Infinite’s Opportunities Continue to Grow!

Elizabeth Gouwens was recently promoted to leadership. This is no surprise a result of her hard work and dedication. Elizabeth shared:

When I got promoted to leadership I felt extremely honored. My consistency in the field and hard work has shown through and I proved to myself and others my capabilities.

What motivates me in the field is knowing I am competing against everyone else in the office. I know that my goals are entirely up to my work ethic and mentality.

My future goals are to finish my senior year at Saint Joseph’s College this fall, and then move to the city working at a job pertaining to marketing and/or public relations. 

 I wanted to thank Infinite for giving me this opportunity to experience the ins and outs of the business and to further develop my work ethics. I have already prospered in many ways this past month and look forward to the challenges that I will face.

Again, congratulations on your promotion Elizabeth! Keep showing us what you are made of!

http://myinfinite.net/

Infinite Team is Growing!

Infinite is happy to announce Haajra Narmawala was promoted to “Leadership” this past week. We are very happy for Haajra's opportunity and Infinite wanted to share some of Haajra's words:

It feels incredible to be promoted to leadership as a result of hard work and staying consistent in the field during training. As a leader, I am even more motivated to compete for success among the other leaders and work harder than the rest. It is a great opportunity to learn and build up management skills that set you up for success in every field. As a leader, it means that I will be taking more initiative to set myself as a good example for the trainees by working hard, following the system and being prepared that will allow me to stay consistent in the field. I plan to stay consistent in the field and gain responsibilities and opportunities to build a successful team. Through the process, I will also be developing training and interviewing skills. This promotion is not the last milestone; it is an opportunity to collaborate with other leaders, learn from them and enhance their leadership skills.

Great job Haajra!  Team Infinite is very excited for your opportunity and we know you can accomplish anything you set your mind into. Keep it up!

http://myinfinite.net/

Loyalty: The Key to Consistent Victory

By The John Maxwell Company

March Madness got its name because the NCAA basketball tournament provides stunning upsets each season. Unpredictability is big part of the tournament’s appeal. At any point in the competition, an unknown squad can suddenly catch fire, hitting shot after shot, to knock off a heavily favored opponent.

However, if you were filling out an NCAA tournament bracket from 1967 to 1973, then you should have chosen the same champion every single year. Coach John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins won seven consecutive titles! No other men’s collegiate team has won more than two NCAA tournaments in a row.

Why did John Wooden’s teams win so often? Obviously, they had talented players, but what set UCLA apart from the competition was their commitment to loyalty. UCLA’s players were intensely loyal to their leader, Coach John Wooden, as well as to their fellow teammates.

How to Earn Loyalty:

1) Make your values visible.
Leaders attract who they are. If you want a cohesive team, one that’s loyal to a common cause and to one another, then be clear and candid about your values. John Wooden arranged his values into a visual aid that he called the “Pyramid of Success.” The pyramid consisted of fifteen building blocks Wooden believed were essential to success in life, and he taught these values to his players. He placed loyalty as the building block at the center of the pyramid’s foundation.

2) Be loyal to yourself.
Coach Wooden liked to quote a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To thine own self, be true.” His coaching philosophy wasn’t just a strategy to win games; it flowed directly out of his deepest beliefs about life. John Wooden not only believed in the principles of success he instilled in his players, he also exemplified them. He inspired loyalty because his players knew that he was the real deal—he authentically practiced the values he professed.

3) Give loyalty to your people.
Leaders cannot demand loyalty; they have to earn it. However, leaders should give 100% loyalty to their people from day one. People need to feel your trust, care, and commitment to them. As Wooden wrote, “People do not arrive at your doorstep with loyalty. It comes when those you lead see and experience that your concern for their interests and welfare goes beyond simply calculating what they can do for you—how you can use them to your advantage.” Once you give loyalty, you open up the channel to receive it in return.

Thought to Consider
In an economy where individuals bounce from job to job, quickly moving in and out of relationships, how can a leader be expected to build loyalty? Coach Wooden is proof that loyalty doesn’t take a decade to develop. He led in a climate of constant turnover, where players stayed only a few years, at most, before graduating and moving on. To inspire loyalty, a leader simply must dare to go against the grain of contemporary business culture. Look to invest in people rather than to wring productivity out of them.  Instead of asking, “what have you done for me lately?” inquire: “what can I do to add value to you?”

Read the full article and others from John Maxwell online.

Top 10 Qualities That Make A Great Leader

by Tanya Prive Contributor, Forbes

Having a great idea, and assembling a team to bring that concept to life is the first step in creating a successful business venture. While finding a new and unique idea is rare enough; the ability to successfully execute this idea is what separates the dreamers from the entrepreneurs. However you see yourself, whatever your age may be, as soon as you make that exciting first hire, you have taken the first steps in becoming a powerful leader. When money is tight, stress levels are high, and the visions of instant success don’t happen like you thought, it’s easy to let those emotions get to you, and thereby your team. Take a breath, calm yourself down, and remind yourself of the leader you are and would like to become. Here are some key qualities that every good leader should possess, and learn to emphasize.

