Joelle Jay

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Originally Published on LinkedIn (July 15 , 2022)

If you were wildly successful this year, what would you be able to claim as your most impressive result?

Whether you’re a CEO; an executive, leader, or manager; an entrepreneur; a successful professional; or just someone who wants to excel in your personal and professional life, knowing the answer to that question may be the best thing you can do for your career right now.

Unfortunately, many people can’t answer that question. (Or they simply haven’t.) But you can easily learn to produce a short, compelling sentence that gets the attention of the people around you and aligns them to your most important goals.

Why would that be important? Because if you can briefly and brilliantly share your intended results:

• You will enroll others in your vision so they can support it, too.
• You will garner resources and endorsement of your ideas.
• You will feel clear and confident about what you’re achieving.
• For all those reasons and more, in the end, you’ll get the best outcome of all:
• You’ll actually achieve your one most impressive result – the one that matters most to you.

Capturing Your Commitment: What is Your Concrete, Measurable Result?

Your Concrete, Measurable Result (“CMR”) is a one-sentence description of a specific business outcome you want to be able to say you have achieved.

• Your Goal is a statement of what you want to achieve.
• Your CMR is a statement of what you will have achieved.

The difference is subtle but significant. The nuances of the CMR are what make it more powerful as a tool to both achieving and communicating your results with impact.

Here are some examples, drawn from the CMRs of a variety of our clients at the Leadership Research Institute.

CMR on Growing the Business, from a Partner in a Consulting Firm

Goal: Our goal is to grow our business 30% by December 31st of this year.

CMR: “As a result of my efforts to lead the growth of our firm, we tripled the number and size of our client accounts, resulting in a growth in revenue from $4 million to $26 million – our biggest jump ever.”

CMR on Improving Sales, from an Executive Vice President leading an international sales force:

Goal: We’re focused on the retention of key customers in a volatile and increasingly competitive market.

CMR: “As a result of building a high performing global leadership team, investing in head count, and developing talent in multiple strategies, my organization drove the 14% year-over-year growth to help reach a record revenue of $4.39 billion in 2021.”

CMR on Attracting Talent, from a Chief HR Officer

Goal: We want to attract the best talent in a competitive time.

CMR: “As a result of my efforts to position our company to attract, engage and retain better talent, I focused on improving client engagement scores by 25%, implemented a more compelling benefits package, and communicated the value of our firm publicly through a strategic PR campaign. We have gone from bleeding talent each year to becoming one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.”

CMR on System Transformation, from a COO

Goal: Our business systems need an overhaul.

CMR: “As a result of finding focus and being more strategic with my time, I reviewed and scaled operational processes, resulting in a 4% retention rate increase and $750,000 in cost efficiency savings to the business. Where we used to be known as a frustratingly slow business center, now we are simplified and streamlined.”

Exercise: Developing a Clear CMR 

For a clear CMR, we recommend the following template:

As a result of my efforts,

I have ___________________________________________________________ as evidenced by___________________________________________________ resulting in _______________________________for my company.

As you can see, there are three parts to a complete CMR.

1. Describe your efforts. Your outcomes don’t come from wishing and hoping they will happen. They come from your efforts. Put your finger on how you have accomplished your results and what you did to make it happen. Your attention will be focused on the role you play in making them happen – an important part of understanding your value.
2. Describe the result. Say, “As a result of my efforts, I have accomplished this.” What is it, specifically, you want to achieve?
3. Quantify your result. If you really want to drive home your value, for the company and for yourself, try putting some hard numbers to the result. Use metrics: dollars, numbers; figures; percentages; a comparison of where things were and the improvement of where they are now. This is where your results become concrete and measurable. When you communicate your concrete, measurable result, you can expect a very different reaction than if you just share your goals. Your CMR will land and make sense immediately to the person you are communicating with. You will feel the impact. And so will the others around you.

An even simpler way to describe a CMR is the “X by Y by Z” formula credited to former Google executive Laszlo Bock: [I have] “accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z].” In other words, “you want to focus on accomplishments — quantitative results and the impact that you had as a result.”1

When you’ve drafted your CMR, whether in your mind or in writing, test it:

• Does it have all of the components of the CMR framework?
• Is it realistic, but with enough stretch to be motivating?
• Does it include your efforts to make it happen as well as the impact?
• Is the impact captured in quantifiable, measurable terms? Do we need to give examples of metrics – statistic, percentage of savings, dollar figure, compare and contrast, efficiency, hours save, industry standard? If not, how could it be?
• Is the CMR jargon-free and easy to understand?

