Creating Your Future

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Balancing stability with the need for innovation is a key obligation for leaders. The sustainability of your business depends on finding a suitable equilibrium. Stability pays the bills, relying on structure and standard procedures to boost productivity and ensure high quality that increases reliability and reduces risk. But another consequence of this conformity is the cultivation of bureaucracy that breeds fear of failure, compromising innovation and resulting in a drift towards …

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Growth Is About Progress

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet You may believe that your business is not changing but is that true for your customers? How do you know? How will changes they are experiencing impact your business? Contributing to a customer’s growth is the most sustainable means of building enduring relationships that help your business thrive. Growth is about progress, and progress requires navigating change to succeed now and in the future. Change cultivates innovation, which then enables progress. …

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Speaking to Persuade

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet It requires empathy to convince someone that your stance on an issue is worthy. We tend to communicate messages the way we like to hear them, without realizing how our listener might hear them. As a result, messages are often not understood as intended. Asking the other person to explain first, and listening for how they try to persuade you, provides clues about how they interpret what they hear from you. …

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What Drives Customer Loyalty

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Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet Surveys assessing business-to-business customer loyalty, measured as increased sales per customer over multiple years, consistently cite “selling experience” as the primary driver with a response rate that exceeds 50%; a “lowest price” response typically receives about a 10% rate. Additional response choices include better products or services, brand familiarity, higher performance than competitors, and others. When seeking to explain how “selling experience” creates this positive impact, it becomes clear that the …

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3 Core Values of Exceptional Leaders

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        Leaders are judged to be genuine when their actions are guided by their personal core values. These three values are particularly relevant for leaders who seek to be exceptional: Accountability. When there is a problem, accountable leaders look first to themselves. They accept responsibility for the consequences of their decisions. They credit their team when things go well, and when problems arise, accept the responsibility rather than blaming the team. When encouraging autonomy, these leaders …

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The Law of Thirds

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet One of the laws governing change initiatives states that those impacted by a change separate into three groups. One third of the group will immediately support the change. They are the spark that launches it and the energy that sustains it. They ask, “what if?” or “why?” and they’re the first to volunteer with an eager, “I’ll do it.” They are generous with their time and talent, putting in more than …

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3 Behaviors That Reveal Leadership Credibility

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  When asked in several studies how they judge a leader, employees cite attributes like vision, experience, communication skills and others; but consistently, the dominant response is credibility. When pressed to define “credibility,” people typically reply with a phrase like: “they walk the talk.” The consistency with which a leader’s actions align with his or her words defines leadership credibility. These 3 behaviors reveal how consistently you act in accordance with your words and values: 1. How you spend your …

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What is Discretionary Effort Worth?

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When a qualified person does the job – completing obligations and achieving assigned goals with expected behavior, we recognize this as acceptable performance. But when a person contributes more than the common standard, more than what’s expected, that’s discretionary effort. While it can be a bit rare, leaders realize that inspiring this additional energy from those they lead is what makes change possible. If leaders cannot drive productive change that improves results, …

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Inspiring Change

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Improving results means tackling change. Change is hard work, demanding commitment, perseverance and discretionary effort.   Only the people in a business can change it, and they will invest their talent and energy to do so if they believe that their actions will make a difference. Commitment, perseverance and discretionary effort cannot be commanded…they must be inspired. Inspiration is possible when people believe that their work is meaningful, a realization that springs from an appreciation that their leaders …

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Is This Business Sustainable?

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Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet There are a multitude of models used to assess the sustainability of a business. Most evaluate strategy, performance, market growth potential, customer retention probability, governance and the management of human resources. In a dynamic, competitive market, where customers believe they can find all they need on the internet, and where a competitive advantage built on technology cannot long be sustained, it’s an organization’s culture and people that constitute its most …

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