Honesty

Whatever ethical plane you hold yourself to, when you are responsible for a team of people, its important to raise the bar even higher. Your business and its employees are a reflection of yourself, and if you make honest and ethical behavior a key value, your team will follow suit.

As we do at RockThePost, the crowdfunding platform for entrepreneurs and small businesses I co-founded, try to make a list of values and core beliefs that both you and your brand represent, and post this in your office. Promote a healthy interoffice lifestyle, and encourage your team to live up to these standards. By emphasizing these standards, and displaying them yourself, you will hopefully influence the office environment into a friendly and helpful workspace.

Ability to Delegate

Finessing your brand vision is essential to creating an organized and efficient business, but if you don’t learn to trust your team with that vision, you might never progress to the next stage. Its important to remember that trusting your team with your idea is a sign of strength, not weakness. Delegating tasks to the appropriate departments is one of the most important skills you can develop as your business grows. The emails and tasks will begin to pile up, and the more you stretch yourself thin, the lower the quality of your work will become, and the less you will produce.

The key to delegation is identifying the strengths of your team, and capitalizing on them. Find out what each team member enjoys doing most. Chances are if they find that task more enjoyable, they will likely put more thought and effort behind it. This will not only prove to your team that you trust and believe in them, but will also free up your time to focus on the higher level tasks, that should not be delegated. It’s a fine balance, but one that will have a huge impact on the productivity of your business.

Read the full article online. 

20 Little Tips For A Big Career And Life-- from Forbes

by Bruce Kasanoff Contributor

I structure my career and life around a simple sentence:

Be generous and expert, trustworthy and clear, open-minded and adaptable, persistent and present.

To keep this sentence in the front of my mind, I look for specific tips that support these qualities. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Day after day, be a little bit kinder and a tad wiser than you were the day before.

2. Both for your company and your family, be better at saving money than you are at spending it.

3. Contrary to how some misinterpret what Jim Collins says, it is a better strategy to be consistently good than occasionally great.

4. Read more. Nothing else will so quickly make you wiser.

5. The more interconnected our world becomes, the more important your reputation will be.

Always do the right thing, even when you think no one is watching.

6. Never forget that most people will do what you pay them to do, not what you tell them to do.

7. It is okay to be more generous than other people, just as it is okay to feel better about yourself than you used to feel.

8. Most of the answers you need already exist in someone else’s head; find those people.

9. The greatest challenge each day is to regulate your ego; too little of it, and you waste your potential, but too much of it and you waste everyone else’s potential.

10. Sometimes technology is going to hurt you, and other times it is going to help you. Be sure you are fully aware which is most likely at the present moment.

Read the full article online... 

Infinite Wins Q4 Cup For National Campaign Being Recognized For Outstanding Performance

We are so proud of our team here at Infinite.  The company has been recognized as the nation's most profitable, productive vendor for our client. 

Throughout the last few months, the team at Infinite has been in negotiations to continue to evolve the relationship with our client.  Due to these negotiations, we were able to outperform every other vendor in the nation.

We doubled in size in the last month and the new promotion to our executive team, Alex
Huynh, will allow us to take on an even larger client load.  We expect to open an additional location in the next few months.

Great job team!

A New Year’s Resolution for Business Success: Build a Better Leadership System

http://lasvegas.informermg.com/2013/01/07/a-new-years-resolution-for-business-success-build-a-better-leadership-system/

 By Dr. Ray Benedetto and Tom Walter

What are you going to do to make your company better in 2013?  Shooting for financial targets is hardly enough.  Chasing financial goals is futile if the company lacks the human talent necessary to achieve such goals.  In brief, making any company better depends on how leaders retain and leverage their human assets as a distinctive competitive advantage.

Our research has shown how entangled companies sustain distinctive competitive advantages in various industries by building unique and enviable cultures that stimulate creative thinking, constantly generate new ideas, motivate high performance, and consistently delight customers.  Leaders of high-performing companies view their business as a system that requires the synchronizing of key subsystems.  Great leaders know that the future success of any enterprise rests on the strength of their leadership subsystem, which includes the current and future direction of the enterprise and their leadership pipeline—how tomorrow’s leaders are being developed today.

The leadership pipeline is a lot more than merely planning for leadership succession. The pipeline is a set of integrated steps that begins with having the right people on board, extends to daily reinforcement of right behaviors, and manifests itself in discretionary thinking and exceptional performance. If you want to do better in 2013 and beyond, assessing your leadership subsystem is a good place to start. The following questions spanning eight key areas can help you begin:

Core values.  Does the company have a set of explicit core values? Was staff from all levels of the company involved in creating these values?  Are the values easy to understand?  Does the set of core values, taken together, convey the spirit of the company?  Are the values conspicuously displayed throughout work areas to remind employees about the values the company holds most dear?