With specificity and brevity, your CMR is the communication tool you need to keep everyone focused – and in the end, to celebrate and communicate what you’ve achieved, while at the same time demonstrating your track record of success.

CMRs develop and evolve in three ways:

A Good CMR meets the CMR framework/format. Simply having all of the requisite parts of a CMR creates a compelling way communicate.

A Better CMR highlights one specific outcome that “nails it” in terms of getting others to see the value of what you’ve accomplished.

The Best CMRs have a “WOW” factor. You get this by identifying the result that makes the biggest difference to the person(s) you are communicating to and highlights the value of your contribution in a powerful and meaningful way. You’ll know you’re there when, after you share your CMR with someone of significance to you, they raise their eyebrows and say, “Wow! That’s amazing! Tell me more!”

Here are two more example to show you what we mean.

From a Published Author and International Speaker

Goal: I want to finish writing a book and grow my speaking presence.

CMR: As a result of developing and delivering my first Ted talk:

Good: I was selected to join a prestigious speaker’s bureau.

Better: I attracted 200,000 Instagram followers and reached a million people in 2022. Best: I’m now actually their featured speaker on the Home page of the bureau’s website. (Wow!)

From an International Non-Profit Organization

Goal: We are providing clean, lasting water every man, women, and child in Central Africa.

CMR: As a result of implementing our strategic approach to building sustainable water services:

Good: We created and maintained 1,800 water points and drilled over 1,000 handpumps.

Better: In five years, our impact has grown by 67% with 855,500 people now receiving safe drinking water from community systems.

Best: Best of all, the technology improvements we made to achieve will keep people and their community systems self-sustaining for years to come. (Wow!)

The One Sentence You Need to be Able to Say

Now that you’re familiar with the concept of CMRs (and are hopefully starting to get ideas of your own), let’s revisit the benefits of crafting this essential message.

1. Get clarity.We live in a changing world, with constantly shifting priorities, deliverables, and deadlines. In this environment, it’s easy to lose sight of your goals. Defining your concrete, measurable result will orient you to the one most important achievement you want to achieve, help you focus, and ensure you’re aligned with your team and the leaders in your organization.
2. Hold yourself accountable. Sometimes the problem isn’t that you’ve lost sight of your goals; you just never seem to get to them. Identifying a clear result – and stating it out loud – sets an expectation and will prompt you to take action.
3. Set your “internal GPS.”Experts in neurolinguistics programming tell us you how powerful our mental self-talk is in achieving results. When you single out the one result you want to deliver and state it clearly to yourself, you engage your subconscious as well as your conscious mind to get you where you want to go. As one of our clients put it, “The things you write down…they happen!”
4. Communicate your impact.All of these reasons for identifying your concrete, measurable result are related to achieving your goals, but ultimately you also need to communicate what you’ve accomplished – neatly, clearly, and with impact. Once you know the framework you have more tools in your leadership toolkit and you can adapt your results depending upon what is most important to each stakeholder.

Knowing your concrete measurable result isn’t the only thing you need to advance your goals, of course. You also need commitment, growth, and great results. The goal here is not to impress people or show off. It is simply to be clear about what you want to accomplish; accomplish it; and be able to communicate your contribution as a leader.

When Your CMR is Ready: What Can You Expect?

After sharing the CMR framework in coaching thousands of leaders, we have seen dramatic improvement in their ability to communicate their value and impact. The results from taking this vital step range from a boost in confidence to promotions and elevated status in their careers.

If you want to be viewed as valuable and a contributing member of your organization, you have to have the words to articulate your value. If you can’t explain that value to others, how can you expect them to identify it themselves?

Your CMR puts you in control and helps you quantify what you bring to the table. The process of developing your CMR will help you put your finger on exactly what you want that impact to be. 

At the Leadership Research Institute, we are committed helping leaders transform their businesses and their lives. If we can help you or your organization identify CMRs that will lead to success this year, reach out to us. If you’re interested in more resources from Joelle to help inspire and encourage you in the new year, sign up for her Words To Live By newsletter.

Jan Day Gravel is a Principal with the Leadership Research Institute (LRI) and a MCC executive coach and leadership development consultant. She has developed leadership programs for Fortune 500 companies and coached thousands of leaders to communicate their results and impact effectively.

