The New Year is approaching and professional and personal growth occurs when we select a new experience. The challenge is what do you want to accomplish, how will it benefit you and how will you do it?

In my classes, I ask participants to write down a skill they would like to strengthen and ask them to partner with someone in the class. They establish a timetable with this partner and periodically check on the status of progress toward the goal with him / her.

In my experience, having a partner or coach holding you accountable helps move the process along. I have personal trainer I meet twice a week. He is very good at making sure the exercises are done properly. He also holds me accountable to workout. If he did not, I probably would not exercise because business and personal needs always seem to intrude!

Asking someone to hold me accountable keeps me on track which is good for my physical and mental well-being. Would I exercise on my own?  Probably not. As I go into year two, I found that having a coach is critical to achieve my goal of staying healthy.

In a recent conversation with a client, the topic of leadership came up. What makes a leader? What does leadership look like? There are many aspects to it. Leadership means doing things including making decisions that are not always easy but are necessary. Another is being able to get things done and not take the credit.

Some leaders are born and others continue to develop skills through work and experience. Recently, I watched the movie, Jaws. The mayor who would not close the beaches had a leadership role but did not make the difficult decisions like a true leader would make. Too often, the folks who have leadership titles are not true leaders.

At a recent family event, several members sported political badges of the two opposing party nominees. It caused spirited conversations but many uncomfortable moments. This event was supposed to celebrate a milestone event bringing two families together!

A recent NYT article talks about folks going to therapists because of the presidential campaign. Folks are worried and anxious about this election. While I understand we all have the right to express our viewpoints, it would be nice to attend a joyous occasion and leave the politics at home. Remember the long standing etiquette rule: Never discuss politics or religion at an event!

An apology for a transgression in a business situation can be a complicated thing, and it is so organically linked to the context that generalized protocols can be treacherous. Let’s start with this one: you aren’t ready to make an apology until you really mean it. The person to whom you are apologizing will have an acute ability to sense whether you are just going through the motions or are sincere. That person will also know if your transgression is a one-off, or whether it fits a pattern. If the latter, you will have much more work to do. And people can always tell whether you are apologizing for your deed, or only for having been caught. Many missteps are possible when making an apology. On the other hand, if you do it thoughtfully and meaningfully, you may do more than repair the damage – you may strengthen an important collegial bond.

A common courtesy is accepting or not accepting an invitation. However, this little nicety appears to have gone by the wayside. Is not responding a response? It is not. When is the appropriate time frame to respond? As soon you know if you are able to attend or not, respond so you don’t forget it.
If there is a respond-by date, use that as a guideline to answer the invitation. Responding to an invitation is being respectful to the party throwers. If you don’t know whether you can attend, at least let them know you received the invitation.

Some folks possess a blind spot. They feel that no one else can do their job so they walk around entitled. Everyone is replaceable. They key is to ensure that your replacement helps you move to the next level of your career. At a recent networking event, the person next to me lamented that she was not advancing in her career. She claimed the reason was that only she could do her job. In continuing the conversation, it came up that she had not thought about getting others involved in learning her responsibilities to groom a possible successor.

This caused me to remember a conversation with a YMCA board member. I chaired a fundraiser that was the most successful in raising money. The first thing I did was bring in a successor to chair it the next year. I pass this advice along to all my executives: Real success is finding your replacement because it frees you up for consideration for the next leadership role.

In the US, the presidential elections have thrown conversations and accusations down the rabbit hole where actual issues get more personal than policy driven. It seems that in our politics today, honesty is clouded. Name calling then becomes the narrative.

In the workplace, sometimes actual issues are skirted around to avoid offending others. The worst thing that can occur is when real issues never get resolved. The elephant in the room gets larger and looms over not what is said, but what is inferred. It is important to dialog honestly without resorting to gutter-speak.

This lesson can be applied to my role. When coaching clients who have not been told or have not truly heard the critical issues holding them back, it is important to get to the heart of the subject. My job is to ask questions that help the client realize what it takes to be successful. For that to occur, they must be honest with themselves. That allows for graceful conversations.

There much to learn by watching the politicians on stage, from the way they speak to their clothing choices. In a recent New York Times article, the vice presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, was featured about his clothing choices. He was compared to President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
President Obama is a Hart Shaffner Marx customer (custom tailored to his physical size – tall and slender). Vice President Joe Biden was not wearing an off the rack suit either. The average man on the street rarely wears a suit today and if he does, it is not custom tailored. Tim Kaine wore a non-custom made suit along with a matching shirt and a not-current-style tie. His clothing sent the message: I am just like the average guy on the street and I am for you. The idea is to dress for the audience you want to connect with.

Expressing passion when speaking about your subject is an important way to connect to your audience. The key is to control the volume of your voice. It is easy to mistake yelling for passion. Practice by audio and videotaping your presentations. This helps determine when and where the voice needs to change to reflect the key moments in the speech. When a voice raises in sound, it projects a different feeling than yelling does. Use one to three fingers on your throat to gauge when your voice goes too high or low. You can raise or lower your voice to make a point and determine the most effective tone based on the audience size and speech content.

I am still amazed when customer service calls me back. Recently, I had two very different customer service experiences. One was a rep who directed me to the website to make changes to a service plan. Two days later, after no success with customer service and not being able to get into the website, I went to the retail store to speak to a representative. This person could not get into the site either but promised to call me back the next day.

No call.

I then called the store number where another customer service person helped change the plan. Four days of phone calls, no luck with website or even with the retail store.

My second example was a “wow”! I called first to get a customer service person. This person told me he would handle it and would call back with the correction needed. He called me back within ten minutes with the change and a confirmation number.

When running a business, customer service is critical to the survival of almost any business. It will set you apart from competitors but the key is to “wow” the customer!