Take a Cooperative Approach to Conflict Resolution

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Many in my fields of competitive intelligence and research have lost their jobs in this tough economy.  While cooperative intelligence skills of leadership, connection and communication don’t guarantee job security, they will help you stand out since many people have lower emotional intelligence: that is they have weak people skills.

I like the cooperative approach shared in Hot Buttons to solve conflicts with colleagues as it’s objective, focuses on constructive communication, and not “who dunnit?:

How did our conflict start? What hot buttons were pressed? Yours? Mine?

Which of your needs are not being met? What are your goals?

What do I need?

What am I doing, saying or not saying that is preventing your goals>

What is the cost of not solving this problem? Specifically…

What are the benefits of resolving the problem? What can I do?

How can we start?

At the heart of any organization is the connection between manager and reporting employees.  To improve the relationship and demonstrate cooperative leadership and promote loyalty consider the following 4 attributes:

Trust – is a two-way street.  Managers and employees need to express confidence in each other.

Respect – recognize your employee’s competence. Show thanks and appreciation for your employee’s work, in a note, a conversation…

Inclusion – include employee’s opinions and welfare in decisions that affect him/her.

Fairness – give all an equal opportunity to be successful. Be even handed, impartial and objective.

Another pet peeve I have is that many managers don’t give good feedback to their employees during their quarterly or annual review process.  Lousy feedback, lack of feedback or the destructive delivery of feedback is a form of disrespect and maddens people.

I had a difficult employee who I had to provide feedback to outside of the annual review process.  She wasn’t pulling her weight, and was certain that her contribution–based on her straight A’s in a decent college–was excellent.  I was at my wit’s end to get her to produce.  How could I cool my heels and get through to this woman?  I started with her place of strength: I complimented her on her wonderful grades and high IQ which caused her to relax and smile.

Then I asked her for the date to get her to realize she was now out of school and while the grades got her this job, production would be the key to keeping it since her co-workers completed their projects in less time.  I also implored her sense of fairness since the other workers had to stay late to finish work that she wasn’t, and she knew she didn’t want that.

We turned it around since we started with her strong point and built on it, and I knew she had a strong sense of fairness towards her co-workers.  She started to produce great work once she had time to digest that I valued her intelligence, and wanted her to apply it at work.

What stories do you have where you turned around a difficult situation?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, emotional intelligence, leadership, research | Comments Off on Take a Cooperative Approach to Conflict Resolution

Read up on Social Networks: Integrating Competitive Intelligence into Marketing: Part 3

Posted on March 4, 2009 by ellendnaylor

In 2 earlier posts I shared book lists we used to supplement our AMA (American Marketing Association) workshop on Integrating Competitive Intelligence into Marketing. In the cooperative spirit, today’s post provides books and blogs to help you spruce up your social networking skills, the key on-line communication and connection media.  A targeted social networking strategy is a strong and essential ingredient to any research project!

One of the classics on social networks is Virtual Handshake by social networking gurus David Teten and Scott Allen. This book is somewhat dated, but I like how it gets you thinking about developing a strategy around social networking and rolling out your program.  It’s pre-Twitter, so if you’re looking to learn more about Twitter consider Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm, and Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online by Warren Whitlock and Deborah Micek.

My favorite book on LinkedIn is: I’m on LinkedIn–Now What??? (Second Edition): A Guide to Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn by Jason Alba. I read the first edition in 2007, and the second edition was just released in Jan. 2009.

Another golden oldie is Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.

The following are top selling books on social networking published in 2008 or 2009:

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott. Just yesterday his new book World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories was released.

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans

I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend a book on YouTube:

YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business
by Michael Miller

Social networks are changing so rapidly so I suggest you follow blogs to stay up on the latest.  All these authors have blogs.  In addition I recommend Chris Brogan’s, Hubspot and Duct Tape Marketing.

You have one last chance to attend this AMA workshop in Chicago on March 12.

Happy Reading!

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, LinkedIn, research, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on Read up on Social Networks: Integrating Competitive Intelligence into Marketing: Part 3

The Demise of Print Media: Farewell to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News

Posted on February 27, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Today is the last day for Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News. It is a passing of the guard for our state as this form of communication is dying and The Denver Post will be the sole survivor for the Denver metro. In addition to the 200+ newsroom staffers out of a job, the demise of The Rocky Mountain News is real blow for Colorado as one of our oldest businesses with roots back to 1859.

