Recently I met a consultant who described his business as an ‘organisational energy consultancy’. No they’re not into new bio fuels or anything like that. They have an outstanding record track record of influencing focused change in multi-national corporations. They say that certain leadership tasks are critical to energising an organisation.

These are:

• Creating energy – by being seen and giving out the right signals. Developing and supporting talent and building alliances
with key people.
• Providing purpose & direction – by lifting the sights, setting the tone and developing a great team aligned with each
other throughout the business.
• Priorities & warning signals – by becoming excellent at prioritising and being able to instinctively pick up on the warning
signs (and of course take actions to deal with these).

The question is, how well do you lift the sights of your organisation?

Do you have a clear picture of the future?

Do you talk about it to other ‘key’ people?

Do you draw a strong connection between your work and the positive impact it has?

On a scale of 1-10 (1 being low and 10 being very high) what level of energy are you demonstrating in your leadership role today?

And on a similar scale, what level of energy are you putting into your key business activities today?

And similarly, how do you see the energy input from those people you are there to inspire?

Energise your day by leading with passion in everything you do. Enjoy your energy and promote it!

Article by: Wendy Howard
Join me on www.twitter.com/wendyhoward & www.linkedin.com/in/spiritofvenus

10 Simple Tips To Help You Deal With Conflict

Tip No 1 – Remain calm. Often difficult to do, especially if you’re someone who’s not comfortable in dealing with conflict. Your pesence will be mirrored by the person you’re in conflict with, so if you get uptight, it’s likely to make them more uptight too.

Tip No 2 – Body Language. Check out your body language and position yourself in a confident stance, but not confrontational. By standing (or sitting, depending on the situation) slightly to one side of someone rather than facing them, you are putting yourself in a position of authority but not one of confrontation.

Tip No 3 – Gestures. We may not realise this but the slightest hand gestures or eye movements will be picked up and read by the person you are dealing with. These form a large part of the ‘unspoken’ messages being exchanged between conflicting parties.

Tip No 4 – Confidence. Use confidence boosting techniques to support your remaining calm and in a position of authority. There’s a lot to be said for ‘counting to 10′ before stepping into a difficult situation.

Tip No 5 – Personal Image. Often overlooked is how we physically present ourselves to others. How you dress, the clothing you wear, the colours you choose, your physical height, your build, your natural colouring – all give a message to the person you are dealing with. You can learn to use this to your advantage in conflicting situations. It’s very powerful and entirely subtle.

Tip No 6 – Emotional Intelligence. Develop your ‘emotional intelligence’ by understanding yourself on a deeper level. This allows you to recognise the emotions driving the behaviour and how you can learn to keep these in check while you deal with the situation. Always reflect back on what has happened and what you can learn from this.

Tip No 7 – Voice. The voice changes when we become agitated or annoyed. If we are fearful this will also show in our voice. Mastering voice control and pacing will help you to come across in a more authoritative manner. You will also lower your stress levels as you will feel in control.

Tip No 8 – Stress Management. You may feel very stressed when faced with having to deal with conflict at any level. Stress does have an immediate effect which can knock you completely sideways when it happens. However stress also has a long-term effect that manifests itself in sickness, anxiety, sleeplessness, weight gain/loss, and many other symptoms. Understanding stress, learning how to manage it and channel it positively, is extremely effective for both short and long-term health benefits.

Tip No 9 – Negotiation. Using good questionning techniques and having the ability to take the person through a step-by-step process to resolution is a key management skill. Practice open questions, probing questions and closed questions throughout the conversation as you work towards a desired resolution.

Tip No 10 – Preparation. Always prepare in advance of the meeting and look at a win/win situation for both parties. Make a list of the things you might be prepared to compromise on and those that you won’t. Have your ideal solution already worked out in mind prior to the meeting.

Have You Got What It Takes To Be A Winner?

I remember the first time I played a game of billiards and started out optimistic that as a sporty person I’d have some skill that might just allow me to be an instant winner at this ‘easy’ game. I messed up within a couple of minutes and handed over the game to my then boyfriend at the time (he had offered to teach me and had persuaded me to have a game with him). I watched as he went on to pot each ball without a second thought to my ever having a chance to join in the game again. I was slaughtered! I vowed never to play again let alone wonder why someone who’d offered to teach me the game in the first place should decide to wipe me out at my very first attempt. Maybe it was just to make him feel good – but that’s another story. Or was it more to do with the fact he’s male and I’m female?

