Brand YOU–Handling Problems

April 4, 2006 by Liz

Brand Integrity

People say, Ã¢â¬ÅDonÃ¢â¬â¢t judge a book by its cover.Ã¢â¬?

In any relationship of substance, there comes a moment when things go wrong. Often folks can simply adjust and move forward, occasionally the damage is large enough that things need to stop before progress can be made. Problems need to be fixed. How these moments are handled can mean the end of a relationship or just the opposite an even stronger bond of respect is forged.

Integrity, graciousness, and the ability to deal in times of problems are key indicators of brand strength and viability. People look to see who you and your business really are when troubles come your way.

Handle Yourself, Not the Problem

Problems are opportunities . . . make lemonade. . . yeah, yeah, we all know that. The truth is. They don’t look or feel that way, when they’re happening and we don’t feel like drinking lemonade. In business, ignoring problems or running away from them usually isn’t an option, at least not for long. So instead, we rush in and try to handle them–be the hero, adrenaline pumping. That’s when we make wrong decisions–knee-jerk reactions happen. Words get said that aren’t our usual, in tones that aren’t our own.

The key to solving problems with grace and brand integrity is NOT to handle them, but to handle ourselves instead. Try these steps the next times a crisis hits to keep your head safely wired to your heart.

When I give my soul a little breathing room . . .
everyone I know gets nicer.

I try to remember, when problems come, that if I don’t feel taken care of myself, I’m not going to give a very good showing. So the first thing I do is a personal check. When was the last time I ate, slept, saw something beside flourescent lighting or a hotel room? I walk outside to see sky and trees if I can. It’s hard to take any business stress over-seriously when I’ve just been confronted with the scope of nature and taken a moment to breathe.

2. The more that you want to run, the more that you should walk instead. Forcing myself to think slowly keeps me from knee-jerk reactions It also leaves space for other folks to talk.

3. The minute you feel righteous you are wrong. When I feel a crusade coming on, I find someone to tell me what I’m not seeing. There is no problem with only one side. I know I need balance. I need somone to tell me what I’m about to get wrong.

4. When you have balance, THEN gather facts to make an informed plan of action.

5. Execute the plan with confidence and calm.

No Need to Be Pollyanna

No, you don’t have to look forward to problems, nor do you need to think the sun is always shining. The world can only take so many Pollyannas. Still, it is nice to have the confidence of knowing that when a problem comes, you can handle it with grace and be a credit toyour brand.

You’ll know you’re there when folks start asking how you stay so cool under pressure. They will. When they do, just smile and paraphrase my sentence for them

I find that when I give myself a little breathing room, everyone gets nicer.

I won’t tell them where you got that from.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Critical Skill 2: Mental Flexibility Test

April 3, 2006 by Liz

For those of you who like to test your mental flexibiity, or for those of you who want a little more practice. Here’s a test that’s been around for a while you might try for yourself. Think of the test as a personal challenge. It’s not a test of intelligence or creativity. You might find that the answers you don’t get right away will come to you over the course of the next few days when you least expect them to. To access the test and give it a try click the screen shot below.

A score of more than 16 is supposed to be genius, but if you go for days you should be able to get them all. Personally I think there’s a genius in all of us. . . . No one has described what a genius is yet.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Critical Skill 2: Mental Flexibility

April 3, 2006 by Liz

Mental Habits

Just this morning, a friend shot me an email. It asked whether I had time to write up a quick press release. I replied that I probably could and asked the three questions I do to size the time it will take to get the job done.

What is it for?
When do you need it?
Do you have a model for what you want?

I got a response from my friend that was an apology. Apparently my last question reminded him of the press release he had from last year for the same event. He could just brush that off, rewrite it, and use it again.

His habit was to start from scratch on everything. My questions had pushed his thinking.

Flexing Your Thoughts

When I look over the original article for this series, The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future, I keep coming back to the idea that mental flexibility might be the one skill that has the most initial impact. This is the crowd pleaser–the hero. Mental flexiblity unbends the bent, unties the knot, and unsticks the stuck. People notice that kind of thing right away.

If you can do that and they cannot, they think you’re really something.

Like it’s name implies, mental flexibility is a matter of being in shape. Flexing your mental abilities isn’t that different than flexing your muscles. Warm up and try them out one at a time. Know your limits and know your goal is to broaden your scope. These are some ways to stretch your mind, to make your thinking more flexible.

1. Listen to people that you disagree with. Take in their arguments and follow their logic. Try it on for size. Work to see things entirely from their point of view.

2. Look in opposing arguments for the places where you are in agreement. No two arguments are totally opposite. Find the core of the matter where the arguments are the same.

