Focusing on Leadership Focus – Mark Sanborn

Mahatma Gandhi led India’s non-violent independence movement against British rule in the early 20th century. Gandhi was known for his unwavering focus on his ultimate goal of achieving independence for India, and he was able to inspire millions of people to join him in his cause.

Despite facing tremendous challenges and obstacles, Gandhi never wavered in his commitment to non-violent resistance. He remained focused on his goal of independence and was able to rally others to join him in his cause. His focus was so strong that it ultimately helped to bring about one of the most significant political movements of the 20th century and the eventual independence of India.

Gandhi’s story is a powerful example of the importance of focus in leadership. It illustrates the way in which an unwavering focus on a goal can inspire and motivate others to join in the cause, and ultimately lead to significant change.

What is your focus?m

Focus is about what you spend your time thinking about and doing. It allows leaders to narrow their attention on the most important tasks, prioritize their efforts and allocate their energy, ultimately leading to better decision-making and improved productivity. Without focus, leaders become easily distracted and unable to effectively lead their team to achieve goals.

Effective leaders are able to maintain their focus despite the many distractions and competing demands that inevitably arise in any organization. They filter out noise and remain laser-focused on what needs to be done. This keeps them on track and able to inspire and motivate their team to do the same.

In addition to its role in decision-making and productivity, focus is also important for building trust and credibility with team members. When leaders are able to stay focused and avoid being swayed by external factors or distractions, team members are more likely to trust their judgement and follow their lead. This is particularly important in times of crisis or change, when a clear and focused vision is essential for guiding the team through difficult circumstances.

Overall, the ability to focus is a key component of successful leadership. It enables leaders to stay on track, make better decisions, and inspire their team to follow their lead. Without focus, it is difficult for leaders to effectively navigate the challenges and demands of their role and lead their team to success.

Here are three practical questions:

  1. How focused are you?
  2. Are your team members focused on doing the important things and making best use of time?
  3. How effective are you at creating shared focus across the team or organization?

Craft a position paper for yourself and your team about the focus you’ll need to maintain and act on in the months ahead. Be thoughtful and concise, and leave no doubt about what matters most.

You need to focus on your leadership focus.

 

Mark Sanborn is an award winning speaker, leadership strategist and Leadership Expert in Residence at High Point University, the Premier Life…

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Multichannel Contact Center Starter Guide: Learn The Basics

Set up your multichannel contact center with Nextiva, a cloud-based option that provides easy access to remote IT and customer support teams. Sign up now and get 30% off on all plans

Effective customer service involves multiple touchpoints, including voice, social media, SMS, and web. Case in point—customers will engage with three to five different channels to resolve a request. 

If your team isn’t responsive on these channels, your organization will likely collect bad customer reviews. 

The good news is that you can set up a multichannel contact center to keep up with the evolving demands of your customer’s communication preferences without investing in increased physical infrastructure. 

The 9 Best Call Center Software for a Multichannel Contact Center

Our team researched the best call center software and found nine affordable cloud-based solutions you can use to strengthen your customer relationships. Check out our in-depth reviews to find the best software to power your support.

  • Nextiva — Best overall 
  • RingCentral — Easiest deployment for SMBs
  • Cloudtalk — Best call center software for remote teams
  • 8×8 — Best contact center software for enterprise-grade security
  • Zendesk Talk — Best call center software for support and automated ticketing
  • Freshdesk Contact Center — Simple contact center software for teams of all sizes
  • Five9 — Best all-in-one contact center software
  • CrazyCall — Best call center software for outbound sales
  • Talkdesk — Best call center software for end-to-end customer experience

What Is a Multichannel Contact Center?

A multichannel contact center is a call center software that integrates multiple communication channels, such as voice, social media, SMS, email, interactive voice response (IVR), and web chat, to provide customers with seamless…

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Episode 1968 Scott Adams PART1: Merry Christmas Everyone. Let’s Sip To That

Episode 1968 Scott Adams PART1: Merry Christmas Everyone. Let’s Sip To That

Content:

  • Study determines exercise is good for you
  • Useful reframes
  • Asking AI some questions, ChatGPT
  • Meeting Charles Schultz, Bill Keene
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Don’t Make Stupid Commitments – Leadership Freak

Don’t Make Stupid Commitments

Before you commit, make a list of reasons why you can’t do it. After you commit, make a list of reasons why you can do it.

You make stupid commitments when you’re optimistic. Work done tomorrow is easier than work done now.

Pessimism is best before commitments; optimism is best after commitments.

Don’t make promises to yourself that you can’t keep.

New Year’s optimism seduces people into stupid commitments. I know because today – Friday the 13th, 2023 – is Quitters Day.*

You make stupid commitments when you're optimistic. Image of a boxer holding up their gloves.You make stupid commitments when you're optimistic. Image of a boxer holding up their gloves.

Stupid commitments:

Optimism believes in fast change. That’s when you make stupid resolutions.