Joelle K. Jay, Ph. D., is a Director with the Leadership Research Institute and an executive coach specializing in leadership development. She strategizes with business leaders to enhance their performance and maximize business results. Her clients include presidents, vice presidents, and C-level executives in Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Adobe. She is the author of The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and The New Advantage: How Women in Leadership can Create Win/Wins for Their Companies and Themselves. To connect with Joelle, go to www.JoelleKJay.com or email Info@JoelleKJay.com. 

1 Murphey, Bill. (2019). Google Recruiters Say Using the X-Y-Z Formula on Your Resume Will Improve Your Odds of Getting Hired at Google [online]. Inc. Available from: https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/google-recruiters-say-these-5-resume-tips-including-x-y-z-formula-will-improve-your-odds-of-getting-hired-at-google.html

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Originally Published on LinkedIn (January 18 , 2022)

If you’re one of the many who join the crowd at the gym at the start of every new year, swearing, “This year will be different!” ~

Or if you’re a serial dieter who resolves every year to lose weight ~

Or if already by January 18th you haven’t yet set a New Year’s Resolution (or forgotten the one you did set) ~

~ Take heart. This message is for you. We’re doubling down on the New Year’s Resolution with new rules, for new results.

That’s important, because you’re important. You have an intuitive draw to do something good for yourself, improve your life in some way, and lift your spirits with wins that make you happier, healthier or better, and you deserve that.

So don’t ditch your New Year’s Resolution. Dig it out, and let’s go after your success.

Reviving the New Year’s Resolution

It’s become trendy in recent years to trash the New Year’s Resolution idea. Right along the traditional January posts about New Year, New You come the flood of unhelpful posts telling you all the reasons resolutions “don’t work.” Let’s reset. In this article, we’re going to talk about why some people don’t succeed with their resolutions and why YOU will.

The reasons resolutions fail can be summed up in a few points:

• They’re made swiftly and perhaps thoughtlessly
• They’re too big
• They’re too vague
• There’s no plan
• There’s no track record

And so, there are few wins.

In other words, the resolutions people make off the cuff to finally do something – anything – are made out of desperation instead of commitment. Like seeds scattered on concrete, there’s nothing to root them into place.

But plenty of people do succeed with their resolutions, and you will, too, if you follow a few simple guidelines.

1. Think it through. New Year’s Resolutions start with New Year’s Reflection. You may hit on the right resolution immediately, or you may need to search for the right one, but either way, let’s really think this through.

What about your life or your results do you want to change?

Why is that important to you?

What will you look like when you achieve it?

How will you feel?

What will others notice?

And on a scale of 1 to 10…how committed are you to achieving this result?

If thinking about your resolution in this way gets you excited about it, you’re on the right track! If you don’t even get through the questions, or if you land on anything less than an 8 or 9 on that scale of 1 to 10…keep looking. More questions:

If that first resolution wasn’t quite it…what’s another way to look at it?

What’s the Big Goal you really do want to meet, or the Big Change you really do want to make?

What are you excited about?

What’s motivating you?

What’s worth the effort?

Interviewing yourself in this way, pen in hand, does take time and effort. It’s your initial investment – an investment that will pay off  because it means you’re really “in,” right from the start.

2. Think small.  One of the reasons nay-sayers distrust New Year’s Resolutions is because they’ve seen them fail, fail, and fail again, and that is destructive. Every time you fail to meet your New Year’s Resolution, you reinforce to yourself, “I failed again.”

What we want with a New Year’s Resolution is to find the wins! This is the perfect time to practice succeeding day by day, one win after another, without fail.

With that in mind, is there one small piece of that new life goal you thought through that would be light, fun, easy, and just a little bit thrilling to completely master?

Look for the thing that makes you smile. Now you’re on track.

3. Be specific.  Once you have the right idea – the resolution you care about, are invested in, and are excited to do, make it as specific as possible.

Maybe you started out swearing to “be less stressed.” More specific might be to take your dog to the dog park once a week, or schedule a relaxing vacation, or buy yourself a 10-pack of massages.

Maybe you started out wanting to “get fit.” More specific would be to go to one yoga class and see how you like it, or commit to one fun bike ride somewhere fabulous, or to find a friend who wants to learn tennis.

You’ll know you’re specific enough if you can think of an action you can take right now to get started.