While we will miss our Rocky Mountain News, Denver is a mid-tier large city which challenges the limits of supporting two local papers. However, earlier this week, media mogul Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle  newspaper, the nation’s 12th largest daily and Northern California’s largest daily. Last month it declared that it would close its money-losing Seattle Post-Intelligencer unless a buyer emerged within 60 days. To date, no purchaser has stepped forward in Seattle, just as no buyers have been announced for the Miami Herald, the Austin American-Statesman, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The bankruptcy filing of Philadelphia Media Holdings could deliver the deathblow to the Philadelphia Daily News. Journal Register Co. sought bankruptcy protection last Friday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune sought protection in January and Tribune Co, sought protection in December of 2008. Read about details of the newspaper industry and its troubles in Reflections of a Newsosaur by Alan Mutter.

This year’s annual convention of newspaper editors has been canceled so their publications can save money and focus on surviving the recession. It’s just the second time that American Society of Newspaper Editors hasn’t convened. The last time occurred during the final months of World War II in 1945. The newspaper editors convention was supposed to be held from April 26-29 in Chicago.

The recession is advancing a trend we have seen for several years: the labor costs of running a newspaper are increasing relative to lower readership and ad revenues. Print media in its many forms is threatened as people read their news, for free, on the Internet before it hits the newspapers. I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The benefit is the depth of the articles compared to on-line articles, which I value. For many, newspapers don’t get us the news quickly enough as we have become social media and social network junkies. I keep Twitter open much of the day, which points me to the news as it’s happening through “Twitscoop.”

As a competitive intelligence professional and researcher, I am troubled by the demise of newspapers, not unlike the lower readership of books. We have become a nation with short attention spans, and while “6 or 10 points of how to do something,” might be interesting, it is cursory communication. In-depth news and books is really how you learn, grow, develop leadership and expertise, and we are losing this. We are also losing our connection with journalists, who are experts in their field, unlike bloggers who are often “self appointed” experts.

What do you think about the demise of print media and lower readership of books in favor of electronic news and social media?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, leadership, research, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on The Demise of Print Media: Farewell to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News

Trick or Tweet: 13 Ways to Alienate Twitter Followers

Posted on February 26, 2009 by ellendnaylor
This is a follow-up to “Netiquette on LinkedIn.” In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I will illustrate how to be cooperative by sharing examples of bad Twitter communication practices.
Here 13 ways to alienate your Followers on Twitter:
1. Advertise your blog posts and everything about your business with every Tweet. It’s OK to send a person to your blogs as you publish, but it is tacky to repeat and/or re-tweet (repeat your Tweets) about your business continuously. I like the 80:20 rule–80% of my Tweets are about others; 20% about me.
2. Don’t share anything about yourself in your profile. That’s a way to discourage people from following you. People are curious about who you are: tell them and be human about it. I include a link to my LinkedIn profile, and got that idea by looking at a colleague’s profile.
3. Don’t have a picture or brand by your name. That’s an opportunity lost for branding. It’s so much more interesting to see someone’s picture next to their Tweet rather than the ugly, brown default space.

4. Don’t use your Tweets as a chat room. Some people are really just Tweeting to each other. Send that person a direct Tweet. The rest of us feel left out and don’t want to be a part of your personal conversation.

5. Don’t publicly berate anyone in your Tweets. Remember your manners.

6. Twitter is not a megaphone for one way communication. Engage your followers by sharing information you think they will appreciate and ask them questions.

7. Set up a robot to send a standard message thanking people for following you on Twitter. I find this insulting. I would rather get no message than a robotic one.

8. Mass following everyone so you can inflate your numbers, and then use that success metric for influence. Some people will “Brag Tweet” that they just got over 100 followers in a 24 hour period. We followers don’t care! Think about how this makes your followers feel–not very special.

9. Some people argue that you should automatically follow everyone who follows you on Twitter. I think it depends on your goals. I am not in Twitter for the numbers game. I would like to get to know the people who follow me, gradually. For example I am not a huge sports fan or into pumping iron, but somehow I am being followed by these types. BTW, Tweet Deck lets you organize those who follow you in categories that you create. For example, I create separate columns for Tweets from my personal friends, my research and competitive intelligence colleagues, friends in my state of Colorado, and frequent Tweeters.