That’s an interesting thought, as it’s often felt that men are more competitive than women as women lack the killer instinct which will enable them to win at all costs. Yet, research has shown that women like to compete just as much as men and they also want to win. It’s just that women experience the stress of competing differently from men. Dr Mariana Kaiseler, University of Derby says that ‘men are more stressed by outcomes; whether they win or lose. Getting the reward is their motivation.’ In contrast, women were more concerned with their performance. They come across as more task-oriented which is being more worried about getting there rather than actually winning’.

Also, men like to plan their winning approach whereas women are more likely to want to talk through their anxieties. This could be because women tend to be more co-operative and disclose their feelings a lot easier than men and are more ready to admit to their shortcomings. Men on the other hand don’t like to admit their weaknesses as they’ll likely be embarrassed having done so.

So how do you bring out your winning spirit? Use the following tips to bring out the winner in you:

Tip No.1

Overcome any negative thoughts. When they come up say ‘STOP’ and immediately replace the negative thought with a positive one such as ‘I’m great at winning.’

Tip No.2
Don’t let one mistake or set back ruin the rest of your day. See what has happened as a one-off and move on to look for ways to learn from the situation instead.

Tip No.3
Reflect on why you want to win. Is it to please someone else? Or is it a genuine desire to win for you? Sometimes the goals you think you’re striving for are not the actual goals your deep-self intend for you.

Tip No.4
It’s okay not to be perfect. Just accept you as you are and you’re going to be the best that you can be in this moment. Accept it!

Tip No.5
Use self-talk before and during the activity. Really gear yourself up by saying the most outrageous things about yourself such as ‘I am the greatest person ever to do this.’ Shout it out loud and believe it – Just make sure you’re out of earshot when you do it!

Article by: Wendy Howard, Spirit of Venus, www.spiritofvenus.co.uk & www.grow-training.com

Does Curiosity Diminish With Age?

Curiosity is the spirit of life which we all have as children. We start out wanting to learn about the world and everything new is bright shiny and exciting – albeit scary at times!

But as we get older there’s an inner battle that springs up between the anxiety of life and the curious spirit. We learn to conform and this in turn dampens down our instinct to explore. For instance, we stop asking questions because we’re afraid of getting it wrong and being ridiculed. We stop putting ourselves in positions where we feel uncomfortable or vulnerable.
It’s in the pursuit of security and comfort that we lose sight of what really drives us. It begins the day we start school! We’re trained to follow the rules and we stop listening to our natural curious instincts. We forget to ask ourselves what it is that excites us. We don’t allow ourselves to be motivated by our free spirit anymore.

Those who live with the greatest fear of the unknown, such as what to do should they lose their job tend to be less open and curious. This is known as ‘hyper-avoidance’ of distress. But by becoming curious about the situation it can actually lower the level of stress.

There’s an interesting study by Harvard University under taken by Ellen Langer designed to highlight how being curious can transform anxiety. She asked a group of volunteers to give unprepared random speeches to an audience. She assigned the students to one of three groups to undertake the study. The first group were told not to mistakes as mistakes are bad. The second group were told that should they make mistakes, then they would be forgiven. The third group on the other hand were told to actively incorporate deliberate mistakes into their presentation.

The findings were very interesting as it was the third group who not only felt more comfortable in front of their audience but the audience also rated them to be the most composed, effective and intelligent of the three groups. This experiment demonstrates that if we can shift our focus from what scares us to what interests us, then our inhibitions fall away because anxiety and desire are two sides of the same coin.
So does curiosity diminish with age?

Only if we let it! To take an entrepreneurial path it’s often necessary to go back and undo those early mind conditioning files that were planted at an early age. And then replace them with more supportive ‘open and curious’ files that allow our spirit to be free to create situations that we can learn and grow from.

Kick start the process by beginning to recognise the times when you start to feel uncomfortable. It’s these times that you have an opportunity to grow. Curiosity can be contagious too as the people around us begin to interact and take an interest in new things too. Time to get curious then!

