Make the Connection: Companies, Colleagues and Customers
February 22, 2011 by Joyce Richman · Comments Off
Companies have more turnover than they’d like and are working hard to slow down outbound traffic. Many are discovering the potential of Mentor Programs and want to know how to get started. If you’re one of them and would like some basic information, read on.
Mentor Programs serve the needs of three primary constituencies: companies, colleagues and customers.
The company benefits from employees improving their individual and team performance, knowledge sharing, leadership potential, employee satisfaction, and continuity in vision and direction.
Colleagues benefit by working with individuals who are more committed to competing against the competition than each other and more savvy to the company culture through better access to positive role models.
The customer benefits when working with employees who can better serve their needs.
Mentoring requires time, trust and top leadership’s long term commitment to make it work.
We believe in building up and not tearing down. We are outcome driven. We want to succeed for ourselves, for each other, for the company and the customer we serve.
If you are interested in developing a successful and sustaining mentoring program at your organization, you’ll need the following:
- Strong and committed buy in from the highest levels of the organization.
- A leadership team that enthusiastically communicates its commitment to every level of the organization because anything less isn’t good enough.
- Clear guidelines that outline and describe what it takes to be a capable, credible mentor.
What does it take?
Honesty and trustworthiness. Honest mentors provide constructive, useful, timely, and appropriate feedback. Trustworthy mentors seek to do no harm.
The patience to listen fully. Mentors allow the process to unfold, ask the right questions, and let the mentee find the solution.
The ability to create interdependent relationships that promise only what can reasonably be delivered when two intelligent people work for a common purpose.
The character strength to keep shared information confidential; to provide additional resources when there are no clear answers, and to refer to others who are subject matter experts.
A mentor is non judgmental and principled; insightful about people and analytic about tasks.
Mentors see their role as an honor and responsibility that accompanies their positions of authority and seniority.
Mentors are as successful as their mentees perceive them to be.
Therefore, It’s essential that both players know their roles, goals, and how the game is played. Some mentees come to the table knowing their strengths, skills sets, and developmental needs. They know what they want, why they want it and what they’re willing to do to get it. Some don’t have a clue.
Bottom line: What they get from the collaboration will be in direct proportion to what they put into it.
Successful mentees ask the right questions and expect candid, constructive feedback in return. They’re open to different perspectives and act responsibly on what they hear. They separate facts from feelings, and act on the former while owning the latter.
Mentoring programs face many challenges. Once begun, there’s no “go to” person who keeps them on track or heading in the right direction. There are no quantifiable ways to measure outcomes, no end points that are fixed in time. How do you measure success? One person at a time.
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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:
Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.
Riding the Career Roller Coaster
February 15, 2011 by Joyce Richman · Comments Off
Ellie (not her name) needs a mountain to climb and she doesn’t have one.
What’s her story? She gets her kicks from challenges. The bigger the stretch, the greater the risk, the more exhilarated she feels. Right now she’s feeling as empty as her horizon is flat. She doesn’t have a mountain to climb.
She joined her company over 20 years ago, fresh out of college with a degree no one wanted. She was part of the new migration; graduates grazing on whatever was available, grateful for what they could get, having launched themselves when energy, enthusiasm, and opportunity were in short supply.
Ellie started out as a temp, then an administrative assistant in the marketing department of a large financial services organization. She had more time than work to keep her busy, so she improvised. She created internal newsletters, organized seminars, and did whatever she could to crank up morale. She was a resounding, although underpaid, success.
She capitalized on her ability to intuitively understand what was needed without knowing why; followed her hunches, backed them up with drive and determination, and quickly rose through the ranks.
She’s now in the executive suite of a Fortune 50 company. Her office walls bear testimony to her accomplishments. She’s been profiled in business magazines and touted in the popular press. With each substantive success has come an exhilaration that was immediately followed by depression. She has literally been up one side and down the other.
Ellie’s burning out. She wants something more and something less in her life and she doesn’t have a clue what one or the other would look like. Her lights are flickering and she’s scared they’ll go out.
You may not have had the soaring success of someone like Ellie, but I bet you know the roller coaster feelings she’s had to deal with:
It’s the start of a project and you’re on a high. You’re creating, designing, collaborating on ideas with like-minded people all filled with positive expectations and the rush of “anything’s possible”. As the project takes shape and design gives way to process, your energy and desire begins to sag. Details put you in the doldrums. You feel frustration and agitation with the project you once loved. You’re over it. If you’re lucky you can hand it off to the people who love implementation. If they’re lucky, they hand it off to the people who love to maintain. Lucky or not, one thing is for sure; you’re ready for the next challenge.
When it’s early in your career, the projects and opportunities keep coming. You find the action and put yourself in the middle of it. With every success (and you’re too afraid of failing not to succeed) comes another challenge, another mountain to climb. You’re no longer in the middle of the fray; you’re leading the charge. You’re moving up, into thin air, where everyone can see you. Still, you are compelled to do more. Then you reach the place where grabbing the next rung means stretching farther than you like, risking more than you like, and despite yourself, you’re beginning to question, “is it still worth it?”
Ellie knows that she loves challenge. What she’s forgotten is that she needs the comraderie of like minded people as she grapples with it.
Ellie loves recognition (promotions, salary increases) that comes from attaining her goals. What she’s forgotten is the higher you go the more alone you get. What she needs the most and has the least of is a sense of community with whom she can share the excitement.
She’s decided to step away from the applause, adulation and isolation of a one woman high wire act. She’s going to start over with people she likes, doing work that matters. She’ll take on a challenge that others won’t, not because they can’t, but because she values the outcome enough to try.
