Friday, May 4, 2018

Primal Leadership Part 3

Part Three: Making Leaders
    
        We spent much of Part One of the blog about Primal Leadership talking about how emotional intelligence helps leaders, and the lack of emotional intelligence hinders leaders. The ironic thing is that the higher one travels up the ladder of success, the less likely this leader is going to receive honest feedback on his or her emotional intelligence. This phenomenon is called the CEO Disease.
            It takes a lot of courage to tell the boss that he or she has been performing poorly in the emotional intelligence arena lately. This is especially difficult to do when the boss has been a little rough lately and everyone is ducking for cover and trying to stay off the radar. People want to keep their job and continue to be able to feed their children.
            The bottom line is that many CEOs lose some of their self-awareness as they travel up the rings. However, the ironic thing is that study after study shows that self-awareness is greatest among companies doing well, and poorest among companies doing poorly. So, now it comes down to which poor soul is going to put their job on the line to tell the boss that he or she is out of touch and acting like a schmuck because it’s good for the whole company if the boss is made self-aware?
            As I said earlier, the good thing is that emotional intelligence can be learned. However, according to, Primal Leadership, most training and leadership programs only target the neocortex rather than the limbic brain. Leadership skills usually comes down to habits learned early in life. So, if we’re going to re-educate the emotional brain, they typical leadership program isn’t going to cut it. In order, to re-educate the emotional brain we need lots of practice and repetition aimed at the limbic centers of the brain. This kind of learning is very slow; but, that’s a good thing because once it’s learned, it’s learned very well, at a much deeper limbic level. Furthermore, this learning will be retained much longer than traditional surface level cognitive learning.
            The cycle of successful change through emotional intelligence consist first of discovering what our ideal self really is. Second, then unearthing who we exactly are. What is our real self? Third, we have to discover what our learning agenda is. Next, we have to practice our new thoughts and behaviors over and over and over. Lastly, we need to discover some supportive relationships. We need people who help us succeed.
            Emotional intelligence in leaders requires that they at least have some vision of their ideal lives. Through this vision they can uncover their real selves. This requires self-awareness though. Leadership strengths lie at the crossroads of where one’s real self matches one’s ideal self. Where it doesn’t are the gaps that one needs to work on.
            Improvement plans crafted around learning rather than performance outcomes have been found to be more effective for working on those gaps mentioned in the paragraph above. The best kind of learning is when one gets to focus on what one wants to become; one’s ideal self, rather than what others want him or her to become. One’s own life goals ignite their full range of talents. And the more parts of one’s life that can be identified as relevant to one’s leadership goals, the more chances one will have to practice and grow. Being handed a performance goal des the opposite. It undermines motivation. It causes anxiety, and decreases performance.
            Goals should be built on a person’s strengths, not their weaknesses. Plans of improvement should be flexible, feasible, and fit into their life and work, as well as fit into their learning style if it’s going to have the biggest impact on their development and growth.

            The problem is that people try to force leadership upon others and thus these poor souls learn it haphazardly by repeating what they saw others do while growing up, or their own poor previous attempts at it. The good thing is that one can improve in leadership by becoming aware of bad habits and constantly practicing a better way until one masters it. Having a good supportive relationship here really helps a lot in making this change.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

How to Piss Off Producers and Never Get on TV and Radio

Marketing yourself as an expert in your field means getting in front of prospects using traditional media outlets such as television and radio news. But only those who know how to work effectively with the gatekeepers of this industry, known as producers, will actually get invited to appear in front of the camera or the microphone. This article lays out many successful techniques for working with producers, but in a humorous style that demonstrates what some adults actually do that kills their opportunities for getting media attention.

One way of growing your brand and expanding your influence as an industry expert is to become a much sought after contributor to television news programs. That means creating relationships with the producers of those news programs and giving them what they need to do their job... content. All it takes is a little humility, professionalism, patience, and persistence to make it happen. But all too often I've met people who don't get it and instantly ruin their chances of ever getting on those programs. They're also the ones who tend to complain as to why they aren't getting the business they expect. To give something for the rest of us to learn from, here are 12 ways of never getting on TV, courtesy of those who've burned their bridges before us. 

Don't Watch Local TV Programming: Major network affiliates offer local news programming to feature both local and national stories to inform and educate their viewers. Ignore your local stations and don't take the time to find out if they offer a morning, midday, or early evening local news magazine show that features local experts. 

Don't Contact Your Local Stations: Most major affiliate network stations have local offices and studios that are staffed by receptionists. Don't waste your time, trying to find their contact phone numbers to ask for the names and email addresses of the news magazine show producers. 

Don't Bother Introducing Yourself: Because you're far too busy and have so much to get done, don't reach out to the local producers with an introductory email explaining briefly who you are and what information you can provide them with, to help them beef up their segments. 

Don't Send them Leads: As an industry expert, you're probably constantly watching for the latest trends and producing content such as books, eBooks, articles, blog posts, and more. Don't bother to help a producer out by sending an email containing a 3 - 5 bulleted story lead each week that you can comment on. You have way more important things to do. 

Take Your Sweet Time Replying: If by chance a TV news program producer does respond to one of your leads, wait a few days or even weeks to reply. Better yet, have your assistant reply instead or ignore the email all together. You can't possibly be expected to fit in one more thing into your day. 

Make Your Existing Appointments More Important: When a producer needs an on-air contributor, they may ask an expert to come in at a moment's notice or very early in the morning or even very late at night. Decline the producer's request by being too busy or unwilling to move existing appointments. This way they are sure not to contact you in the future. 

Let Them Know How You Were Inconvenienced: If by chance you get invited into the studio for an on-camera interview and it is cancelled or postponed, place a call or send an email to the producer letting them know how inconvenient that unexpected change was. I'm sure they will apologize and make it up to you. 

Demand to Speak with Their Boss: If you had gotten all the way into the studio and your segment is suddenly preempted for breaking news and you're dismissed, let the producer know how angry you are and demand to speak to her boss about being inconvenienced. 

Call and Voice Your Disappointment: If the segment in which you were interviewed did not air on the date and at the time you were told, call or write the producer to let him know how unfair it was for you to have invested your time and effort for no reason. I'm sure they'll make sure it never happens again. 

Do Not Send a Thank You Note: Save your money and don't buy a box of thank you cards. Forget about sending off a short note of thanks to the news program producer, you can use that valuable five minutes for other more important matters. 

Let Them Find Their Own Expert: Once you establish a relationship with a TV show producer, they may contact you out of the blue, when they are seeking commentary on a topic that is close to, but not exactly within your area of expertise. Let them know that you can't help them or just ignore their request all together. Do not recommend to them, any other experts in your network that may be more skilled at providing what they're seeking. Why bother helping them if you're not going to benefit from the opportunity. 

Send a "Nasty Gram" Letter to the Studio: Without notice, your emails to the producer are coming back undeliverable, stating that the producer is no longer working there. TV producers experience lots of stress and are under great pressure, which means the person in that position may change frequently. But that's not your problem. Send an email or letter to the studio describing your inconvenience of having to start the process of finding the contact information for the new producer, all over again. As ridiculous as some or all of these points might sound to you, I've seen or heard of unconscious professionals making these exact mistakes. I coach experts in growing their speaking business. I help my clients understand how busy producers are and what it takes to grow yourself as an industry expert that producers call first. I welcome comments on how you've seen others make these mistakes or new ones that I did not include in this piece.

Bill Corbett is the author of the Amazon top-seller, From the Soapbox to the Stage: How to Use Your Passion to Start a Speaking Business. Connect with Bill at http://BillCorbett.com.