Code of conduct. Have employees created a code of conduct that exemplifies how core values appear in daily behaviors?  Do employees hold themselves and others mutually accountable for right behaviors? Does the performance evaluation and management system recognize and reward employees for exemplifying core values?

Organizational Purpose.  Does the vision for the company’s future inspire suppliers and key partners as well as employees? Does the company mission clearly state daily commitments in serving the stakeholders?  When employees meet formally to conduct company business, do they review and reinforce the organizational purpose (values, vision, and mission)?

Leadership Philosophy.  Does each employee understand the difference between leadership and management? Is every employee viewed as a leader who has influence upon others?  Does each employee have a defined circle of influence through which he or she can affect change?

Trust and Caring. Is each employee trusted to act as a responsible adult? Have the company shed a 20th century command-and-control management approach for a 21st century trust-and-track leadership approach? Does each and every leader work on building relationships based on trusting and caring for others?  Does the performance evaluation and management system recognize and reward leaders for relationship building? Are leaders who fail to meet this standard assessed, counseled, and coached to develop these skills?  Are leaders who fail to respond to positive development efforts relieved from duties and encouraged to find employment elsewhere?

Learning and Growth. Are employees at all levels taught how to read company financial reports and to assess functional performance related to cost and expense management and revenue generation? Does each employee understand how his or her daily performance contributes to company goals and objectives? Does each employee have an individual development plan that identifies three strengths to be leveraged as well as three improvement areas for the next performance year?

Transparency. Are employees receiving all the necessary daily and weekly information from which to make decisions?  Do employees receive routine, comprehensive reports of company operations they can use to improve service to their internal customers?  Are employees engaged in decision-making at the lowest levels related to cost and expense management as well as revenue generation, if appropriate?

Accountability. Is each employee held accountable for meeting objectives?  Does each employee provide a formal accounting of performance, such as weekly huddles (The Great Game of Business -1992 – by Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham, New York: Currency-Doubleday)?  Responsibility without accountability results in less than optimal performance!

Although answers to some of the above questions may not be easy, they provide a starting point for improving the leadership system within any company.  The eight areas above serve as a framework through which leaders can work during the course of a year.  Some areas are sequential, such as the code of conduct following establishment of core values, while others can run concurrently, such as learning and growth along with transparency.  The keys to success are doing honest assessments, confronting the brutal facts, and pursuing solutions for each response that lacks a definitive “Yes!”

Dr. Ray Benedetto, DM, is a retired USAF Colonel. He founded a consulting firm that helps leaders build high-performing, character-based cultures in addition to his teaching leadership and strategic planning for the University of Phoenix Chicago Campus MBA program. Tom Walter is a serial entrepreneur and nationally recognized speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership and business culture. They are the co-authors of It’s My Company Too! How Entangled Companies Move Beyond Employee Engagement For Remarkable Results. For more information, please visit, www.ItsMyCompanyToo.com.

How Successful Companies Sustain Innovation By Faisal Hoque

http://www.fastcompany.com/3002324/how-successful-companies-sustain-innovation

Innovation is widely regarded as the single most important ingredient in today’s economy. But innovation as a destination isn’t enough.

Sustained innovation is a high-productivity state in which an organization strives to innovate in all aspects of its business, including management, divisions, operations, customers, and suppliers. It requires a seamless, structured management approach that begins with board- and CEO-level leadership and connects all the way through technology investment and implementation. Above all, sustained innovation is a journey, not a destination. The enterprise doesn’t stop innovating after attaining one goal; it’s engaged in a continual process of reinvention, invention, and discovery.
Consider the following three examples:

• The one-hit wonder: The smartphone market is red-hot, with Apple and Samsung engaged in the most fierce race for dominance via product innovation. But let’s not forget the once ubiquitous handheld of choice for most employers and business people: the BlackBerry. A mere five years ago, Research In Motion was one of the most celebrated technology companies in the world, as the BlackBerry, or “CrackBerry” as it became known, led the smartphone market. But the meteoric rise of the iPhone and Android devices has made R.I.M. and its big innovation a relic in a world of constant reinvention.

• Rising from failure: In 1919, Cornelius Vander Starr was the first Westerner to sell insurance to the Chinese, and he did so successfully until Communism drove him and American International Group back to the U.S. in 1949. AIG quickly grew it business globally, and in 1962 Starr gave management of the company's slowing U.S. holdings to Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, who revitalized the company by moving from personal insurance to high-margin corporate coverage and selling through independent brokers rather than agents to slash those salaries. The company went public in 1969 and continued to thrive until 2005, when AIG became the high-profile subject of fraud investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Justice Department, and New York State Attorney General's Office. Greenberg was booted amid an accounting scandal in February 2005 and the company was battered by a liquidity crisis when its credit ratings were downgraded below "AA" levels in September 2008. Thanks to government bailouts in 2008 and 2009, AIG has bounced back and regained its status as a vital American multinational corporate titan. AIG isn’t taking its rescue for granted. The insurer unveiled a new corporate logo as part of a major rebranding overhaul aimed at its continued growth and success.