4. Plan ahead. Of all the elements that make a New Year’s Resolution successful, perhaps the most important is a plan. “Going to the gym everyday” may sound like a plan, but unless you build in the structures to be successful, it’s not quite enough. What time will you go? What will get in the way? What are all the details that need to be in place to ensure you show up?
5. Celebrate your wins! We’re looking for wins here, and the way to track your wins is to keep score. When you think of your resolution, can you identify how exactly you’ll count your successes?

What will your scoreboard look like? Marbles in a jar? A chart posted on the fridge? Hash marks on a bulletin board? It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should be visible, even prominent, so your scoreboard serves as a visual cue – a reminder that today’s a new day for another win.

As an executive coach, I have seen resolutions come and go, and I’ve also seen the results. When you invest in yourself and give yourself the opportunity to truly succeed – not with empty promises or crossed fingers, but by prioritizing yourself and what you want for your life, you really do get to see those successes you hold in your heart. This year, give yourself the opportunity to be who you really want to be, achieve what you want to achieve…and lead the life you want to live.

At the Leadership Research Institute, we are committed helping leaders transform their businesses and their lives. If you are interested in setting resolutions that will lead to success this year, reach out to us. If you’re interested in more resources from Joelle to help inspire and encourage you in the new year, sign up for her Words To Live By newsletter.

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Does it seem to you the world has suddenly thrown open its doors? As the shutdowns end and the vaccines roll out, it seems like every group, team, business, and family is eager to race out of their homes and throw themselves headlong into togetherness once again, with all of the gatherings, appointments, meetings, and travel we’ve been missing all year.

And while it’s certainly refreshing to hug our grandparents again, see our friends and get back to work, you wouldn’t be alone if a part of you wants to hold back a bit from the hoopla and maybe even secretly harbors a quiet sense of dread.

Life as normal. Is that what we want?

In many ways, this summer—as we find ourselves reemerging back into the world after a global crisis – many of us are wondering what will be the same, what will be different, and what the future holds. What will our health be like now? What will happen to working remotely? Will our careers shift at all, or our career paths? All of these thoughts coming in waves can seem overwhelming, and a sense of fear may seem inevitable, if it weren’t for one critical strategy you can access at any time: personal leadership.

Personal leadership—a type of leadership where you lead yourself first so that you can create a balanced blend of work and life while choosing the quality of life you want to live—offers us a way to reflect and reconnect with what’s important as we face big questions about how we want to shape our lives in the times ahead. You have a precious window of time this summer to think about how you want to lead your life.

Before you dive nervously back into “life as normal,” give yourself the chance to think about “life as ideal.”

There are 10 practices of personal leadership, every one of which might be good food for thought as you think about how you want to re-emerge into the post-pandemic world.

1. Get clarity.  Find what it is you want, and give yourself permission to let that change as you look at the phase ahead.
2. Find focus. Define focus areas that you will want to prioritize at this time of your life.
3. Take action.  Create an action plan that helps you not just focus on those priorities but take action to achieve your goals.
4. Tap into your brilliance.  Remember your personal strengths, so you can leverage what’s best about you and use your talents in the service of those goals.
5. Feel fulfillment.  Discover what motivates you and makes you happy. You can use that sense of fulfillment to direct any changes you want to make in your “new life.”
6. Maximize your time.  Think about the techniques that help you achieve more with less.
7. Build your team.  Surround yourself with people who can advise, champion, advance, and elevate you.
8. Keep learning.  Consider what you need to learn now and what form that learning might take, whether it’s coaching, counseling, taking a class, starting a degree program, reading, or just journaling more often to clarify your thoughts.
9. See possibility.  Stay open to things being different now – better – and listening to your intuition to see what’s possible that maybe you didn’t believe was possible before.
10. All … All at once.  Give yourself the opportunity to be aligned to what’s important to you – all of it, all at once.

We find ourselves in a rare moment in life where we can make our own choices about how we want to proceed with our lives going forward—using practical strategies from personal leadership will help you identify what you want with how you’ll achieve it.

…And you don’t have to do it alone! Pre-register for the course in the Getting an Edge course this fall to join a group of like-minded women dedicated to helping you reach your vision and goals. You’ll have access to the following resources to help you along the way:

• 12 live training webinars (with coaching) facilitated by Personal Leadership expert and coach, Erin Mecseji;
• 4 1-hour private coaching sessions;
• 4 virtual meet-ups.  Dedicated time for additional coaching, strategizing, learning and/or accountability;
• Recordings of all monthly calls and virtual meet-ups;
• The book: The Inner Edge:  The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership;
• The Inner Edge Leadership Assessment;
• A Welcome Packet of course materials, including helpful handouts, strategic best practices, and additional resources;
• Inner Edge Insights Monthly Newsletter to supplement and extend your learning.