3. Try to put two opposing ideas into one picture and make them work together. This works more often than you might think it would. Get to the core of each argument, keep each primary goal in tact, and then look for a way to make a new whole.

4. Stay in the 30,000 foot view. Don’t get caught in sematics or in details. Words aren’t your friend when you’re looking for flexibility. Words tie things down in a precise detailed fashion. Words can also confuse rather than add clarity–for example, your shade of blue might be more green than mine. If you use many words for the same thing . . . So the blue, azure, sapphire, teal, sky-colored logo would sit here . . ., then you can keep the thinking big picture and flexible.

5. Give weird ideas their voice. Runners push past the wall. So do flexible thinkers. Let other folks have a chance to share their kookie plans. Try them out. You might decide that you like one a lot.

6. Make a new habit of questioning yourself. Why am I doing this? Is there another approach? Is this my own thinking or a habit I’m used to? Does this situation call for action at all? The hardest part is remembering to question yourself. Doing it is actually fun. Once you get in the habit, you’ll not only gain flexibility. Your productivity will also go up.

7. Evaluate every argument. Don’t take anything on face value. People pass opinion as fact frequently, in the media and in person. Many folks just accept such information and repeat it as true–as if they are still in school. Flexible thinkers do not. When someone quotes statistics to you, be prepared to say, “You’re making that up.”

8. Use your entire brain, not just the logical left. Test things out with your perception and your intuition, as well. Don’t leave any information source on the table. Use everyone else’s brains too. Stretching your flexibility means stretching in every direction. There’s a world of new information waiting to be put together.

9. Find the humor and laugh some. There is something funny about almost everything, if you open yourself up to it. Give yourself room to laugh, and you might find other ideas come easier too.

10. Rewrite reality and have a few fantasies. Take that habit of Stephen Covey’s “Change your Paradigm” totally outside of the box. Don’t just make a slightly newer reality–blow your ideas out of the water. Imagine the problem as a dating situation, how would you deal with it then? Suppose it were happening on an alien world . . . and your kids were in charge?

Push your thinking in every direction you can. It doesn’t hurt, and the investment pays off in your ability to think in places where other folks can’t.

Every Company Needs You

Think of your mind as a room filled with drawers and doors, each of which leads to piles and stacks of information that you can access and use. Mental flexibility solves problems when other folks can’t because it allows you to open those drawers and doors to find answers to questions. Most folks don’t have any practice at doing that.

That’s why flexible thinkers get noticed so quickly. They give answers that aren’t the usual ones, and the answers they give are answers that work.

Imagine the impact on your personal brand when folks start seeing you as someone who always asks the right question, gets to the core of things, and fits ideas together. In other words, you have added flexible thinking as a big idea to your personal brand, a core competency of your skill set. It’s one more way to bring the uniquely Brand YOU to the business table.

Flexible thinking is a skill every company needs desperately. Companies can’t problem solve, innovate, or grow organically without it. Why not be the one who shows them does it for them?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Special thanks to: Mental Flexibility for motivating me when I was tired.

300 Naked Women Feared Lost [Branding The Onion]

April 2, 2006 by Liz

Sunday Afternoon Reading

Chicago.

If you get to know Chicago, you’ll understand why I like it so–despite the winters. It’s the American midwest work ethic, the reason Chicago is called the City of Big Shoulders, the City that Works. It’s the people and the midwest sense of humor.

It was Sunday. I stopped by a neighborhood bar, picked up a free newspaper from the stack by the door. I ordered a glass of wine and asked for a hamburger with pickle, onion, ketchup, and mustard. Then I scan the headlines.

Immediately I saw 300 Naked Women Feared Lost . . . . I was reading the – America’s Finest News Source. A great friend to have along with a glass of wine and a hamburger on a Sunday afternoon in Chicago.

I know that you can find this free paper in other cities–it’s even online–but it’s in every neighborhood bar, bookstore, and coffee shop in downtown Chicago. We think of it as our own. Maybe it’s an onion-connection thing. Historians say the word, Chicago, means stinking onion.

The Onion is not only America’s Finest New’s Source . . . per their trademark. According to their media kit, they are also hailed by the New Yorker as “The Funniest Publication in the United States.” “A Message from The Corporate Office” attributed to “the esteemed Captain of Commerce” promises that

. . . Every one of our readers is firmly ensconced within the plum 18-49 demographic . . . we went so far as to lobby the halls of Congress . . . to make reading The Onion mandatory for this group . . . Thankfully the law passed in 1997, forever ensuring that our readers are highly paid easily persuadable young folk with money to burn. . . .

