Lead with a Story: EMPOWER others [ARR]

And finally, EMPOWER others. Even if your team is inspired, they can’t actually execute if they aren’t empowered. To effectively empower:

·         Delegate authority and give permission

·         Encourage innovation and creativity

·         Sales is everyone’s job

·         Earn respect on day one and

·         Recast your audience into your story

Some final key takeaways….

In business, as in life, sometimes you need to ignore what you’ve been taught and follow your instincts. Permission stories give people the freedom to follow their instincts. They let people know it’s okay to trust their own judgment.

EMPOWER others

Innovators require time and space to play with ideas. A boss who thinks she’s keeping the staff focused might be squelching the creativity of the entire team.

If your sales presentation is in the trash can (literally – put there by the client), you’d better have a good story. And sales presentations have a way of ending up in the trash can. A story will stick with the buyer for longer. (This is an excellent analogy for a resume. Lead with a great story about yourself in the interview. The interviewer is more apt to remember that story than the accomplishments on your resume).

Your reputation is nothing more than the stories people tell about you. Choose what stories people tell by telling them first.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The best way to introduce yourself to a new team is with a story - your story. Three kinds of stories will help you earn respect on the first day:

a. I’m not who you think I am stories fend off whatever preconceived notion your new team has about you.

b. A little about me stories let your new group know you personally. Even a short story will put you in the 70 percent of trustworthy people your new team knows personally, and get you out of the untrustworthy 30 percent.

c. Why I work here stories inspire people because almost everyone wants to work for a leader with passion. Figure out why you chose this path and tell people about it.

And that’s a wrap of Lead with a Story. Next on the docket, The 2 Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton.

Lead with a Story: EDUCATE others [ARR]

(To refresh yourself with the previous chapter, click here)

In addition to motivating people, your stories will provide an added bonus if the listener can learn something new and useful in the process. To EDUCATE, the second to last section of Lead with a Story, you must:

EDUCATE others

Teach important lessons

Provide Coaching and Feedback

Demonstrate Problem Solving

Help Everyone Understand the Customer

and use Metaphors and Analogies

Some key takeaways from these chapters were:

• You can’t tell people how to handle every situation that might confront them. “Two roads” stories, or in other words, stories wherein the protagonist had two options and chose one over the other, give your listeners a picture of what success and failure can look like.
• We generally learn more from our failures than from our successes. Unfortunately, people are generally hesitant to talk about their failures. Don’t be. Share your greatest failures so others can avoid them. They’ll respect and appreciate you for it.
• If you want to get better at something, find someone who does it exceptionally well and watch what he or she does.
• Celebrate your successes. Even if only in small ways.
• Feedback is one of a few gifts often unwelcome by the recipient. You can deliver feedback that will be received in a better way if you a) start with positive feedback, b) confirm they agree there is a problem, c) ask what they are already doing about it, d) include an offer to help, e) reassure them they are too valuable to continue along this path.
• When you are asking for feedback, make sure you are asking the right question. For example, if you are concerned about your participation in a meeting, you might not ask, “Did I speak up enough?” but instead, “Did I add value to the topic?”

The final chapter of this book covers how to EMPOWER others. After that, we are onto our next book, The 2 Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton.