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

7 Keys To Promoting Your Podcast: Learning’s from the Podcast Awards

This is very interesting for a lot of us. Take the time to see the video and rerad the article.

Todd Cochrane and Krishna De  on a 24 Hour podcast So you have decided to publish an online video podcast or an audio podcast – but what can you do in terms of promoting your podcast to increase the number of listeners or viewers and grow your community building your visibility online?

I was in conversation with Todd Cochrane today from Blubrry who also runs the annual Podcast Awards and he shared with me some interesting research which was undertaken across the podcasts that were nominated for an award. You can access the research results from the

Podcast Awards where over 2300 sites were reviewed HERE.

The outcome of the research that was undertaken when reviewing the podcasts that were contenders for the awards gives us some insights on best practice tips for publishing and promoting your podcast.

Using RSS Feeds: Make sure that you check your own RSS feeds are valid and have an independent feed for your podcast as people may only want to subscribe to your podcast – be that an audio podcast or a video podcast. The research indicated that of the podcasts entered for the awards:

  • 59% Had Feeds with errors but where valid
  • 51% Had an RSS Icon on their default landing page that was a Blog Feed only
  • 44% Of sites had a Podcast RSS feed you can subscribe to
  • 23% Had a Podcast RSS Feeds Buried on a sub page in their Website
  • 21% Had an RSS Icon on their default landing page that was Podcast Ready
  • 21% Had invalid Podcast RSS Feeds.

Brand your channel and your podcast: Ensure that your visual identity is carried through for your brand on your podcast channel and in your podcast artwork. The research indicated that:

  • 88% of the sites had good unique website branding.

Have Google help you be found: When updating your ID3 tags your audio file for a podcast remember that you still need to create effective show notes not only to help your listener understand the benefit of listening to your podcast episode, but also so that it will help your show be found in the search engines. The research indicated that:

  • 59% Had less than one paragraph of show notes for their past 5 podcast.

Integrate your marketing communications: Encourage listeners and viewers to take the next step in getting to know you and become part of your community – or even look to contact you direct. The research found that:

Provide your content in  variety of formats: Provide a choice in the ways that you provide your content – I created two video podcasts today but at the same time made sure that I have the MP3 files available for those people who prefer to listen versus watch content. The nominations for the podcasts awards were creating for following types of content:

  • 71% Were creating audio only
  • 20% Were creating audio and video
  • 9% Were creating video only.

Don’t forget the mobile web: Many people now are listening to podcasts when on the move and with the increase of the iPhone and other mobile platforms we need to make sure that we are ‘mobile ready’. The research found that:

  • 3% of Sites where mobile phone ready (iPhone, Android, Palm Pre).

Provide a variety of ways for people to consume your content: Not everyone listens or watches podcasts on an iPod – many people listen to streaming audio or watch videos online. But to increase your podcast community you need to make sure that your podcast can be accessed easily – from being able to be downloaded from your website to being found in the main podcast directories. The research found that:

  • 93% Had a Visible iTunes Subscription icon someplace in their website
  • 81% Had a Visible iTunes Subscription icon on their default landing Page
  • 51% Had a physical download link on their websites
  • 51% Did not have their show listed on PodcastAlley.com
  • 37% Did not have their show listed on Blubrry.com
  • 14% Did not have their show listed on Podcast.com
  • 6% Had a Visible Zune Marketplace icon on their websites

Giving by Zig Ziglar

In the spirit of giving, this week we feature a brief story by Zig Ziglar about famed American contralto Marian Anderson. She was the first African American to be named a permanent member of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Enjoy!

Marian Anderson got her start by scrubbing floors for 10 cents an hour so that she could buy a pawnshop violin. The church she attended recognized her rare talent and raised money for a professional voice teacher to work with her. When the teacher pronounced her ready, she went to New York where critics crucified her. She returned home to regroup. Her mother and her church encouraged her and paid for more lessons.

Because of the intense racial prejudice in America, she went to Europe and took the continent by storm. She came back to America and sang at the Lincoln Memorial with more than 60,000 people in attendance. She sang “O Mia Fernando,” “Ave Maria,” “Gospel Train,” and “My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord,” among other songs.

One day a reporter asked Marian what the most satisfying moment in her life was. Without hesitation, she responded that (it was) when she was able to tell her mother that she did not have to take in any more washing. The reporter asked, “What did your mother give you?”

Marian Anderson responded, “Everything she had.” That’s greatness, and giving everything we have is our key to greatness.