Life congeals without intervention. Usually, you don’t notice. We stay the same by accident. We change by sweat.

Don’t resolve to work out five days a week if you haven’t worked out since the last visit of Halley’s Comet. (It was 1986, if you’re wondering.)

A pessimistic formula:

Under-estimate yourself and over-estimate difficulty.

Determine how many times you’re going to do something; divide it in half and subtract ten percent. Suppose you commit to work out five days a week.

5×52=260/2=130. Subtract 10% for holidays and the flu. Commit to work out 117 times a year. Now add pessimism. But you won’t last a year.

Make a commitment to work out four weeks.

5×4=20/2=10. Take away 10% because you might get the flu. Make a commitment to work out 9 times in February.

Apply optimism:

Tell yourself you can after you commit.

Schedule nine workouts over the next four weeks. If you made a 30-minute appointment, double it so you can finish early.

Tip: You’re more likely to go to the gym if you’re meeting a friend. Everyone needs a ‘with’. Who can go with you?

What causes people to make commitments?

How can we make smart commitments?

Still curious:

How to Have Grit When You Want to Quit

SATURDAY SAGE: 7 Good Things About Skillful Quitting

64% Abandon Their New Years Resolutions Within A Month

*QUITTERS DAY – January 13, 2023 – National Today

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Employee Training KPIs Starter Guide: Learn The Basics

Hiring the right candidates for your open positions is only half the battle—new employees still need to be trained on company procedures and how to do their job.

And companies need to execute this effectively. Poor training programs result in lower morale among workers, higher turnover rates, and decreased productivity.

In order to make sure your training program is up to snuff, you need to measure it. This is where key performance indicators (KPIs) come in. You can identify areas that need improvement by tracking specific employee training KPIs and making changes accordingly.

What Are Employee Training KPIs?

A KPI is a quantifiable measure that helps you assess progress toward predetermined goals. In other words, it’s a way to track whether or not something is working.

Employee training KPIs are metrics that help you gauge the effectiveness of your company’s training programs. By tracking these KPIs, you can make necessary changes to improve your program and ensure that it’s meeting your company’s needs.

There are two main types of KPIs for employee training programs: hard KPIs and soft KPIs.

  • Hard KPIs: These are things that HR and onboarding teams can tangibly measure. They’re generally numbers-based and easy to track, like course completions and certification rates.
  • Soft KPIs: These are harder to measure, as they’re based on intangibles like employee satisfaction and engagement. They include things like how engaged employees are during training or how likely they are to recommend the program to others.

While hard KPIs are important, soft KPIs can give you a better idea of what’s working (and what’s not) from an employee’s perspective.

Which Employee Training KPIs Should Teams Measure?

Let’s take a look at some essential employee training KPIs to monitor.

1. Employee Training Costs

This KPI measures the amount of money that your…

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Evergreen Content Examples: 20 Types of Timeless Content Resources

Evergreen Content Examples: 20 Types of Timeless Content Resources 18&63,h=A>>12&63,n=A>>6&63,o=63&A,u[l++]=i.charAt(a)+i.charAt(h)+i.charAt(n)+i.charAt(o);while(d 20 Evergreen Content Examples That Produce Lasting Results { /** * Displays toast message from storage, it is used when the user is redirected after login */ if ( window.sessionStorage ) { $( window ).on( ‘tcb_after_dom_ready’, () => { let message = sessionStorage.getItem( ‘tcb_toast_message’ ); if ( message ) { tcbToast( sessionStorage.getItem( ‘tcb_toast_message’ ), false ); sessionStorage.removeItem( ‘tcb_toast_message’ ); } } ); } /** * Displays toast message */ function tcbToast( message, error, callback ) { /* Also allow “message” objects */ if ( typeof message !== ‘string’ ) { message = message.message || message.error || message.success; } if ( ! error ) { error = false; } TCB_Front.notificationElement.toggle( message, error ? ‘error’ : ‘success’, callback ); } } )( typeof ThriveGlobal === ‘undefined’ ? jQuery : ThriveGlobal.$j ); ]]> ‘ + data.settings.title + ” : ” }}} ]]>

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The Emotion That May Cause Type-2 Diabetes

The emotion causes consistent stress to the body, which may hasten the onset of diabetes.

Prolonged loneliness can lead to type-2 diabetes, research suggests.

An absence of deep, positive relationships is the key factor, rather than a simple lack of contact.

In other words, one can still be lonely in a crowd.

One-third of adults in the US report that they feel lonely at least some of the time.

The same figure for the UK is one-in-five.

It is not known exactly why loneliness is linked to type-2 diabetes.

One possible explanation is that loneliness causes consistent stress to the body, which hastens the onset of the disease.

Dr Ruth Hackett, the study’s first author, said:

“The study shows a strong relationship between loneliness and the later onset of type 2 diabetes.

