Grolistic

3 Tips to Move Faster

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It often feels like time is accelerating. The internet enables the rapid gathering of information needed to guide decisions. The period for new product exclusivity continues to shrink, shortening the investment payback time. Customers must react ever faster to competitive threats, causing you to continuously enhance the value you produce to help them succeed and to sustain your business. How can your business move faster? How can you become more efficient? How can you get …

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The Subjectivity of Sustainable Change

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Leaders are expected to be positive change agents that improve performance. And the performance enhancements produced by their change initiatives are expected to be sustainable. Properly mixing two ingredients produces sustained, transformational change. Much of the information involved in a change initiative is factual and objective, all of it observable and measurable. But change involves motivating people to challenge precedent and to move in a different direction. To be successful, it must address shared perceptions …

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The Power of Advantage

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In our connected economy, determine your competitive advantage – what you own in the market. Then, invest your heart, mind and energy on leveraging your advantage to produce value for customers, dominate competitors and grow your business. If your advantage is trust, keep the promises that make you trustworthy. If your advantage is knowledge, focus on getting smarter. If your advantage is relationships, invest most of your time networking. If your advantage is being innovative, sustain your …

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Autonomy Defeats Mediocrity

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When an employee reliably manages priorities and achieves goals, and consistently demonstrates an understanding about the Company’s purpose and values, leaders want to make it easier for that person to operate more autonomously. Autonomy is a proven motivator, and it liberates time for the leader. Autonomy defeats mediocrity and improves results. Our basic nature is to be self-directed. Autonomy enables us to exercise some control over our lives; it’s empowering because the employee is making …

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Accelerating Proposal Acceptance

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Customers can’t always describe what they want. Problems and barriers can be explained, but most often, solutions are not easily forthcoming. Implementing a solution requires change, and it can be challenging for customers to abandon precedent and envision a solution that changes their current process. But sustaining competitive advantage obliges a business to realize that their current process is always their most challenging competition. Continuous improvement and innovation can be risky, but must be pursued …

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3 Abilities That Enable Culture to Increase Performance

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When you are hiring a new person, or promoting one, that individual must have the personal characteristics to help the company achieve its goals. To be successful, the person under consideration must also be a good fit with your organization’s culture. In fact, knowing your culture, being able to describe it, is what enables your evaluation of whether an individual has the “right” qualities to succeed in your business. When skillfully managed, culture can be …

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Technology vs. Accountability

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Increasingly, we rely on technology in our lives. We need it to compete. We need it to optimize the use of our time. Some have become addicted to it, disabling their human interactions. But despite our best efforts, technology cannot replace personal accountability. Humans are clever. We’re always looking for the next tool to simplify our lives. Some hope that technology will solve all their problems. We await the new pill that allows us to …

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3 Reasons Why Integrity Produces Profit

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We celebrated Memorial Day this week, and it caused me to reflect on, and be thankful for, those among us who are so committed to what they value that they are willing to risk their lives in defense of the rest of us. In the business world, there’s a core value that more than any other, compels individuals to deeply commit on a personal level. Whether your values include exceptional customer service, initiative, quality, innovation …

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3 Tips to Elevate Team Performance

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Teams can become stale over time, losing their drive to elevate performance and improve results. Some team members drift towards doing the tasks that they always do because they’ve proven that they can do them well. Others become bored doing the same tasks; they want more of a challenge. Best-selling business and motivation author, Daniel Pink, offers 3 tips to elevate team performance. These 3 points can rejuvenate the team, refresh their purpose and lead …

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Is It Better To Discover or Provoke?

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Customers are busy. There are many times when a customer may not be certain about what they want to achieve. They may have a sense of their goals and why they are important, but often, they have not yet validated their thinking, quantified their targets or determined how they will evaluate alternatives. What kinds of questions are most effective in compelling customers to focus on these issues and crystallize their thoughts? Which questions can transform a sales …

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