Harvard Business School

 A study from Harvard Business School, named: Coaching and Mentoring–A Harvard Business School Press Book Summary in Partnership with getAbstract

Tells us that:

 

Effective managers know that timely coaching can dramatically enhance their teams’ performance. "Coaching and Mentoring" offers managers comprehensive advice on how to help employees grow professionally and achieve their goals. 

 

This is very interesting and what we already know. But it´s maybe more powerful when big organizations like Harvard Business School tels us. So keep up Harvard, tell us more.

Michelle Obama

Look here, this is big. The maybe worlds most powerful women, is talking about mentoring. This is an article from «The Washington Post».

Emotional’ Michelle Obama announces White House mentoring program for girls

By Robin Givhan

In her own version of «Pay It Forward,» first lady Michelle Obama, who has often talked about the influence of role models in her life, announced a year-long mentoring program at the White House for area high school girls.

Monday afternoon, thirteen young women gathered around a polished wood table, austerely set with water glasses and blue folders, in the State Dining room for a get to know you conversation with the senior women from the White House staff who will serve as their mentors. That list includes a who’s who of fancy titles and impressive resumes — among them, senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, domestic policy advisor Melody Barnes, Obama’s chief of staff Susan Sher and social secretary Desiree Rogers.

To read more:

voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/11/02/emotional_michelle_obama_annou.html

How executives grow

Talent can be bought, but the best companies develop their own.

Most companies are poor at developing their executives, and most of them acknowledge this: only 3 percent of the 6,000 executives occupying the top 200 positions at 50 large US corporations examined by a recent McKinsey survey strongly agreed that their organizations developed talent quickly and effectively. In no area of executive development—job rotation, traditional internal and external training, or mentoring—did a majority of these executives believe that their employers were doing a good job.

Some companies feel that their high performers will rise to the top naturally, like cream. Others, believing that talent can be bought, try to recruit executives from such sources as General Electric, a famous developer of people. In fact, though businesses should look for senior-level talent outside their own organizations, they themselves must also be good at developing it. In the first place, as talent becomes scarcer—and demography suggests that it will—the «buy-only» strategy becomes risky and expensive. Moreover, recruiting all of a company’s senior executives externally sacrifices cultural cohesion and institutional memory.

Alicia Keys: Finding Purpose Beyond Music and Hitting All the Right Keys

The Grammy-winning singer and songwriter discusses her own keys to success

Watch Alicia Keys discuss her commitment to the Keep a Child Alive charity here. View her new music video «Doesn’t Mean Anything» here.

A couple of years ago, a woman approached Alicia Keys before she went onstage for a show and asked if she would be playing her 2005 hit “Unbreakable” that night. “I really don’t know,” Keys replied with a shrug. Her setlist wasn’t final yet. Then the woman said, “Well, when I was going through chemotherapy I played ‘Unbreakable’ every day and now I’m two years cancer-free.”

Keys, of course, froze up. How do you respond to that? Well, you play “Unbreakable,” for one. But that moment brought a life-altering revelation: The literal business you’re in isn’t necessarily the real business you’re in. Keys, for example, was literally in the music business, but she was truly in the inspiration business. “That moment sends chills up and down my body every time I talk about it. It makes me feel amazing. I figured, if there’s a way for me to do business that can inspire people to that level, that’s the business I want to be in.”

Read more of the very interesting article here:

www.successmagazine.com/alicia-keys-success-business-charity/PARAMS/article/918

Actions of the Millionaire Mind

T. Harv Eker’s Peak Training Tips

T. Harv Eker went from zero to millionaire in only two and half years. President of Peak Potentials Training, Eker offers his philosophies to think rich from his best-selling book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

Get educated. Take investment seminars. Read at least one investment book a month. Read financial magazines. Get familiar with what financial options are out there. Then choose an arena to become an expert in and begin investing in that area.

Change your focus from active income to passive income. List at least three specific strategies with which you could create income without working, in either the investment or the business field. Begin researching and then take action on these strategies.

Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.

If you are currently in a job and getting paid based on an hourly wage or salary, create and propose a compensation plan to your employer that would allow you to get paid at least partly based on your individual results as well as the results of the company.

If you own your own business, create a compensation plan that allows your employees or even primary suppliers to get paid based more on their results and the results of your company. Put these plans into action immediately.

If you are currently in a job and not being paid what you are worth based on the results you are producing, consider starting your own business. You can begin part time. You could easily join a network marketing company or become a coach, teaching others what you know, or offer your independent consulting services back to the company you originally worked for, but this time, paid for performance and results rather than only for your time.

Strengthening Your Self-Discovery

Marcus Buckingham is a leadership expert, internationally renowned speaker and New York Times bestselling author of several books, including First, Break All the Rules; Now Discover Your Strengths and Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently.

He’s the founder of TMBC, a management consulting company, and has been hailed as a visionary by corporations such as Toyota, Coca-Cola and Microsoft. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live and been featured in major newspapers.

What are the best ways for people to discover their strengths?

Marcus Buckingham: It’s ironic that your strengths can be so easy to overlook, because they’re clamoring for your attention in the most basic way: Using them makes you feel strong. All you have to do is teach yourself to pay attention. Try to be conscious of yourself and how you feel as you’re completing your day-to-day tasks. Most of the time, we’re so focused on getting our work done that we don’t really have time to notice how we feel about it.

Read the rest of the article here:

www.successmagazine.com/1on1-marcus-buckingham-/PARAMS/article/917

The Formula for Failure and Success by Jim Rohn

I find this article in my mailbox the other day, read it it´s good.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day. Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day?

The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters.

On their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour generally doesn’t result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, we escape from any immediate consequences of our deeds.

If we have not bothered to read a single book in the past ninety days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on our lives. And since nothing drastic happened to us after the first ninety days, we repeat this error in judgment for another ninety days, and on and on it goes. Why? Because it doesn’t seem to matter. And herein lies the great danger. Far worse than not reading the books is not even realizing that it matters!

Those who eat too many of the wrong foods are contributing to a future health problem, but the joy of the moment overshadows the consequence of the future. It does not seem to matter. Those who smoke too much or drink too much go on making these poor choices year after year after year… because it doesn’t seem to matter. But the pain and regret of these errors in judgment have only been delayed for a future time. Consequences are seldom instant; instead, they accumulate until the inevitable day of reckoning finally arrives and the price must be paid for our poor choices – choices that didn’t seem to matter.

Failure’s most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term those little errors don’t seem to make any difference. We do not seem to be failing. In fact, sometimes these accumulated errors in judgment occur throughout a period of great joy and prosperity in our lives. Since nothing terrible happens to us, since there are no instant consequences to capture our attention, we simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors, thinking the wrong thoughts, listening to the wrong voices and making the wrong choices. The sky did not fall in on us yesterday; therefore the act was probably harmless. Since it seemed to have no measurable consequence, it is probably safe to repeat.

But we must become better educated than that!

If at the end of the day when we made our first error in judgment the sky had fallen in on us, we undoubtedly would have taken immediate steps to ensure that the act would never be repeated again. Like the child who places his hand on a hot burner despite his parents’ warnings, we would have had an instantaneous experience accompanying our error in judgment.

Unfortunately, failure does not shout out its warnings as our parents once did. This is why it is imperative to refine our philosophy in order to be able to make better choices. With a powerful, personal philosophy guiding our every step, we become more aware of our errors in judgment and more aware that each error really does matter.

Now here is the great news. Just like the formula for failure, the formula for success is easy to follow: It’s a few simple disciplines practiced every day.

Now here is an interesting question worth pondering: How can we change the errors in the formula for failure into the disciplines required in the formula for success? The answer is by making the future an important part of our current philosophy.