• Ongoing success: Pfizer, the world's biggest pharmaceutical company by revenues, constantly develops blockbuster medicines and vaccines with household names like Zithromax, Lipitor, and Viagra. Founded in 1849 as a manufacturer of fine chemicals, Pfizer's discovery of Terramycin a year later launched its successful and ongoing expansion into a research-based pharmaceutical company. The drug maker has augmented its research by building its brands, pipeline, and profile through a series of major acquisitions. The company continues to lead the market with treatments for myriad maladies. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer’s Bosulif, which treats a rare type of leukemia that usually affects older adults.

3 Principles for Sustained Innovation

Sustained innovation is powered by people who come together to share ideas, compare observations, and brainstorm solutions to complex problems. Enterprises with a strong focus on sustained innovation share three common principles that act as the glue binding people together in productive collaboration. They are:

1. Converged disciplines: Ideas aren’t isolated; they’re celebrated in groups that enable the entire organization to act as one entity. Of particular importance is the convergence of business and technology management to ensure that no one unit or division is missing the opportunity to capitalize on new ideas and possibilities.

2. Cross-boundary collaboration: No enterprise operates in a vacuum. Every manager, employee, and contractor potentially has a piece of the puzzle to create a new breakthrough business opportunity. Suppliers, partners, distributors, and customers are an equally valuable source of information and ideas.

3. Innovative business structure: Not every organization can empower an unstructured development culture like the Lunatic Fringe who led innovation at groundbreaking tech pioneer Texas Instruments; most require structure that compels convergence of disciplines, management, and operational units.
To bring these principles to life, enterprises operating with sustained innovation focus on three distinct, intimately related practices that require business/technology/management convergence to perform at a high level of organizational maturity.

Sustained Innovation Playbook

Designing and operating organizations capable of sustained innovation requires a playbook that demands a systemic process constructed around the following core steps:
• Listen broadly for ideas through vision, innovation, and external networks. Listen to the customer. Listen to the front lines in your organization.
• Understand who your actual and potential customers are, what they want and need, what they will need, and why those needs have not yet been met.
• Organize the innovation team to include those with a stake in the innovation, organize the innovation program, and organize the resources and investments needed to address the problem.
• Create an environment and capability for innovation by giving the team the ability to fail. Create many alternative solutions by leveraging the cascaded innovation lifecycle.
• Experiment and learn from failure. Conduct many experiments in parallel, using prototyping and other iterative, feedback-driven techniques.
• Listen again to the customer to help them imagine. Use prototypes to elicit feedback. Listen to customer acceptance/buying criteria. Listen to what could go wrong, but don’t let the devil’s advocate take control.
• Design the concepts to address customer-centric values, such as cost, intuitive use, ease of change, and sense of enhancement.
• Implement the final go/no-go decision. Consolidate or eliminate competing alternatives to a manageable number. Send concepts back for reinvention, retesting, or redesign. Implement the second stage of the innovation lifecycle: manifestation
.
Get Out of the Garage

Sure, some people work better alone. But most people are more prolific as part of a team or extended community of ideas and talents that fosters some of the world’s most important inventions. Garage inventors can’t possibly compete with myriad breakthroughs born from sustained, systemic innovation. The first single chip microprocessor publicly introduced by Intel in 1971, the first car safety air bags offered in the 1973 model Chevrolet, and the depression game changer drug Prozac in 1988, are all considered great innovations developed and perfected by teams, not individuals. Even Oppenheimer needed the Manhattan Project team to create the atomic bomb. The true test of sustained innovation isn’t the invention itself, but the ultimate and ongoing benefit produced by the innovation for the business.

Discipline and innovation are not opposites, but complements. Establishing an innovation culture consumes a great deal of organizational energy in overcoming the forces of inertia and entropy. But once an idea has been successfully commercialized, respected champions emerge to drive new sources of the energy, creativity, discipline, and resources that sustain and grow an enduring culture of innovation. Successful organizations manage innovation from concept to commercialization so that good ideas not only get created, but also continually find their way into the products and services portfolio.

--Faisal Hoque is founder, chairman, and CEO at BTM Corporation and founder of research think tank BTM Institute. His newest book is The Power of Convergence. Follow him on Twitter @faisal_hoque.

Inside the Successful Leader's Mindset

As a business leader, you are mired in the everyday details of your company's success. You're worried about your bottom line, your sales goals, or your next board meeting. Amid the chaos, it's easy to forget that intangibles -- like your beliefs -- play an important role in your success.

The most successful entrepreneurs share a set of core beliefs that help them persevere as they grow their businesses. These four tips will promote a positive mindset and increase your chances of success:

1. Trust that you'll adapt to new challenges. Successful entrepreneurs approach uncertainty with confidence. When faced with an unfamiliar challenge, they think of similar situations they've handled before or skills sets that might apply. "Focus on the abilities you do have and apply your general knowledge to whatever comes your way," says Matthew Della Porta, a positive psychologist and organizational consultant.