Registration for the Getting an Edge course is now open!

 

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I’ve spoken about personal leadership – or the leadership of the self – many times in the past, but what does personal leadership mean during a crisis, like COVID-19?

If you’re like many leaders, on a day-to-day basis you often find yourself swept away by the busyness – away from the sound principles of effective leadership, away from some of the essential things you want to do (but never have time for), and even away from yourself. But now, faced with the pandemic, we find ourselves confronting a new issue entirely – leading yourself during a crisis, when in addition to all of those priorities, you’re trying to manage the intense emotions – your own and of those you lead.

During times like these, if you’re able to lift yourself out of panic mode and leverage an optimistic mindset, you have an opportunity to productively move forward and stay clear, confident, and calm despite the crisis.

Start by asking yourself:

• What am I learning now, and how can I effectively address it?
• What do I want from myself, for the people I lead, and for my life and business, no matter what uncertainty the future (and the present!) may hold?
• How can I carve out time for reflection and detox so I can continue to stay focused on what matters most for myself, my family, and my career?

By the way, if you are (as so many of us are) now working and leading from home, you face a whole new level of change and challenge that can also derail your progress. Or, with the right mindset, it might improve your process. Take advantage of the time saved in this work-from-home world. The time you would usually commute, hang out chatting in the halls, or putter about your office might be repurposed now for some much- needed rest and planning.

I encourage you to give yourself permission to use your time in quarantine to think about what projects you want to pursue Decide what can you do with this opportunity, and you won’t emerge from this period three months later and find yourself in any kind of career setback. You’ll emerge stronger and more resilient than ever before – ready to succeed with the challenges ahead.

There’s no question that we find ourselves in unprecedented times. It can be a time of confusion and uncertainty. For leaders who take the opportunity, though, it can also be a chance to create the kind of leadership that’s built from a stronger, more sustainable foundation.

For more practical exercises and advice on personal leadership, see Joelle’s book: The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership.

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Many of us have an action plan, or to-do list, to keep ourselves organized – at the beginning of the day we write down everything that we have to do, and then the day is filled with the victorious crossing off of items from the list. But what happens when you get to the end of the day, and too often there are a lot of things left?

We’re left with a feeling like the work is never done, but perhaps the problem isn’t so much that there’s so much that needs to get done, but the fact that we’re putting everything on one long to-do list.

You can actually organize your thinking, and organize your time, just by changing your to-do list.

Having a detailed daily action plan can help you stay focused – it’s called the catalyst. In science, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process. For you, your catalyst is an action that dramatically increases the rate at which you achieve your vision without it consuming you.

The CATA-list action plan is divided into 4 categories:

• Catalysts
• Achievements
• Tasks
• Avoidances

The catalyst: To find your catalyst, ask yourself: What is the one thing I can do that will have the greatest impact on my vision? The guiding principle for your catalyst is that you know this one item would do the most to get you to your goal. For example, let’s say you’re trying to lose 50 pounds. A catalyst might be to go running, or give up sugar. Your catalyst is that one thing that’s most important for you to do to manifest your desired outcome.

Achievements: These are the actions you classify as highly important. They might not have the transformational effect of your one catalyst, but they’re the achievements that matter on a day-to-day basis. It’s your daily actions, priorities, projects and deadlines.

Tasks: This category is for the actions you like to take, but can’t justify as truly critical, at least not in terms of your priorities and goals. Tasks are typically big time consumers. These are the long meetings that need to be scheduled, networking events, or maybe they’re things you like to do only after the more valuable action items are taken care of.

Avoidances: These are the actions that have actually very little return. Often times, scrolling through social media feeds falls into this category. Surfing through our emails, unuseful conversations are avoidances that actually take up the time we need for more important priorities in our lives. By creating a catalyst you have organized now your to-do list in an efficient way in an organized order of value for your time.

By creating a catalyst you have an organized your list of action items in an efficient way, and in an organized order of value for your time. When you see your catalyst through, you free yourself of the daily to-do list, and organize your list of action items according to your priorities – and, ultimately, achieve your vision.

