Posts in Business Coaching

Are people wasting your time?

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What do you do if a speaker goes over their allotted time? ⏲

How valuable is your time? What do you think about people that abuse it? What if they’re a speaker/presenter?

In my mind, one sign of a professional speaker is that they stick to their time window, even if that window changes at the last minute.

Those that can’t, in my mind, are unprofessional.

Last night, I attended a monthly meeting with a professional association. Every meeting has a keynote speaker and this one was no different. Normally, the speakers keep to their time — last night was different.

The meeting ends at 8 pm, which means the speaker should finish by 7:45 or so for questions and close out.

At 7:58, the speaker looked at his watch (was about halfway through his presentation), and said, “I’ll hurry up and finish up, since I’m out of time.” He finished and asked for questions at 8:30 pm!

For me, I lost interest in his subject at about 7:50 pm and I stopped listening altogether when he realized he was taking too long and refused to care. The way I look at it, he felt his material was more important than the time of the 60 or so people in the audience.

What are your thoughts?

Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com

Distracted Much?

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🤦‍♂️ Do you get easily distracted from work? 🐶🐱

Our new kitten likes someone to be in the room when it eats. Otherwise, it wants to be wherever you are playing. It’ll get back to the food, eventually, but by that time, the Cleaning Service (aka dogs) will have taken care of the issue.

So, I locked our kitten in the bathroom with me as I got ready for the day. However, distractions loom around every corner for this little kitten. Not sure if the dog wants to play with the cat, be with me, or clean up the leftovers, but both of us became distracted!

Are you easily distracted from the task at hand?

What distracts you? Phone calls? Text messages? Emails? The kitten walking on your keyboard? 🐈

www.crossctr.com

Steps to Writing & Publishing a Book

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Interested in writing & publishing a book? Don’t know where or how to get started?

Successfully writing & publishing is much like starting a new business. The steps are essentially the same and having a plan & a coach really helps.

Many people think that publishing is expensive and difficult, but you can publish for very little money. It does require a lot if work to do it right. Here are my suggested 13 high-level steps to get you there:

1. Define your Purpose for writing.
2. Assess if you are ready to write & what you can write about.
3. Define the Audience.
4. Determine how you plan on writing your book (ways to get it written).
5. Ideation, research, brainstorming, and testing.
6. Outline.
7. Draft – edit – draft – edit – draft – edit – final draft.
8. Publishing determinations.
9. Cover design (and illustrations if required).
10. Draft reviewers and Foreword.
11. Pre-release marketing.
12. Format, Publish, and Release.
13. Post-release marketing.

If you are interested in writing & would like help, let me know.
Crosscutter Enterprises

Forbes Expert Panel — Diversity

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Seven Ways Leaders Can Encourage Diversity In The Workplace

❓ How is Diversity best defined?

❓ What are the benefits?

For a business to be able to have a diverse workplace, companies must address these questions and more.

I’m proud to be featured again on Forbes through the Forbes Coaches Council! Twice in one week — I must be doing something right?!?

I provided the sixth method: Be Constant And Consistent With Education!

Diversity—and inclusion, because you can have a diverse work center and not include everyone—starts with solid, constant and consistent education. This is not one training class and an annual refresher online. This is purposeful diversity and inclusion leadership growth—it should start before the individual becomes a leader and they should grow and build over time. – John Knotts, Crosscutter Enterprises

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/06/28/seven-ways-leaders-can-encourage-diversity-in-the-workplace/#65c4d8f13d59

Share Your Toxic Examples

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We’ve been discussing toxic leadership and cultures this week. The military is not immune to this environment — in fact, it can be the worst.

During one of my assignments in the Air Force, I worked as a flight sergeant with a hand-picked unit. There was one senior NCO and one officer that oversaw the unit — we were lean and mean.

The officer was absent, simply put. He was more focused on school and getting ahead, so he was never seen — never interacted with the unit personnel.

Thus, the SNCO, ran everything. Everyone called him The Dragon. This guy invented “toxic.” His goal was to break down each NCO in the unit to the point where they would in turn break down everyone that worked for them.

He ran everything like a cult. He referred to people as “in his camp” or “not.” He would hold “camp” meetings at a bar off base (so he could get drunk and not busted) and he would give his sermons over whiskey and beer chasers.

The stories I could tell about The Dragon. See, in the military, you can’t quit your job to get away from a toxic culture. You just have to endure.

This needs to be solved … this toxicity needs to be eradicated from business and out life!

What toxic examples do you have?

Reset Your Funk!

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Ever have one of those days where you feel in a funk and, regardless of what you’ve got done, you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything?

You don’t want to carry that feeling and funk into tomorrow.

How you you hit the reset button and start out a new day with a positive outlook on the rest of the week?

Stuck in the Mud?

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What do we do when we’re driving in the rain and get stuck in mud? At first we rock back and forth, saying, “I got this,” and we often succeed in getting more stuck.

Then we get help to push us out…

Not just any help, right?

If we saw a couple of young kids on the corner, they might be willing, but they’ll just get covered in mud trying and you’ll be more stuck.

No, we look for big burly guys to push us out.

But then along comes this one guy with a big truck. See, this guy…he knows everyone gets stuck here in the mud, so he hangs out with his truck when it rains. He’s not the biggest and baddest guy out there, but he has experience and the right tools. Unfortunately, he also charges a lot to get them unstuck.

Little does everyone know that this guy also has a store before you get to this section of road. There is a big sign out front that says, “All Season Tires For Sale! Helps Prevent Getting Stuck in Mud!”

No one ever buys these inexpensive tires from him, but almost anyone will pay for him high dollar to pull them out of the mud.

This is how business planning works. It’s fixing your roof when the sun is shining and its bringing in the expert who has years of experience at fixing roofs.