Recently, I was invited to contribute to Volume Seven of Insight Publishing’s Conversations on Success series. I am pleasde to note that Steven Covey is one of my co contributors.
David Wright, President of Innovators Group Inc. and Publisher of Conversations on Success, interviewed me for my chapter in the book. The interview was quite lengthy (over 5,000 words). I have broken it up into sections and am posting it here. This is the second installment…
Wright
You say that your job description is to enhance the performance of individuals, teams, and organizations. So how do you do it?
Bilanich
I basically do three things. I’m an executive coach and work a lot with individuals, coaching them on enhancing their personal and leadership effectiveness, I consult with a lot of work with teams, helping improve their effectiveness, teamwork and performance. I also work with companies undergoing major change. Lately, I have spent a lot of time doing merger and acquisition integration work.
I have identified and created models things like: what it takes to have a successful career, what it takes to be a successful leader, what it takes to run a successful team, and what it takes to run a successful organization. These are all based on common sense principles.
I begin work with all of my clients by finding out exactly where they are in relation to, and how well they’re performing when viewed from the perspective of these common sense models. Then I help them find ways to build on where they’re performing well, and ways to overcome some of the problems they have where they’re not performing as well as they could be.
Wright
Let’s talk about individuals. How do you help them in their careers?
Bilanich
I’ve developed a model I call “Career Star Power.” Like most stars, it has five points: self-confidence, personal impact, performance, communication skills, and inner personal confidence.
I help each individual with whom I work with identify how well he or she is doing relative to each points of the star. I find that some people do very well in three or four of them and might be lacking in one or two. Others may be extremely good at one and could use some help on the other four. My idea is to break things into some bite-sized common sense chunks, take things one at a time, and help people improve until they become the stars they are destined to be.
Wright
Tell me more about these points. Let’s start with self-confidence.
Bilanich
Self-confidence is the foundation of every successful career. If you don’t believe in yourself, if you don’t have a strong belief that you can succeed and will succeed, you’re not going to succeed. One of the biggest blocks to self-confidence is fear. People are afraid to fail so they don’t want to try. Some people would rather be in a situation where they don’t do something and therefore they can say they didn’t fail. Successful people actually do something. Sometimes they take their lumps. But, sometimes they succeed. Mike Ditka sums it up pretty well, “success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal.
I’m a big fan of the Teddy Roosevelt arena quote where he talks about ho he admires the person inside the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and gets up time after time and keeps trying. That’s one of the things I work with my clients on. I help them identify their fears, what’s holding them back from moving forward in their careers, and then help them use this knowledge as a springboard to develop their self-confidence.
Wright
What do you mean by the term “personal impact”?
Bilanich
Personal impact is how people think of you. Do they think of you as a person who is dynamic, in charge, self-confident, and one who knows what he or she is doing? Do think of you as bumbling, confused, and fearful? Or, worse yet, do they not think of you at all?
People with personal impact are those who other look people in the eye, smile, shake hands. They know how to dress appropriately for the work situation. They have good manners. They can engage people they don’t know very well in interesting and meaningful conversations.
It’s very interesting, I’ve been finding that over the past few years as we’ve become more casual in business, more and more clients are coming to me and asking if I can help their young people understand a little bit more about professionalism and dress. One of the common sense points I always make with these people is simple. “Your organization may have a business casual policy, but remember that ‘business’ is the first word in ‘business casual,’” That means some common sense things like sneakers and flip-flops are not appropriate office wear -- unless you’re working at Google. I’ve found that most people, not just young people can enhance their personal impact by spending a little more time on their personal appearance.
Explaining simple table manners is another way that I help people enhance their personal impact. As families are more fragmented, both parents working, kids at lots of after school activities, family dinner time isn’t what it once was. Many people don’t learn basic table manners at home at the family dinner table as they once did. Simple things, like knowing that the water glass is on the right and the bread plate is on the left can save you from embarrassment when you sit down to a business meal.
All of these things roll into what I refer to as creating a positive personal impact. A positive personal impact results in people both remembering you, and remembering you in a positive way.
Wright
Another point on the star is performance. How does that work in your Career Star Power model?
Bilanich
Again, it comes down to common sense. No matter how confident you are, and how well you present yourself, you still have to deliver the good. If you don’t do your job well, people will come to see you as an “empty suit.”
Performance is about setting goals and achieving them; doing it today, tomorrow, the next day, this year, next year, and the year after. When it really comes down to is that performance is being able to set goals and meet them, and exceed them, and then set higher goals and meet and exceed them.
Wright
So what are the factors that make up good communication skills?
Bilanich
Communication is about how you deal with the rest of the world. You need to know how to write well, and that’s not just for reports, it’s for things like e-mails too. I think people often forget that e-mails are business correspondence. They don’t spend enough time just doing some of the small things like running it through spell-check or re-reading it to make sure it reads well and that they have all of their ducks in a row—the tenses are all the same, they’re not confusing first person with third person, and that they’re using active voice. I help a lot of people learn how to write better.
Effective communicators know how to manage conversations and make presentations. Standing in front of a group of people and getting your point across in a persuasive manner if an important career enhancing ability. It’s one of the easiest ways to get noticed and recognized as a player by important people in organizations.
When people think about presentations, particularly those who have a little stage fright, they’re overwhelmed. I break down making developing and delivering a powerful presentation into a few common sense steps. Most people tell me that once they see the common sense steps in the presentation process, they can master them -- one small chunk at a time. The next thing they know they’re not only good presenters they’re confident presenters.
Wright
It’s interesting to note that you said on the fifth point of the star that “interpersonal competence” rather than skills. Is there a reason you used that phrase instead?
Bilanich
I think that one can have skills but not use them, so I think there is a difference between in being interpersonally competent and interpersonally skilled. It’s more than just a semantic difference. I really do believe that one has to be interpersonally competent. Competence is applied knowledge.
Interpersonally competent people build strong, lasting, trusting, mutually beneficial relationships with all the people in their life -- their boss, coworkers, customers, or suppliers. I think you need to be able to build relationships that help people feel good about you. For example, if they know they’re going to have to make a phone call and speak with you, want them to look forward to it, not dread it.
In the end, yes you have to be self-confident, yes you have to know how to make a positive impact, yes you have to perform and have the skills necessary to write, engage in conversation and make presentations, but more importantly, you have to be interpersonally competent. You have to have and use the ability to build positive relationships with the people around you. That’s what makes for real career success.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Volume Seven of Conversations on Success will be available in late summer. I’ll keep you posted. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense advice.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: In case you missed it I am holding a virtual Alex’s Lemonade Stand. I am offering a signed copy of my book 4 Secrets of High Performing Organizations ($14.95 cover price) to anyone who makes a donation of at least $10.00. I will send signed copies of the library of the six business books I’ve written to anyone who donates $50.00 or more.
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