If you’d like more inspiration and encouragement from Joelle, request her free daily series, “Words To Live By”.

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If you are looking to be more effective and intentional with your time, and, ultimately, elevate yourself to a higher level of leadership, you are probably discovering that the delegation is becoming essential.

Delegating tasks on your endless to-do list is a necessary reality if you’re going to free themselves to achieve those “big bets” and your long-term goals.

So why can task delegation be a struggle for many leaders?

The answer is simple: It takes time and effort. It’s tempting to avoid it altogether.

If you hear yourself saying, “It would be easier to just do this myself,” think again. Remember those big goals of yours! You won’t achieve them if you’re trapped in the day-to-day minutiae. Instead, let’s look at an approach to delegation that can get you the support you need to succeed.

Broken down, delegation also means training others to do the task that you need done.

You may need to confront your own insecurities about quality control here; the person to whom you delegate may not do the task as well as you do. That’s okay. They don’t need to do it as well as you, and they don’t need to do it the same way as you. They just need to get it done – and by the way, if you choose selectively, you will be giving them the opportunity to stretch and grow as they do.

You may also need to calm your fears about whatever cleanup may be ahead if things go badly. Delegation runs the risk of failure. No wonder that cautious side of you wonders again if it wouldn’t just be better to do the task yourself. But be strong – the likelihood of failure is far less if you take responsibility for helping the people to whom you delegate to do the task well. In fact, if you teach them thoroughly and coach them along the way, you may free yourself from the task for good, as you will have trained a capable other to do the task in your place. It bears repeating: If you insist on doing every task on your list yourself, you’ll never rise above the level of your to do list. You’ll always be doing the same work.

Mastering the skill of delegation is what can free you to rise to the next level.

Here’s a handy technique to get you started. The next time you need to delegate tasks, just remember this method: the ODC. An ODC is a message you deliver to the person who will do a task.

• The “O” stands for Outcome. What outcome are you trying to achieve?
• The “D” stands for Deadline. When you want to the task to be done?
• The “C” is for “Clarification.” What detailed directions can you provide, and what questions do you and your task-doer need to discuss?

Here’s an example of ODC in action. You have traditionally planned the end-of-the-year party for your team, but this year you’re focused on delivering a high-impact client engagement and don’t want to take time away from this critical project. You choose Michael, the new coordinator on your team, to take on the party.

You’re ready to delegate.

Promising yourself that you will let Michael do things his way, and promising Michael that you will do everything you can to help him succeed, you launch the ODC.

“Michael, I would love to have you take on this new project. The outcome is to have the final end-of-the-year party planned for our team, and we want to have it completed by June 10th. What questions do you have, Michael? And, before you start, let me show you some of the criteria that we want to use.”

It’s an easy, quick reminder of how to transfer information from your brain into someone else’s. You don’t have to talk Michael through all of the details. You don’t have to explain to him what last year’s party looked like, you don’t have to give him all of your files, unless Michael wants them. You can trust Michael to do things his way. He knows the outcome, he knows the deadline, he’s had a chance to ask questions, and you’ve given him enough detail.

Now if you check in with Michael every other day to make sure he’s on track and keep giving him the opportunity to ask questions, he will have taken on the whole project. You have one giant piece of work delegated to someone else, and you are free to concentrate on something bigger. Michael gets a new opportunity, and guess what: you do, too. The whole thing is as easy as remembering “ODC.”

For more strategies to take control of your time and cultivate better personal leadership skills, see Joelle’s book: The Inner Edge.

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Mastering the art of networking is one thing – but using it to grow your business is a whole other level.

So many books and articles have been written on how to network effectively, and if you want it, you can access a lifetime’s worth of advice on how to connect with others. But although connecting with people is certainly a nice thing to do, at some point it can feel futile. There are only so many names you can collect; only so many events to attend.

If you really want to take your networking to the next level, you’ll need to approach it in a way that ultimately leads to business growth. To do that, the best thing you can do is show people who you are. Give them the experience of you.

This goes beyond your elevator pitch. Ideally, you do have an elevator pitch and have crafted it to represent who you really are. But that’s just the first step. After all, in your elevator pitch you’re simply telling people who you are. In next-level networking, you also show them.

If you’re an executive coach, for example, instead of chitchatting with new connections, look for opportunities to ask genuinely helpful coaching questions.

If you’re a resource who provides a valuable service, pose thought provoking, reflective questions or point people to something that might be helpful for them to read, related to something that’s important to them.

