your life.  Innovation can change your life

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Learn New Skills And The New Year!

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Learn New Skills-Happy New Year

Learn New Skills-Happy New Year

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a quick Happy New Year.  We close one door and open a new one.  And what we will find out as time passes on is…”the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

In the next couple of days I will release a new post titled:

“Innovation Can Change Your Destiny-Life’s Path “

I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the New Year than with this subject and storyline.  I mean c’mon, destiny, innovation, improvement, change and creativity all bundled up in one posting.

I will review the insight behind innovation and show you in a true story how it can impact your life’s path, and destiny….it did mine!!!  You won’t want to miss it.

Before I close, I thought you might like to see what the world is interested in on this New Years Day.  For example, diets and dieting will be the number keyword search for this week online…hmmm…wonder why?  My guess, Christmas cookies, holiday treats…and three to many glasses of your favorite beverage of choice.

Here are the top 10 trends for the New Year:

Hot Searches   (USA)

1.          dick clark

2.          new years eve ball drop

3.          yellow cab

4.          japan earthquake

5.          andrew bynum

6.          mayan calendar

7.          december 21 2012

8.          ryan seacrest

9.          bosom buddies

10.          jenny mccarthy

Wishing you good health and good prosperity in the New Year.

Regards,

George Napoli

 

 

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