What is particularly striking is that this relationship is robust even when factors that are important in diabetes development are taken into account such as smoking, alcohol intake and blood glucose as well as mental health factors such as depression.

The study also demonstrates a clear distinction between loneliness and social isolation in that isolation or living alone does not predict type 2 diabetes whereas loneliness, which is defined by a person’s quality of relationships, does.”

The study included 4,112 people aged over 50 who were tracked over 15 years.

During this period, 264 people developed type 2 diabetes, with lonely people at a higher risk.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects how the body turns food into energy.

It means that the body finds it difficult to keep blood sugar at normal levels.

Diabetes can cause serious health problems, such as heart and kidney disease as well as vision loss.

Dr Hackett said:

“I came up with the idea for the research during UK lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic as I became increasingly aware and interested in how loneliness may affect our health, especially as it is likely that many more people were experiencing this difficult emotion during this period.”

Stress linked to loneliness may be causing diabetes, said Dr Hackett:

“If the feeling of loneliness becomes chronic.

Then everyday you’re stimulating the stress system and over time that leads to wear and tear on your body and those negative changes in stress-related biology may be linked to type 2 diabetes development.”

The study was published in the journal Diabetologia (Hackett et al., 2020).

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7 Small Acts of Defiance

7 Small Acts of Defiance

Small acts of defiance, like the murder of a watch, build an oasis of control.

My smart watch died a quiet death on the table by my bed. It hasn’t buzzed or beeped in weeks. I didn’t shed a tear because I killed it. It’s not broken. If I charged it, it would revive. I leave its lifeless form in plain view because its death comforts me.

Every morning I admire the carcass. Before bed I place the mechanical watch that replaced it on the same nightstand to affirm its death. My current watch leaves me alone because it has a low IQ.

Small acts of defiance assert your control when you feel pushed around.

Small acts of defiance assert your control. Image of a leaf pushing against a metal fence.Small acts of defiance assert your control. Image of a leaf pushing against a metal fence.

Self-defeating acts of defiance:

  1. Foot-dragging when the boss is pushy.
  2. Calling in sick to help them appreciate you.
  3. Gossiping when someone outshines you.
  4. Stealing office supplies after a disappointing performance review.
  5. Assigning lousy work to an employee you don’t like.

Powerful people don’t need small acts of defiance.

Build an oasis of control. Image of an oasis in the desert.Build an oasis of control. Image of an oasis in the desert.

Taking control:

My small acts of defiance go beyond killing watches. I haven’t trimmed my beard since last October. I tend the fire because I refuse to buy heating oil that costs more than the engagement ring I gave my wife. I’m fighting for control because I feel pushed around.

You need not-doing in their life, especially when you feel pressure to conform.

7 small acts of defiance:

  1. Not booking meetings back-to-back.
  2. Eating dinner with your family when you could be working.
  3. Scheduling email time, instead of responding immediately.
  4. Eating lunch.
  5. Walking for 10 minutes in the afternoon.
  6. Scheduling focus time and closing your office door.
  7. Changing 60-minute meetings to 50 minutes.

I wouldn’t need defiance if I felt powerful, but until I do, I’m leaving my dead watch in plain view.

What small acts of defiance do you use?

Still curious:

3 Tips to Build Confidence in Timid Team Members

10 Ways to Make People Feel Powerful

How to Manage a Stubborn, Defensive, or Defiant Employee (hbr.org)

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7 Examples of Technical Interview Questions

When you’re interviewing for a job you really want, there’s no worse feeling than being unable to answer a difficult question. And, of course, since they’re usually complex or technical, they’re the questions you need to know how to answer. What you say—or don’t say—could determine whether you land the job. We’ve rounded up seven examples of technical interview questions to help you prepare. 

1. Tell Me About Yourself

At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a complicated question. But telling an interviewer your entire life story would take way too long. You definitely don’t want to do that. So what do you say? 

Here’s the secret. When an interviewer says, “Tell me about yourself,” they want a one to two-minute synopsis that captures your: 

  • Education
  • Career history
  • Recent work experience
  • Career goals

Before the day of your interview, prepare notes to help you provide a snapshot of your life to a potential employer. Think back through each of these periods of time and jot down two or three points for each. 

This is an excellent time to study your resume or curriculum vitae (CV), particularly if a lot of time has passed since you worked on it. A resume-building tool like Zety can help you build and edit an appealing resume. 

Screenshot of Zety's home page with Screenshot of Zety's home page with A tool like Zety can help you build and edit your resume.

Practice your response to the simple yet complex question, “Tell me about yourself,” several times before the big…

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Episode 1968 Scott Adams PART2: Merry Christmas Everyone. Let’s Sip To That

Episode 1968 Scott Adams PART2: Merry Christmas Everyone. Let’s Sip To That

Content:

  • Study determines exercise is good for you
  • Useful reframes
  • Asking AI some questions, ChatGPT
  • Meeting Charles Schultz, Bill Keene
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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