If you focus on your current skills and your ability to learn new ones, you'll be less likely to feel overwhelmed. "Trust your ability to adapt," Della Porta says.

2. Attribute your success to hard work, not luck. Successful leaders believe their achievements are due to hard work, not just lucky circumstance. "That's a result of self-efficacy," Della Porta says, meaning that people who believe they've worked hard trust their ability to master new or unfamiliar skills.

Leaders who are confident in their ability to learn are more likely to seek out and persevere through tough challenges, increasing their chances of success.

3. Believe that you are unique. Every great entrepreneur stands on the shoulders of giants, but successful leaders champion their individuality. In other words, they don't try to become "the next Steve Jobs." To be successful, learn from the people you admire but don't try to emulate them.

"You need to focus on being the first you, not the next someone else," Della Porta says. If you foster the unique strengths that you bring to the table, then you will be far more likely to stand out in a crowded industry.

4. Challenge your negative beliefs. If you want to succeed, stamp out negative beliefs that might be holding you back. "People have a tendency to self-handicap," Della Porta says. For example, an executive who believes he won't meet his sales goals is more likely to prioritize other tasks, giving him a preemptive excuse for a poor performance. His belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Notice the goals or tasks that you shy away from and articulate your beliefs about them. Challenge any negative thoughts by reminding yourself that you will succeed if you apply yourself. When your beliefs are confident and positive, your actions will promote success.

Employee Recognition of the Week

Congratulations to Alex, Jamie, and Christopher! for being nationally recognized in the top 20 most productive reps in the country. Great job, Keep up the good work!

This Month's Employee Recognitions

Congrats to on your recent promotions Alexandra, Gary and Doug! Great job stepping it up. We look forward to what you will accomplish in the coming months. Keep up the great work!


Congratulations Jamie for being the top performing client representative in the nation! Great Job!! Keep up the good work!


Congrats to the entire team at Infinite for bringing our client more revenue than any other vendor in the nation. 

We are looking forward to a strong finish to the year!

 

Congrats Jess! On Winning The National Talent Show At Client Conference

Congrats to our talented Human Resource Director for winning first prize in the talent show at the Eden Roc.  Great Job!!

Have fun with your $1000 grand prize!

Infinite Travels To Miami For Business, Charity, And Fun

Infinite with Execs from across the country hanging out on the beach in Miami

Jess winning the national talent show!  Good job!

How to be Successful Before Breakfast - Tom Fox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-fox/how-to-be-successful-befo_b_1846255.html

Laura Vanderkam is a nationally recognized writer whose focus is on helping her readers rediscover their true passions and beliefs in pursuit of more meaningful lives. She is the author of the new book What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. Vanderkam spoke with Tom Fox, who writes the Washington Post's Federal Coach blog and is the director of the Partnership for Public Service's Center for Government Leadership.

Can you share some of your favorite anecdotes about how successful people use their mornings to accomplish tasks?

I learned that successful people know that mornings are a great time for getting things done. They are the high-impact activities that are important but aren't urgent--like exercise, strategic career thinking, creative work and even focused time with your family.

One of my favorite anecdotes came from a university administrator who had trouble getting things done because of her open-door policy. People would come in her office every few minutes. She figured out a way to fix this. Her daughter played water polo, so she had to be at the pool before 7 a.m. Rather than just bring her daughter to practice and then go home, she decided to go to work.

She would use that early morning quiet time to do focused, big tasks she had to get done because no one was interrupting her at 7 a.m., and then later in the day she would deal with email. She joked that she was doing more before breakfast than she used to get done in a week.

What tips do you have for federal employees who may not have a daughter playing water polo?

Often times, we are not aware of how much time is passing between when we wake up and when we actually start work. I tell people to picture what the perfect morning would look like. What are things you're not doing in your life that you'd like to be doing more of? And are there ways that you can make those things happen in the morning? Work through the logistics and map out a morning schedule. The harder part, of course, is turning it into a habit.

What obstacles do leaders face in implementing this sort of morning plan?

I think the biggest problem is that people wake up in the morning and don't want to get out of bed, and often that is because they've gone to bed too late. The solution to morning problems lies in the night before. The evenings can get away from you. We get distracted on the Internet, watching television or puttering around the house. It is better to give yourself a bed time and then you can reclaim some of those morning hours for something that really would move your life forward and help you achieve your goals.

From your experience, why do so many people struggle with time management?

Since the hours will be filled by something no matter what we do, sometimes it's easier to just go with it and let life happen to you. A lot of problems with time management stem from not thinking about how we'd like to use our time. We just accept that our time is what it is, as opposed to viewing it as a result of the various decisions that we've made over the years.

To quote the late Stephen Covey and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, begin with the end in mind. People don't think about how they spend their time and what their big goals are. The biggest time management problems are not spending too much time on Facebook or running errands. People often ask things like "How can I spend less time emptying the dishwasher?" That's not what time management is about. It's about getting the big things right and making sure that you're investing the right number of hours in things that are important to you.