To get away from the superficial connection and into a real conversation, move from telling people what you do, and just do that for them. Forget about trying to get business from them; rather, just be you and show them how you can help.

All of this helps you connect with people in a more impactful way – one that helps you express what you care about and make the impact you’re striving to achieve.

If you want to set yourself apart in your networking, I advocate for going in with a thoughtful, reflective plan. Organize what you’re thinking before you go into any networking situation:

• Ask these universal questions, in order: Who, why, what, how and what if?
• Ask yourself who you would really like to connect with. Follow up that question with why you want to know them, and what you want to ask them to make a connection.
• Determine how you want to open the conversation. Choose one really good question that you’re comfortable delivering and is also meaningful to you and the people you meet. For example, “Tell me about your practice and how you got to be as successful as you are?”
• Finally, imagine what kinds of interesting things might happen if all goes well. What if you find a meaningful connection with exactly the right type of person? What is the ideal outcome for you, and for them? Thinking about this ahead of time will focus your efforts.

If you know what you’re going to ask, it takes down the exhaustion factor immediately, and you’ll ultimately come off as much more genuine. More importantly, you’ll learn to embrace your story, and learn about others’ stories, in a more powerful way.

Shy? Get more of Joelle’s networking strategies from her recent article in The Oprah Magazine. If you’d like more inspiration and encouragement from Joelle, request her free daily series, “Words To Live By”.

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At an event recently, a businessman walked up to me with his business card in hand. He smiled and winked, handed me his card, and delivered his slick elevator pitch in one clearly practiced motion. I thought, “Ick.”

My next thought was, “Yikes – I hope when I introduce myself at a networking event, people don’t think, “Ick!”

The Ick Factor in networking is directly related to one avoidable thing: insincerity. To the businessman winking his way over to me, I seemed like a “prospect.” Certainly his approach made me feel like one. I was a target and getting me to take some kind of action to his benefit was seemingly the goal.

You can avoid the Ick Factor and make sure people respond well to your outreach by dropping the façade and bringing something far more meaningful to the conversation: you.

I believe that businessmen and businesswomen are most successful in their networking when they’re truly genuine, and when they think of networking as building strong relationships with people, they care about over the things they value.

Otherwise, networking is too transactional. People fail at networking when they start with the task of achieving something – “I need to get a job,” “I need to make this ask of somebody,” “I need to get a client.” They succeed when they seek to build deep relationships with people they really genuinely care about.

Researchers have observed that men and women tend to network differently – another element of networking you can use to refine your approach and genuinely connect with others. They note that women tend to lead their networking with a focus on relationships. They will talk to people in a way that’s about getting to know them, and ask questions like what brought them to the event. Women will use that as a foundation for eventually transitioning into a business conversation.

In those same studies, men are shown to lead with business. They are more likely to start by asking someone about their profession, and what they’re hoping to carry out at the event. And then, if they identify common interests, they will evaluate the relationship as one to move forward with at that point.

With that in mind, whether you’re networking with a man or woman, one way that you can master networking very quickly is to let other people lead the conversation just long enough to understand which angle they’re coming from. If the person in front of you opens with a relationship-forming question (“Have you been involved with this organization long?” “Are you front this area?” “What does your lapel pin mean?”), ask a relationship-forming question back, If the person opens with a business-type question (“So, what do you do?” “What brings you to this conference?” “How do you define success?”), ask a business-oriented question back. You will be starting the conversation with the focus where it should be: on the person with whom you’re starting to connect.

Essentially, by deciding which of the two approaches a new acquaintance takes, you can actually control the conversational outcomes much better, and ultimately, make stronger connections that make networking more worthwhile.

Read more about Joelle’s views on networking in The Oprah Magazine. If you’d like more inspiration and encouragement from Joelle, request her free daily series, “Words To Live By”.

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Do you ever feel exhausted by all the things you have to do? Being busy “doing” burns us out, it scatters our brains, and ultimately it keeps us from being productive because we are simply too exhausted to focus.

An alternative to “doing” is to practice “not doing.” Practicing not doing is about stopping the busy-ness – putting it down, taking a break, getting focused and choosing a new path.

Let’s examine the art of not doing one piece at a time.