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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:
Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.
Questions: The Customer is Always…?
February 8, 2011 by Joyce Richman · Comments Off
Q: How does a retailer, operating a very legitimate business, protect his/her company from misguided customers who are very clearly inappropriate in their demands and yet threaten all types of exposure and legal measures to get their way? Seems to me that this is a form of extortion… the customer isn’t always right!
A: I asked several local retailers their take on the subject and received a variety of responses from them. Here’s a sampling:
“It’s important that the store establish clear return policies, that all sales associates are aware of those policies and that all customers are treated equally. Management has to have back bone and not roll over when dealing with particularly difficult customers.”
Another storeowner suggests that you “find out what the customer really wants, which can be different from what they first tell you. There’s usually room to negotiate. When there’s not, you have to assess your risk. If what you’ll lose is greater than what you’ll gain, fold.”
A reaction that got my attention was the store manager who said, “if I’ve done all that is reasonable and acceptable and the customer begins to threaten me, I call over a sales associate to witnesses and document the encounter. I ask the customer to review the report and sign it as a fair and accurate representation of what has been said, which I then turn over to our company attorney. When the customer sees that strong-arm tactics don’t intimidate me, he or she usually backs off. We have a loyal following of customers who do repeat business with us, so what I’m describing is a highly unusual occurrence. But when it does happen, we’re ready.”
Here are a few responses that take us in a totally different direction:
“If sales and service associates and their managers were to handle the situation better at the outset it wouldn’t escalate to the point that the store owner would have to enter the fray.”
And this from a sales person: “We follow the rules that we’ve been given and don’t give in to customers whose requests are totally out of line. What typically happens is that the customer gets angry and wants to talk to the manager. The manager comes over and gives in. That makes us look bad in the eyes of the customer. No wonder they pitch a fit; they know some higher up is going to give in to them.”
The majority indicated that there has to be give and take on the part of both the retailer and the customer so that each can feel whole, or at least not harmed, as a result of a difficult exchange.
As anyone who works with the public knows, there are a wide variety of customers to serve. Most are pleasant, honest people who treat others with respect and want the same in return. Some are not so pleasant or honest, and that’s how it goes. If retail sales and service is the job you’ve signed on to do, it’s up to you to figure out how to deal appropriately with all your customers, not just the ones you like.
In all likelihood, you’ll receive training on the basics of the product you sell. If you need more help, ask for it. It’s less likely you’ll be taught the rules of good customer and quality service. Your boss will probably assume you have the good manners and good sense to relate to all customers in ways that are responsible and appropriate.
You’re paid to determine your customer’s needs, to match your product to that need, and to follow through with service that encourages the customer to buy again and often, and to bring friends with money.
Your effectiveness and success is based upon more than product and pricing knowledge. It’s determined by your ability to connect emotionally and intelligently with the customer. To do it all, takes attention and desire. In other words, you’ve got to care. If you don’t, the consuming public would rather you do something else with your professional life.
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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:
Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.
Deer in the headlights
February 1, 2011 by Joyce Richman · Comments Off
Q: “I’m in my mid-forties. By now you’d think I’d have figured out how to get a job, but I’m still a deer in the headlights when it comes to interviewing. I review study guides, memorize websites, and I practice. I practice in front of the mirror, when I’m walking my dog, even on my commute to work. I think I’m ready, I go on the interview, and I feel like I did when I was in high school; frozen stiff while staring numbly at an expectant teacher, five essay questions, and 10 empty blue books. How can I get better at this?
A: We could dig deep for the root cause of your test taking terrors or focus forward and come up with a better way for you to prepare and present. I’m all for going forward, so here’s the good news: you’re older now and wiser. You’ve had plenty of life and work experience. You’ve been in jams and gotten out of them. You’ve succeeded and failed and succeeded again. You know that when you’re at your best you focus on what’s do best and enjoy most. That’s what you should bring to the employer’s table.
Employers aren’t grading you based upon what they know. They’re evaluating your fitness for their position based upon what you tell them you know. They want a match between what they need and what you provide. They’ll ask you questions about what you do and how you think; questions that ask you to respond in ways that are candid, decisive, and descriptive for you, not them. There are no right or wrong answers. Answer them as you are, not as you wish you were or as others wish you to be.
Practice for real, not for pretend. Employers won’t ask you to interview in a mirror, while walking a dog, or driving a car, so don’t rehearse that way. Practice with people willing to ask you questions and give you honest feedback. They don’t have to be professional interviewers; they just need to ask open-ended questions that cause you to think before responding. Here are some examples: Tell me about yourself. Why are you interested in working for us? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Why do you think you’re qualified for this job? How does this job fit into your career goals?
After each role-play, ask for candid feedback: What am I doing well and what might I do differently? When did my answers make sense and when did I go off track? When did I seem most confident and when did I lose my stride? Why would you offer me the job and why wouldn’t you?
Then make the necessary changes and adjustments in your reactions and responses, and do it again. Practice with a new partner, ask for feedback, adjust, and do it again. You’ll know when you’re ready for prime time.
Q: “I’m a real good talker. I’m not getting any job offers and my wife says it’s because I talk more than I listen. I hate to admit it but she’s probably right. Here’s my problem: I know what I’m talking about which is why I need to talk about it. If I don’t, how can I convince the interviewer I’m right for the job?”
A: Interviewers want to know what you think after they’ve had an opportunity to tell you what they want you to know. If you don’t listen to them and you don’t integrate their message into your response, they’ll think you can’t or you won’t. Manage your exuberance, exercise patience, pay attention to what they’re saying so when you do talk, they’ll listen.
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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:
Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.