What keys to success can federal managers learn from highly productive people?

Keep a time log so you can see where the time really goes. From looking at the time logs of extremely successful people, I've learned that they focus on three categories: nurturing their career, nurturing their family and nurturing themselves. As much as possible, they ignore, minimize or outsource everything else. It's not that these people are racing around from one thing to the next. Instead, they are choosing to do things in their down-time that are meaningful and important to them.

Who do you consider to be your role models?

She's not a household name, but I've gotten to know an entrepreneur named Amanda Steinberg. She runs an email financial newsletter called DailyWorth. What I find so fascinating is that she started the company basically the same week she gave birth to her second child. She has shown how you can build a successful small business while also spending a lot of time with your children. Just seeing how people make time for everything that really matters to them has helped me to realize there is nothing incompatible with achieving great things in your personal and professional lives at the same time.

This post was originally featured on The Washington Post's website.

How leaders contribute to organisational success

 http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/308411/how-leaders-contribute-to-organisational-success

'Leadership accounts for, at the very least, 15% of the success of any organisation," the management and leadership studies pioneer Warren Bennis is quoted as saying in The One Thing You Need to Know by Marcus Buckingham. It's a figure that may surprise some people, and it made a good starting point for a recent conversation I had with Chompoo, one of my clients.

"Khun Chompoo, your organisation is a high-performance organisation. How much do you think your CEO accounts for when it comes to its success?" I asked her.

"A lot."

"Give me a guesstimate."

"Fifty percent."

"Wow, that's a lot _ how do you think he merits that high a number?"

"First, he deals with each person individually," she explains to me. "He has eight direct reports. The way he approaches each of them depends on each person's character.

"For example, in the executive committee, he confronts straightforwardly the head of sales because she's an aggressive lady. But when he deals with CFO he's more polite and friendly with her. When he seeks an opinion from our head of operations, who's an introvert, he's more patient, smiles a lot and gives him some time to articulate his thoughts."

I decide to play devil's advocate. "It sounds to me like he has double standards _ no, in fact triple standards for these three executives," I say.

"I asked him the same question," Chompoo replies. "He asked me to check with these three executives to find out what they thought."

"What did they say?"

"They said they didn't perceive his approach as a sign of inconsistency. Each individual is happy with his or her tailor-made style. They said, 'We're unique _ treating the three of us the same would drive us crazy."'

"What else does he do?"

"He hires good people to surround him and turns them into great ones. In his first year, he changed half of the team. Those who were not the right ones were rotated or asked to leave politely. He told me that it's nothing personal _ if someone does not fit a key position, don't waste time waiting for that person to change.

"He told me that if we wanted to be a high-performance organisation, we couldn't compromise on the calibre of those in the key positions.

"Once he got the right people, he gave them authority and accountability. There's no checking for progress on how to do things. Each key person has to figure out the best way to operate. If they needed support they came to seek it from him. He's very decisive in terms of yes or no. You didn't have to waste time guessing with him.

"One thing that he's good at it is expressing a clear vision. He said to us five years ago, 'We grow business with two differentiations: the variety of services and people's capabilities.' If any investment is needed to add value to these two aspects, don't waste time. Whatever resources you need, ask him. Then he arranges them for you. He fought with the head office in Europe for us."

"Do you think that his being an expat helps?" I ask.

"It helps. He's be able to confront and be assertive with the head office. Language is one thing but culture is another. If we had a Thai CEO, we might not push to this degree. But my CEO, he'll push, nag, fight, and also protect his team."

"What else?"

"He knows quite a lot about the people in the company. You can't say that about a lot of chief executives. He knows the nicknames of all the managers one and two levels down the line _ that's about 50 people, considering he has eight direct reports. He also knows a little bit about each one of these people's strengths."

"How does he manage that?"

"He spends time taking part in outside activities of each department. When each department has an outing upcountry, he's there as well. He observes how middle managers interact in workshops and meetings. At night, he joins the party with them. He learns by listening to each person's viewpoint and opinion."

"Khun Chompoo, I notice that all eight direct reports work very hard. I didn't see much in terms of your CEO following up on them. So how does he keep track of progress?"

"In first two years, he did monitor us," she says. "But once he trusted us, he didn't feel it was necessary to be checking on us. Each of us acts like an entrepreneur because our boss acts like one. So we don't think we work for him. This is our business. You only meet with him when you need something. He comes to us from time to time _ mostly to congratulate us on our success."

"That's great. Everyone is so passionate about the work. Nevertheless, you are eager to take on additional assignments. I'm impressed."

"Coach, I give a big credit to the CEO. He has a one-on-one session with each of us once a month. In the meeting, he asks us how we're doing. That's an opportunity for us to share with him on our success stories and our strengths. He listens attentively. He congratulates us.