10. Some people Tweet so often that they fill up their followers’ screens with their Tweets. It’s obvious they’re using software  to send out Tweets periodically 24/7. I’m not knocking the use of technology: just don’t use it to abuse us! I think it’s better to send out occasional Tweets that are relevant to your social networking goals and the brand you are portraying. For example, I mostly report on competitive intelligence, research, marketing, and cooperative intelligence’s traits of leadership, connection and communication.

11. Some people Tweet the mundane details about their life which we really don’t care about like, “I just baked a loaf of bread. I’m waiting for my flight at Denver airport.” This is boring! Is this how you want to be remembered?

12. There are some people who have 1000s of followers, but who follow no one. This is rude and insinuates that you are a taker. The only exception to this rule might be news stations like CNN, but even they want to follow a certain number of people to stay up with the news.

13. Some people just Tweet a link and don’t tell us why we should want to visit it. This takes very little time to include. It’s a real turnoff just to provide a link and makes people think you’re lazy.

So what do you find aggravating about practices on Twitter?

Check out The Dark Side of Twitter: What Businesses Need to Know.

In closing, when communicating on social networks, as with in-person networking you have to decide what works best for you based on your objectives for social networking, your ethics and philosophy, and recognize that everyone you connect with has their own standards which might be different from yours. It takes time to build a successful social networking presence just like it does the old fashioned way through meetings and phone calls. Relationships take time to develop, and the best way to nourish them is through continual, consistent communication, asking questions and listening.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperation, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, leadership, research, social networks, Twitter | 11 Comments »

Opportunity Analysis in Bad Times

Posted on February 23, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I had a most provocative breakfast with my dear friend, Cyndy Claussen on Saturday.  Like many around the world we’re trying to figure out how to make it in this wretched economy.  The doom and gloom of economic woes is omnipresent.  But with a little attitude adjustment, you can be opportunistic.

For personal investing, think about the businesses that people will still frequent in this bad economy such as Wal-Mart or Costco, the discount big stores.  How about mainstream grocery stores like Safeway and Kroger? They’ll probably gain at the expense of most restaurants, except McDonald’s. What about small, regional banks which were not caught up in this mortgage mess?  For all the talk about clean energy, I don’t think oil companies are going away any time soon.  I’m not going to pretend I can guess the right time to get back into the stock market, but I think if you’re willing to do the research and track companies every day, there are opportunities.  And there is plenty of free research on the Internet through Google Alerts, Yahoo Finance and The Street.

Now that the big banks are being bailed out, they have an opportunity to lend money to exciting new businesses.  The government also has this opportunity and I like the start in the Obama stimulus package where renewable energy business innovators can monetize their tax credits directly through the US Treasury for for projects that start between now and the end of 2010.

I enjoyed Tom Friedman’s perspective in yesterday’s NY Times column, “Start Up the Risk-Takers.” He discusses how America is bailing out our major businesses, like the auto industry which might still not survive, or will be greatly slimmed down best case.  While we need to shore up our banking industry as it’s the foundation for business, we need to consider the entrepreneurial businesses, which have made America great such as Google, Intel and Microsoft.  Let’s be on the lookout for the next Google to invest in.  We still have great innovation in America.  Let’s not curb their enthusiasm. Look for the next generation of information technology, bio-tech, nanotech and clean-energy companies to be what pulls America out of this recession: not only with their great ideas, but with their sense of excitement and hunger to succeed.

As a small business, I am affected by this economy as well.  This time last year, I had solid paying training gigs around the world.  This year I am doing webinars.  Management consulting gigs are not rolling in either, so I have returned to my knitting: research projects and monitoring industry trends, key customer activity, competitors, products and brands.  There is always demand for research.  I have expanded my social networks in the past year and notice that really enhances the resources I can draw on to supplement primary and secondary research.

We all need to make adjustments in these tough times: as consumers, personal investors, corporate investors and small businesses.  Some of us have more choices than others.  Don’t just wallow in this media.  Stand back and be flexible: think opportunistically.

What opportunities are you digging up in these crazy times? I would love to hear from you.

Filed under: opportunity analysis, research, social networks | 1 Comment »

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