Article by: Wendy Howard, Spirit of Venus, www.spiritofvenus.co.uk & www.grow-training.com

If you want to influence more, keep these in mind:

1: Want a favour? Then do a favour.
Generally, if you do someone a good turn they will want to return it. So offer to water the plants while your neighbour goes on holiday or look after their children for a couple of hours after school – then ask a favour in return.

2: We’re persuaded by people we like 
Who are you most likely to want to help if they ask you to? The person you like or the person who walks by without saying good morning? We put ourselves out for people we like. It’s a little bit strange this one as one study showed that waiters in restaurants were given a 20 percent more in tips if they gave diners additional mints with their coffee, while telling them what nice people they were.

3: Start small.
In other words don’t go in straight away and ask for them to look after you dog for a month while you go to sunny Florida. Similarly, when it comes to getting commitment from someone to do business with you, then ask them to do something small first such as completing a short survey to assess their needs and wants or by keeping to an arranged telephone call to answer questions. If someone isn’t prepared to do something small and keep to that arrangement, then they certainly won’t keep to any bigger arrangements either.

4: Use the Power Word!
The word you need to here is ‘YES’. When people are asked to opt-in or commit to something in writing then they are much more likely to turn up or do the good deed for you.

5: Group think.
We all like to know that other people are involved and to feel part of a group before committing ourselves. One survey on how we think in groups found that when one person was asked to stare at the stars in the sky, passers by ignored what he was doing. However, when a group of people were asked to look at the stars in the sky passers by began to notice and ask questions as to what they were doing. If most people decide on a particular course of action, we feel more comfortable doing it too.

6: Fear of Loss.
This is a great motivator to get people to take action as the fear of loss is very powerful. When we see bargains such as ‘when it’s gone it’s gone’ we tend to rush in and grab it. Similarly, if you were to ask your partner to take you on holiday to that wonderful hotel in the south of France or you’ll be very disappointed, then its likely they will buy into the idea of returning.

7: Denial is easier.
Just pointing out the consequences to someone without giving them the remedy rarely works. It’s a lot easier to deny its happening than it is to face up to any need to change. Warning someone about the consequences of drugs, alcohol, smoking or weight loss rarely works as when people are not given the remedy they will prefer to live in denial. Giving someone the information to join a weightloss programme or a stop smoking now group and leaving it for the person to sign in for themselves works much better.

8: Best and worst times for making decisions.
We make decisions all of the time and if we’re tired or stressed we can make a wrong decision very easily. Similarly, if we are feeling upset, angry, tearful, unhappy or any of those negative emotions we can make a mistake. If we’re happy and having fun with a crowd we can easily go forward with something that we will regret later. So become aware of your emotions when making decisions and take the time to think it through logically.

9: Because …
This is an interesting piece of research on people queuing up to use a photo-copier as when a stranger asked if they could jump the queue, only 60 percent of people agreed to this. However, when the stranger used the magic word ‘because’ and gave an explanation as to why they wanted to use the photocopier and jump the queue, 90 percent of people agreed to it. Strangely enough, people don’t even listen to the reason either!

So have fun using these and see what outcome you get compared to how you’d normally try to influence others.

To learn how to authentically sell go to www.grow-training.com
Article by: Wendy Howard, Spirit of Venus, www.spiritofvenus.co.uk & www.grow-training.com

According to a word of mouth legend, you can reach anyone else on the whole planet through a chain of only six people! Can you imagine how powerful that is for building your network!

So how does this work? Well let’s look at an example if for instance you wanted to reach the head of state for China then it might go something like this:

1. You give a novelty item to someone you know in the U.K. who perhaps does some international travel.
2. They send that novelty item to someone who’s living in China.
3. That person is intrigued and sends it on to someone else within China …
4. … who has a contact working in the Head of States office …
5. That person knows who is the personal P.A. to the Head of State in China …
6. … who gives it to them at during the morning break.

Very intriguing isn’t it?

So who is it that you want to make contact with who can help you do something amazing today?
Then it’s time to start your change of events using the six degrees of separation.

Article by: Wendy Howard, Spirit of Venus, www.spiritofvenus.co.uk & www.grow-training.com

Well are you? I’m sure if you’re a small business owner or in a career that you enjoy that yes, you will be passionate about what you do and how you help people. But … are you REALLY passionate enough?
What am I talking about?