What does it mean to stop? Imagine you are in the middle of a busy day – you have your to-do list, your meetings, your calendar, your email – so many things to do, so many pressures, and you know you’re never going to get it all done. Imagine if, just for the moment, you closed up shop, and walked away. What does it look like for you? Maybe it’s simply walking into another room and sitting quietly for a moment.

The first step is to break the connection and stop doing, even if just for a moment, so you can get some perspective.

The second step is to get focused. Getting focused means remembering the single-most important thing you should be doing. What’s essential? Asking yourself what your priority is will help you quiet the demands on your time, both internal and external, and focus on the one thing that matters most to you.

So now you’ve stopped the busy-ness, you’ve gotten focused again – now you can move forward to the third step – moving forward. Moving forward means clearing the desk and getting out a fresh sheet of paper, with a fresh mindset to match, and redefining how you use your time.

With this strategy you’ll find that a lot of things that were taking your time share, and mind share, before will fall away – because now you are focused on the number one most important thing.

When you practice not doing, you can breathe again. You can focus on your most important goals and you can finally stop the busy-ness. You’ll feel re-energized, you’ll feel excited again and you’ll be more effective than ever. All it takes is three steps: Stop the doing, get focused and move forward. 

For more ways to improve your personal leadership and gain more control over your time and productivity, see Joelle’s book: The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership.

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• “I’m sorry I’m late!”
• “I’m so sorry to ask you for this.”
• “I’m sorry I’m not as prepared as I would like to be.”

How many times have you started a sentence with an apology?

For some people, it’s multiple times a day – often without even noticing. Unconsciously, those of us who over-apologize can be weakening our power. Becoming more aware of what for many has simply become a habit can help them gain a more influential communication style, a stronger executive presence, and more respect from the people around us.

Now, let’s acknowledge that a sincere apology holds a special place in our relationships. And even the off-handed “so sorry” (“Sorry to interrupt – I know you’re busy!”) is often merely intended to be polite and kind. But it doesn’t always work in a business setting.

Often I will hear a leader says something like this to a team member:

“I am so sorry to ask you this, but we really need someone to take on this project, and it’s a big one. It might be kind of a challenge, but we really need to impress this client.”

The intent of the leader here may be to connect personally. The leader means, “I know you weren’t expecting this, but I trust you, and you’re the best person for this job.” But the impact may not be what s/he wanted professionally. The team member hears, “She’s apologizing; she doesn’t feel strongly about this and in fact may feel guilty. I’m going to push back on this.” In a business setting, apologizing as a form of communication can come across differently than it may between friends.

Believe it or not, through no intention of your own, starting an ask with an apology may sound insecure, not very convincing, and even a little whiny, and ultimately you’re not going to get the “yes” you’re looking for.

There are three elements of that communication style that are a problem.

1. The apology itself. In a business setting, “I’m sorry” can immediately put you into a smaller role, suggesting you have done something wrong that you have to apologize for. More often than not, you do not have anything to apologize for, so choose another approach. Raise your awareness of the overuse of the phrase even for one day and you’ll feel the difference!
2. The explanation. Whatever follows an unnecessary apology invariably is diminished by the apology itself. “I’m sorry, I really would have liked to get this into better shape for you before sharing it” emphasizes that what you’re delivering isn’t very good. Try owning the deliverable just as it is, knowing that it – and you – are fine and valuable as is.
3. The implication. Between the apology and the explanation lies one more problem: the emotional tone. When you apologize unnecessarily, others get the sense that you think they feel bad, and/or that you feel bad, and so the feeling is…bad.

Let’s see what happens if we rephrase the apology above, ridding ourselves of this apologetic baggage. How about if instead of saying this:

“I am so sorry to ask you this, but we really need someone to take on this project, and it’s a big one. It might be kind of a challenge, but we really need to impress this client.”

…our team leader instead said this?

“Would you please lead our next project? We really need to impress our client, and you have the right skills and talent to do is.”

Now s/he is asking directly, with courage and self-confidence, for something of importance from someone she respects. The apology is gone, the explanation is clear, and the implication is that the leader expects the best – a delivery that leaves the leader and the team member feeling powerful and ready to succeed.

Again, please don’t misunderstand me – many a sincere apology has healed a relationship and righted a wrong, and it should be a valuable communication tool in the right setting. Just save those apologies for when you need them.

In the meantime, without the unconscious or unnecessary apologies…you’ll be communicating like the leader you are. For more ways to improve your power as a leader, and create new advantages for yourself and your company, see Joelle’s book: The New Advantage.