"Then, he ends each conversation with two great questions: 'That's good. I know you can be great, how do you plan to do it?' And, 'What support do I need to give to make it happen?"'



Kriengsak Niratpattanasai provides executive coaching in leadership and diversity management under the brand TheCoach. He can be reached at coachkriengsak@yahoo.com. His columns are available at www.thaicoach.com

What's Going On With Infinite This Month

Congratulations Lindsey and Eric on your recent promotions. We are excited to see you take on your new responsibilities as the company grows. Keep up the good work!

Fun times at Infinite! We went to Minor Tavern last week and were surprised to be joined by The Drive radio station. Kaitlin won two seperate rounds of most puts sank in a minute AND 2 seperate rounds of golf to Bowlingbrook golf course. Great times. Looking for another great week of team outing fun this week!


Congratulations Lindsey and Eric on your recent promotions. We are excited to see you take on your new responsibilities as the company grows. Keep up the good work!

Congratulations to executives at Infinite for being rewarded with a trip to visit a client office in Indiana.  

Five business lessons from Bradley Wiggins

http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/features/1144259/five-business-lessons-bradley-wiggins/

By Vicki Bennett Friday, 03 August 2012

Bradley Wiggins is the first Britain to win the Tour de France and the most-decorated Brit following his performance in this year's Olympics. Here are five lessons business leaders can learn from 'the Mod' of cycling.

Think like a winner

Wiggins’s revolutionary tactic in cycling training was to race less often but to always race to win. His team got used to leading a race rather than chasing the lead. Perhaps one of the most powerful elements in his 2012 success is the idea that Wiggins and his team already felt like winners. This is linked in to the idea that visualizing things can help to lead up to their creation.

When someone begins to think differently they begin to feel differently and, in turn, this can change their actions: they can become a different person. Adopting the 'as if' theory to business may encourage a world of fresh possibilities. As Henry Ford said ‘If you believe you can or you believe you can’t you’re probably right’.

Never stop learning from your mistakes

Wiggins’s training programme drew inspiration from the sport of swimming (working at top intensity from the start vs. a steady build), which completely changed the way he and his team trained. That said, he also learned from his past mistakes, and made sure to pace the start of a time trial to leave enough power in his legs to finish.

Many may find reviewing their own failures a painful process but, as Wiggins has shown, it is crucial in order to progress towards goals. In Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the hero has to learn from each of the tasks and ordeals presented, or he is forced repeat the lesson over and over. The art for the business leader therefore is to be able to identify and learn from past experiences in order to achieve their goals.

Working with and for others

Leadership is rarely just a solo act. Wiggins’s path to his 2012 success has seen him perform as a member and leader of a team as well as a solo competitor.  In the Tour he was lead in the team and is seen as the winner but he would be first to say it was a team effort.  He worked in close unison with the rest of the team, leading out the ‘Sky Train’ to set up Mark Cavendish to win the last (most prestigious) stage.

In the Olympic men’s race, victory escaped them in the end but it was Mark Cavendish who was in the frame for the win; Bradley was (in effect) a stage pace leader in service of Cavendish’s gold medal aims. Of course Wiggins’ solo effort in the individual time trial did lead to Olympic gold.

Wiggins’ ability to work with and for others demonstrates that sometimes leadership can be best played out by working in the service of others. Successful business leaders know the importance of empowering their team, with each member sharing objectives and working collectively in pursuit of a common goal.

Plan but be flexible

Wiggins raced five times in the lead up to the Tour de France. Each race was a mini-goal in his overall strategy; first to win the Tour and then the Olympic time trial. Although Wiggins felt at his peak at the start of the Tour, he had accounted for every possible scenario (from crashing out to winning).

If you have a clear sense of the direction you are heading in and what you are trying to achieve in each year, month, week, day, each moment, you are far more likely to be effective in your work and personal life. Keeping on track means both dedication to the programme and flexibility in the face of a changing landscape.

Success is as much about aligning and planning as it is about knowing when to be flexible and agile enough to meet new market demands as the external environment shifts. Robert Fritz (Corporate Tides, 1994) reckons that the hallmark of a leader is their ability first to articulate a desired state whilst remaining closely in touch with the current state (how things are right now) and second to sustain this tension without letting go of either vision or reality, until it can be turned into effective change.

Keep it real

On returning home to Chorley, Wiggins commented that he felt overwhelmed and that one of his first tasks was to take his son to a rugby camp in Wigan. This British sporting hero is first and foremost a dad and a husband who recognizes the importance of this team’s effort in his success. Described as a ‘nice guy’ by fellow competitors, Wiggins is authentic in his approach to life and his sport.  Leaders are often held as role models in their organizations so need to act with integrity and authenticity in pursuing their business goals.


Vicki Bennett is a partner at change consultancy Sheppard Moscow

Anthony Robles - Guest Speaker at Our National Client Conference

Anthony Robles, collegiate wrestler turned motivational speaker, was the special guest at our national conference. What an honor.