Both success and failure involve future consequences, namely the inevitable rewards or unavoidable regrets resulting from past activities. If this is true, why don’t more people take time to ponder the future? The answer is simple: They are so caught up in the current moment that it doesn’t seem to matter. The problems and the rewards of today are so absorbing to some human beings that they never pause long enough to think about tomorrow.

But what if we did develop a new discipline to take just a few minutes every day to look a little further down the road? We would then be able to foresee the impending consequences of our current conduct. Armed with that valuable information, we would be able to take the necessary action to change our errors into new success-oriented disciplines. In other words, by disciplining ourselves to see the future in advance, we would be able to change our thinking, amend our errors and develop new habits to replace the old.

One of the exciting things about the formula for success – a few simple disciplines practiced every day – is that the results are almost immediate. As we voluntarily change daily errors into daily disciplines, we experience positive results in a very short period of time. When we change our diet, our health improves noticeably in just a few weeks. When we start exercising, we feel a new vitality almost immediately. When we begin reading, we experience a growing awareness and a new level of self-confidence. Whatever new discipline we begin to practice daily will produce exciting results that will drive us to become even better at developing new disciplines.

The real magic of new disciplines is that they will cause us to amend our thinking. If we were to start today to read the books, keep a journal, attend the classes, listen more and observe more, then today would be the first day of a new life leading to a better future. If we were to start today to try harder, and in every way make a conscious and consistent effort to change subtle and deadly errors into constructive and rewarding disciplines, we would never again settle for a life of existence – not once we have tasted the fruits of a life of substance!

To Lead, Start with Yourself

As a leader I frequently get asked the question:

What is my greatest accomplishment— the greatest thing I have ever seen happen as a leader?

And after reading an Earl Nightingale article he titled “The Greatest Things,” I thought I would compile my own list of a leader’s greatest “things.”

The list I am going to share with you over the next few months is very subjective. I suggest that after I share them with you, you do your own assessment—because there is no right or wrong answer. What I am giving you is my own subjective and personal thinking on leadership. So let’s get started with the first one.

The Leader’s Greatest Victory—Victory over Self

My greatest victory every day is victory over self. I don’t want to put this in past tense because this is a daily battle I have to fight. Not a day goes by where I don’t have to work on myself and battle the temptations of self.

When people think of leadership, the common thought is a leader’s greatest victory is with others. That is a normal and understandable thought process. Because what do leaders do? They lead others. They are taking people someplace, right?

Read more of the article «Maximum Leadership» from John C. Maxwell right here at this link:

www.successmagazine.com/john-maxwell-leadership/PARAMS/article/924

Enjoy!

Kick-Start Your Year

You have less than three weeks until the start of 2010. If you want the year ahead to be filled with goal achievements instead of unfulfilled resolutions, you need to answer this question: What are you going to do now to make sure you have the best year ever?

If you want your year to begin with a kick-start instead of a whimper, follow our expert advice:

«Expand your thinking with new experiences. Each month for 30 days in a row, commit to doing something new that you have thought about doing but have not done, and notice how it affects your life. Some possibilities: verbally appreciate 10 people per day, don’t read the newspaper, get eight hours of sleep or plan your next day’s schedule.»
—Jack Canfield, co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul series

«Build value every day. People do business with people they trust and people who make them feel special. Create a ritual that ensures you reach out to three possible or current customers every day.»

—Robin Sharma, leadership expert and author of The Leader Who Had No Title

«Create an environment fostering your success. You might not even realize to what extent you are influenced—negatively and positively—by things and people around you. Start a journal to keep track of these influences so you can eliminate the negative and increase the positive. For example, nurture your emotional well-being by choosing friends who genuinely want you to succeed and who encourage you.»

—Tony Alessandra, sales expert and author of The New Art of Managing People

«Be a student of all you do. Become an expert in your field through reading. Start today by identifying areas for improvement, looking for training opportunities in your field and seeking out people you’d like to emulate.»

—Stedman Graham, speaker and author of You Can Make It Happen: A Nine-Step Plan for Success

Find 40 more ways to kick-start your year here…

This article is written for Success Magazine