Now there’s brand-centered promotion that knows its goal and communicates its big idea–crisp, clear, sweet. It’s what I call Frosted Mini-Wheats promotion. It satisfies my adult sophisticated sense of humor and my kid-like sense of fun at the same time.

If you’re not familiar with this news source, it’s a perfect thing to try this day after April Fool’s Day, when we’ve just changed the clocks to lose an hour of sleep.

And about those naked women . . . check the story. It ran July 18, 2001. I still remember it. I still think it’s funny.

Now that’s a brand that lives up to its promise.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Creative Wonder 101 as Promotion and Problem Solving

March 28, 2006 by Liz

Wondering

We look at each other wondering what the other is thinking but we never say a thing.
–Dave Matthews, Ants Marching

Did you ever wonder the same thing about someone you were with?
Did you ever wonder what the story was behind a song you like?
Do you wonder how some singers get to be famous when they can’t sing?
Do you wonder about things as much as I do?
Are you wondering why I’m asking so many questions?

What Is Wondering ?

Wondering is that sense of awe mixed with curiosity that little kids and imaginative grown-ups get when they see something out-of-this-world unbelievable. It’s the real feeling behind words like awesome, incredible, amazing, stunning, and wonderful.

Wondering is looking at a starry sky and thinking that there are more stars and more universes than you can possibly count, . . . that numbers go on into infinity, . . . that space is a vacuum without any sound at all . . . that the light from the stars can travel days just to reach us. Wondering is trying to get your mind around the idea that biggest jerk on the planet can appear to be happily married with kids who seem to like him–and can have more money than we’ll ever dream of having.

I wonder about everything. I’m wondering right now if you’re going to wonder why I wrote these words, or if you’re even going to read them.

Wondering is a thinking skill. Name a genius who didn’t have wondering as a core competency.

Creative Wondering 101

Creative wondering is opening your brain to the kind of questions you used to have when you were much shorter than you are now. It’s like brainstorming with questions. If you’re looking to solve a problem, wondering is a painless way to get where you want to be. Point your brain in the right direction, and your wondering takes you to a variety of possible solutions.

These are three benefits of creative wondering that make it useful to everyone. It’s funny kids know these things automatically and most grown-ups need to learn them all over again.

Wondering works best when you’re relaxed and in turn is relaxing.
Wondering is personally flexible. You can wonder into a journal or notepad to capture your thoughts, but you don’t have to.
Wondering is mobile, and therefore, it increases productivity. You can do it anywhere. It’s a useful skill for when you’re waiting in traffic or for that doctor who’s always an hour late. Wondering works in the shower. Reading usually does not.

A Warm-Up

If you haven’t wondered for a while, you might be a little tight. Stretch your brain a bit with warm-up questions. Here are a few:

What if? . . . How come? . . . Who was? . . . What belongs? . . . Why did? . . . Who the heck? . . . Who’s idea? . . . Where was I? . . . What’s wrong with this picture? . . . When did that happen? . . . Who died and made you king? . . . What would Brad and Angelina have to say about this? . . . Why him? Why her? Why it? Why now? Why bother? WHY NOT? and What will I do when I win the lottery?

You could write them down and take notes under each one. Go for it, if that’s the kind of wonderer you are. Don’t you dare, if you don’t want to. It’s wrong to take the fun out of wondering. Then you would spend your time wondering why you are wondering . . . That kind of wandering wondering gets you nowhere.

Wondering to Solve Problems

Now you’re ready to start looking at the serious stuff with a new lens of wondering. Don’t let anything off the hook. Question the whole world, like you questioned your parents when you were three years old.

If you need a solution, do some serious wondering about the problem.

Wonder why it’s a problem to start with.
Then throw that passel of questions in the warm-up at the problem to pull out the bits that you’re not seeing clearly. Obssess over every detail with every possible question you might think of to wonder about. One caveat–exclude questions that illicit an emotional response. Just the facts for now, please.
Do at least 5 What ifs? to get to a variety of possible solutions. Skip the What happeneds? until you’ve found a solid solution.
When you have a critical mass of possible solutions laid out, challenge them with questions again–more what ifs? and what makes you think sos? A couple of I wonder, if we changed this one thing here, would that be betters? might work now.
When you’ve got that solid solution tested with questions, then you can go back to the What happeneds? to make sure that you don’t end up solving the same problem again and again. The answers will be so much less emotionally-laden now that you have a solution in hand or already in process.

Wondering as a Promotional Tool

Wondering, asking questions as pure curiosity can get you to a solution that you might not get any other way. I’ve seen it happen. It is a powerful skill to add to your personal branding brochure-resume. Learning to live with a wondering view will automatically incorporate itself into your branding BIG idea.