Here is his story:

http://anthonyrobles.com/bio.html

On July 20, 1988, the doctors were not prepared when, Judy Robles, age 16, gave birth to a baby boy who was missing his right leg. The doctors could not explain what went wrong or why I was missing a leg. My mom, however, always told me growing up that "God made me this way for a reason" and she made me believe it. I finally realized what that reason was when at the age of 14, in Mesa, Arizona, I tried out for the wrestling team. My first year was horrible. I was the smallest kid on the team weighing in at a whopping ninety pounds and without question, the worst wrestler; finishing my first year with 5-8 record and in last place at the Mesa City wrestling tournament. Not many people believed that a tiny kid born with one leg, the worst wrestler in the city, would ever excel in such a demanding sport . However, with the support of my family and my coaches, I believed I could one day be a champion wrestler; I believed that I could be UNSTOPPABLE. Despite various obstacles along the way, I went from being last in the city to finishing my junior and senior years at Mesa High School with a 96-0 record , a 2-time Arizona State Champion and a high school National Champion. Despite finishing with an awesome high school record , few college wrestling programs believed I could excel at the next level. They thought I was too small to wrestle in college and that a one legged wrestler could never compete with the nations best college wrestlers. My mom raised me with my head in the clouds, so I believed I could do anything I set my mind to. This way of thinking compelled me to walk onto the Arizona State University wrestling team to prove to them, and the world, anything was possible. Through trials and hardships, both on and off the wrestling mat, I finished as a 3-time All-American and the 2011 NCAA National Champion. Although my competition days on the mat are over, I will continue to wrestle the opponents life brings my way all the while believing that I am UNSTOPPABLE.

Infinite Received Recognition At National Client Conference For An Outstanding Year

Olympic Athletes: 7 Skills They Use for Success by Linda Durnell

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-durnell/success-tips_b_1687173.html

While we were watching the Olympic trials, my husband asked me, "Could you have done this when you were younger?" I thought about what it took for these athletes to make it to the Olympics. If you believe we all have the ability, given the right conditions, to have an extraordinary life -- whether it is as an Olympic athlete, scientist or teacher, what can we learn from Olympic athletes to turn our dreams into reality?

What skills do Olympic athletes use to succeed?

Unrelenting movement towards the goal: The sustained effort of these athletes is a perfect example of the concept of "massive action." They never lose sight of their goals and every moment of every day is focused in some small or large part toward action, which in turn allows them to achieve the goals. If you never looked at the clock or the calendar, how long would you work? If you were passionate about what you were doing or creating, my guess is that you would work harder and longer -- as Olympic athletes do.

Knowledge is only useful when incorporated with action: The amount of knowledge these athletes have is impressive. They have trained to become experts in nutrition, their physiology, psychology and the mechanics of their sport. These athletes are constantly learning and when they take this knowledge and apply it, they become stronger, faster and more prepared. Most of us know that knowledge needs to be followed by action, but we don't apply it. Our lives are going to stay the same if we are only reading or watching TV more. We can't turn our lives around until we decide to make use of our acquired knowledge and take action to make things happen.

Tap into the state of unlimited possibilities: For Olympic athletes, the impossible becomes possible. There is a Chinese proverb that states, "The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it." If we allow miracles to be available to us, there exist infinite possibilities every day. If you have limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot accomplish, work diligently to let those beliefs go.

 Sacrifice: There are many things we enjoy that are sacrificed by these athletes in order to attain their goal. Their singular focus leads them to choose hard work and dedication above vacations, parties, hobbies and participating in other leisure sports. For us to succeed in our lives, we need to become comfortable with short-term sacrifice for us to enjoy long-term success. As many a coach has repeated, "keep your eye on the prize."

Can't go it alone: Athletes have an extensive support team that works with them, for them and because of them. Teamwork is essential in the success of every endeavor and whether you call it mentoring, parenting, teaching, investing, managing or coaching, it is the support that most success requires.

Nothing lasts forever: Olympic athletes' skill in planning, preparation and execution does not end once the Olympics are over. They continue to plan for what is next and switch their energies to the next challenge in their lives. Kerri Walsh, the Olympic gold medalist in volleyball, planned on having a family, and then took her children to her workouts as she trained for the 2012 Olympics. Peggy Fleming, the 1968 gold medalist in ice skating, uses her Olympic fame to support many non-profits and her community. I dated a three-time Olympic athlete, and once he stopped training, he used his drive and knowledge to help others in the fields of training, athletics and coaching. As parents, we experience 18 years of dedication to our children, and eventually we must prepare to move forward into another cycle of accomplishments. Change simply means something new: Start-ups eventually are sold, companies merge or close, we age, relationships begin and end. Accepting the changes and the subsequent new opportunities is essential for continuing the success in our lives.

Everyone has a genius: We may not all choose to be an Olympic athlete, a Steve Jobs of high tech,
or a world leader, but we all have a spark that can be nurtured, supported and worked on until we create our gold medal in life -- it is just waiting to unfold and be recognized.