To be able to say,

I can lead a team to a high trust environment, where problem solving is open questioning based on challenging assumptions and wondering about possible outcomes.

is an impressive thing.

I repeat. Name me a genius who didn’t have wondering as a core competency. Wondering will lead you to learn things that other folks don’t even think about. That’s a trait of a leader.

I can’t help but wonder what you’re thinking right now. What are you going to do with this information? I wonder how many ways you’ll find to use wondering to promote yourself and your business in the next 15 minutes.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Monkey on Your Desk? Morph It, Mosh It, Write It Up

March 27, 2006 by Liz

Boring, Broken, or Both.

“The only thing an intelligent child can do with a complete toy is take it apart,” a kindergarten teacher told me. “An incomplete toy lets children use their imaginations.”

–Todd Oppenheimer, Schooling the Imagination (About the Waldorf Schools)

Some days it’s a “have-to.” A monkey crawled on your desk that you don’t want to fix or write about. You’re face to face with something that is boring, broken, or both. You can do the grown-up thing. Dig in, reach for a bandage to fix it, and get things done. OR You can do what a kid would do–pull it apart to see how things work.

Be a Genius–Morph and Mosh It

Take it a part and see what it’s made of. That’s what Leonardo would do. That’s what most curious kids would do too. Don’t put a band-aid on it. Morph it into something else. Mosh parts of other things into it. Make it into something new. Here are some ways that you might do that with that problem or a boring idea that you have to write about.

1. Find the parts. Breaking things down into manageable chunks makes the most boring, broken, or beastly task less powerful. It puts you in charge. It also gives you a chance to see how things fit.

2. Identify which parts need attending to and which do not. When we look at a whole, the details can be a distraction. Push those details out of the way. Pick three things that deserve attention and focus in on only them. Let me track this with two scenarios.

Scenario 1–the article: You need to write an article on the vision of your brand. Pick three main ideas you want to share. Set the details aside.
Scenario 2–the client problem: You need to unravel a misunderstanding that has cost money and caused damage to your relationship. Define the damage that has occurred. Don’t spend any time on the causes now.

3. Morph it. Arrange and rearrange the parts you have identified. Decide how those parts fit best together. Do it as if you were rebuilding a toy–What if this went here, or here, or here?

Scenario 1–the article: Play with how you might order the ideas of your vision–short-term to long-term; easy to more difficult; altruistic to bottom line; head to heart.
Scenario 2–the client problem: Set goals for how you repair the damage and decide which goal should be the first that you address. Think about who should be part of the repair crew and what piece of the picture they each add.

Think of the outcome each time your rearrange things. This sounds like a lot, but we’re only talking a few seconds here.

4. When you have the parts where you want them, look for a pattern in what you’ve got. What you’re looking for is the big idea–the whole behind the parts you’ve made. This is the “putting things back together” stage.

Scenario 1–the article: Are the ideas for the article about how your company is going to grow? Do they arrange themselves as a statement of altruism, or innovation, or point to an idea that will change the fabric of business?
Scenario 2–the client problem: How do your goals frame the action you will take? Is your planned response that of a thinker, a feeler, one who delegates or one who takes the bull by the horns? Did you choose a team who can execute your plan?

If you can’t find a pattern in what you’ve got, rework your parts until they gel. It won’t take long now that you know you’re looking for a cohesive whole.

5. Mosh it. Add some spark from the outside. Ideas from outside the situation add energy and change the way you feel about the task at hand. Re-introduce the details that were there, if they’re pertinent, but be sure to include something totally new.

Scenario 1–the article: You might add an anecdote or an analogy to frame the vision, or speak to how the vision came to be. You could include your statement of what the vision means to you personally, or talk about how difficult you found it to write down the vision for others to read. Sometimes I just relate the process it took to get an article done. Other times I choose a TV show or character that readers will know well and let that image, and what it stands for, carry the article along.
Scenario 2–the client problem: The way you framed the problem will say a lot about how you want to repair the damage. Before you move on what you’ve found, consider how the client and the others involved might also frame the problem. Are they thinkers, feelers, those who delegate, and doers too? Use that answer to form a more thorough plan of action.

Write It Up

Can’t avoid it any longer. It’s time to write things up, but that boring, broken or both “have to” is under your control. Now you have a plan for what you want to say or do. So writing should go easy on you, and the little voice that would have been whispering in your ear, “I hate this. I hate this,” should be quiet too.

Looking at this process on paper may seem a lot, but actually, it takes far less time than most folks I know spend thinking about how much we don’t want to deal with that “have to” on our desks.

And the payoff is you feel so good when you’ve made that monkey go away, and you know you’ve thought it through so that the hairy guy isn’t going to come back.

I hate monkeys on my desk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss