Let us remember 2010

Now that 2010 is over, let us remember some of the major events that have happened in the course of the year. Hoping to learn from our successes and mistakes and make of 2011 an amazing year.

We have compiled the below event in 6 different categories: Natural disasters, air crashes, economy, achievements, miscellaneous and left us in 2010.

To read the full blog go to wwww.ideasgroupblog.com

Overcoming stage fright

Does your heart pounds, your hands shake, your forehead sweats, your mouth goes dry and your stomach feels like a blender on high speed every time you are about to speak or present to a group?

Well the good news is that you are in the majority, and that almost everybody shows the same symptoms when they are asked to speak or present to a large group. Even the most experienced speakers still feel stage fright at times.

The other good news is that with simple techniques you can use stage fright to your advantage.

Below are 5 tips extracted from our stage fright section of our “Public Speaking and Presentation Skills” workshop:

To read the full blog go to www.ideasgroupblog.com

Are you effective at influencing others?

In order to progress on the social and professional levels, we all find ourselves trying too hard to influence others. I have to admit, that doing so effectively is not a walk in the park, especially in the Middle East and North Africa region, where above interpersonal skills needed, the diversity of the region that is home to more than 150 nationalities creates a need for intercultural understanding.
In order to assist you doing a better job at it, I have jotted down below Influencing Do’s and Don’ts

To read the full blog log in to www.ideasgroupblog.com

More effort needed to make presentations in the Middle East inspiring

I was attending an inspiring conference in Dubai yesterday, where speakers were supposed to share stories and best practices to enlighten the participants.

The event’s organization was great; the whole conference was free of charge for its participants, everything was so generous (giveaways, food networking gadgets), the idea of the displays and signage was very creative, in brief it had an amazing feel.

The only thing that stroke me was the level of most presentations. Some speakers started with about 30 participants in their sessions to find that only a dozen has left at the middle of it, others confused their audiences with mixed messages that lacked clear objectives. On the other hand only a few elite speakers presented in an innovative way that pushed their audience of their seats.

As a professional speaker, I might be a bit biased in believing that every presentation should leave a WOW effect, otherwise people could just watch a live streaming of an industry expert or a DVD of Anthony Robbins.

You don’t have to be in the position of Steve Jobs to be able to leave your audience with a lasting impression, you can apply the little changes as per the points below:

to read the full blog go to www.ideasgroupblog.com

Are we born creative?

Read this amazing inspirational story about creativity on ideasgroupblog.com

Are you on the right track to get called for an interview?

How many times have you send your resume and never got an answer back from the recruiter? What is your ratio of being called for a job interview in relation to the number of resume sent?

We have advertised for a position using a classified newspaper, and you cannot imagine the responses we got. Although we were specific about the position (level, responsibilities) we got bombarded by all kinds of resumes. Some senior positions applied for an admin role, and although we have specified the location, we got people requesting jobs in different geographical locations.

Only few resumes stood out, so i thought of sharing those 5 best practices that you should do when sending your CV:

To read the full post log on to www.ideasgroupblog.com

You Tube- ideas group profile

Using Criticism; a Leader’s success attribute

The first thing that most people do when criticized, is to jump on the defensive side and justify themselves, trying to prove that the other party is completely wrong. What these people don’t realize is that by blocking any chance of taking anyone else’s opinion, they may lose the chance of perhaps getting an excellent advice. However such reaction to criticism is a natural innate reaction, similar to the “fight or flight” response our pre-historic ancestors had.

According to the British Psychological Society, “ The main reasons that get to leaders derailment is that they acquire an inflated sense of self-importance, grandiosity and entitlement, with weaknesses such as sensitivity to criticism, poor listening skills, a lack of empathy, a dislike for mentoring, and an intense desire to compete.”

To understand how successful people deal with criticism, we have studied 18 personalities from several industries, and came up with the 5 most important “must haves” that enable leaders to accept criticism and work with it turning it to their advantage.

To read the full blog go to www.ideasgroupblog.com

Almost half of UAE professionals may quit their jobs after the summer holidays

Dubai, UAE,  30^th August 2010 – New research from Regus reveals that UAE professionals may quit their jobs after the summer vacation due to lack of promotion and bosses that do not know, or do not communicate the company’s goals.

To read the full article visit www.ideasgroupblog.com

Five essential elements to conduct a one on one feedback session

Giving feedback to team members is not the most enjoyable thing that a manager likes to do, however as Kelvin Lord puts it, “You cannot improve what you cannot measure” and as a Leader or a manager your job is to look for constant and never ending improvements.

To make things easier for you, we have come up with five essential elements that will make the feedback session easier for the employee and the manager and most essentially link it to sustainable organizational performance.

Full blog on http://www.ideasgrp.com/blog

Pakistan Flood Aids

A man trying to join a naval boat with his children in Sukur

Picture: Reuters

Extract from the UN news centre

“According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 14 million people – almost one in every 10 Pakistanis – have so far been affected by the flooding, which began late last month in the wake of heavy monsoon rains.

More than 1,200 people have been killed, and at least 2 million left homeless, by the disaster which has also destroyed homes, farmland and major infrastructure in large parts of the country, most notably the north-west province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).”

Although there have been some mixed sentiments, a lot of countries have pledged aids for the disaster, one of which is India, a country known to be in a political conflict with its Neighbor Pakistan.

It is interesting to see who are the donors countries to date. Te list  ranks the donors as per their contributions as of Aug 18,2010.

To view the full list click on the following link www.ideasgrp.com/blog

“When you lose something, you are just making space for something bigger”

I have received a call last week from one of my clients, who for internal reasons had to cancel one of the  biggest contracts we have signed this year. To tell you that I wasn’t deceived would be lying; The news could have ruined my whole day, week or even month because of the magnitude of such contract. However as I am committed to have a high EIQ (emotional intelligence quotient), I had to analyze the choices I had, so I quickly drew the below mindmap (click to enlarge).

As you can see, by just changing my paradigm from deception to choices, a multitude of options started flowing  and I was suddenly enveloped with a warm feeling of happiness. It is strange and weird but in the nicest possible way.

So I continued my analysis and tried to come up with computer and IT analogies; when we delete files in our computers we are just making space for another file, the same goes in our lives; when we lose something we are just making space for something bigger.

A lost opportunity = more focus on a bigger one
A lost job = a chance for doing what you love
A lost family member = more love for other family members, or more focus on continuing what the lost one has started
A lost friendship = opportunities for a better one

And the list goes on...

A women in Lebanon has lost her son in a water sports accident, and after grieving him for a while she felt that her life had stopped; You just can imagine how hard it is to loose a child. But one day she woke up and asked herself the following question: What is the reason that my son was taken away from me at a young age? What is the message behind it? How can I use this incident to serve others?

A week later she has started a foundation with a purpose of making parents aware of the dangers of inattention when it comes to their children. So going back to her choices, she had two choices; either grieve her child for the rest of her life, or help thousands of other households save their children. With the latter choice she now feels that her son’s decease was a rebirth for a thousand more child.

“When you lose something, you are just making space for something bigger”

So if you just think about a loss as a free space, you will not get stuck in the past and will start generating opportunities for the future. It is all about using your energy- any kind of energy; negative or positive - and turning it into choices that will get you closer to your goals.

To know more about increasing your efficiency and how to generate healthier choices, visit our website: www.ideasgrp.com

You can complain or you can....

 

The world that we live in presents enough challenges for de-motivating the most positive people on earth. On the other hand, people seek comfort when they start sharing their problems with others; and some take that comfort to the next level and will find a need for complaining. As one of my friends puts it: “As human beings, we love to be victimized. Being victimized is perhaps the best way to run away from our responsibilities.”

This implication of being victimized spreads across all aspects of life: Relationships, education, health and most importantly careers.

Looking at the career and professional aspect, it is really annoying to be around people that whine and moan every day at work; sometimes this excessive negativity will drag others into it and will have a slumping effect on performance.

So how do we stop those people from complaining and how do we lift our moods if we think that we are in an awful situation.

First of all, Start by auditing your life: List the good things that are happening in your life and the bad things that you are exposed to and ask yourself those two simple questions: 1) How can I increase the good things? 2) What can I do specifically to change each of the bad things on my list?

Second, Don’t be positive: Yes you are reading correctly. Being positive and wishing for good things to happen is like staying at home without contacting anyone and waiting for Microsoft to ask you to become one of their Vice Presidents. Instead of being merely positive, have a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) and draw plans, while acknowledging that you will face some negative challenges. So have a PMA and identify what might go wrong so you will be able to pro-act and not re-act.

That brings us to the third point which is Be Proactive. As Dr. Stephen Covey puts it in his habit 1: “Take responsibility for your life”. If you cannot see a change make the change, if things are not going the way you plan, you have two options: sit down and watch things go terribly wrong or take control of the situation and ask yourself how can you change the situation. The how questions open a lot of doors and will get you closer to your desired situation.

The choice is yours; take the driver’s seat and lead your life to your own victory or complain while watching other people climb the peaks of success.

To learn more about how to increase your Leadership Quotient and other workshops by ideas group visit our website on www.ideasgrp.com

9 tips to avoid conflict and miscommunication when writing

According to a survey done by ideas group on 60 companies in the Middle East, 85% of the workforce conflict stems out of miscommunication.

The study was conducted across companies in different industries: Government, FMCG, Aviation, Industrial, Banking and Finance Telecom and IT, in 11 countries in the following cities: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Dammam, Riyadh, Kuwait City, Doha, Muscat, Damascus, Amman, Manama, Cairo, Casablanca and Beirut.

When working in virtual teams or working across the region, miscommunication is magnified by the lack of proper writing skills, whether in    emails, Memos, Instant messaging or even blogs and other social media.

So to simplify things for you we came up with this checklist of 9 items to look at before sending emails:

·      Simplify your message: In Business it is not about literature or chic fancy words, the more simple your message is, the less misunderstanding it generates. So keep your sentences short and straight to the point.

·      Use bullet points: People like to see a summary of your ideas, so if you put your main ideas into bullets, it will help the reader scan quickly through it and this will speed up the communication process.

·      Use punctuation in the right place: Each punctuation has a meaning a question mark (?) is to ask a question, an exclamation mark as the Meriam-Webster Dictionary puts it “ is used to indicate forceful utterance or strong feeling”. So ending a sentence with a exclamation mark is like a warning sign…two exclamation marks are two warning signs.

·      Never write full sentences in CAPS: Capital letters or “caps” are a sign of shouting or yelling, so unless you want to yell at your reader do not write in caps.

·      Use calm colors: Using red fonts when writing emails also indicates anger, so whenever its possible try to use blue or green instead for highlighting.

·      Make sure your email has a subject: Sending an email without a subject can be frustrated for people who use the search function of their inboxes, it helps the reader understand the email content.

·      Avoid the URGENT and (!)High importance/priority  signs: Some people are just used to the habit of sending all their emails with High Importance or High Priority; So when they have an issue with a real high importance, how will they let their readers know that this one is really important? I once received one of those with an email that said Happy Holidays. This will only stress the reader.

·      And finally, Read the email before sending it: We discover a lot of mistakes just by reading it again. If its an email going to important person, try to get a colleague to read it as well; some sentences might make sense to you but not to the reader.


To know more about conflict management, communication trainings or any other workshops visit our website on www.ideasgrp.com 

Do you want to be the next Carlos Slim, Oprah Winfrey or Steve Jobs?

Some people just seem to be naturally successful. They reach one peak after another. And the more they achieve the more success seems natural and easy. Those people are not aliens, and if you study them closely, their environment wasn’t all success.

If you want to follow the track of great people like Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Pope Jean Paul II, Oprah Winfrey, and Steve Jobs you have to understand what they have done in their lives, and how they have challenged people around them. Those legends have pushed the boundaries of what is common; they have created new industries and found solutions to very complex issues.

After compiling their bios and studying their paths we have discovered that most of them share the following attributes:

1. They have a vision

Not one single high achiever has reached success without a clear vision, a set of goals and ways to achieve them. When Warren Buffet was asked about his path he said “I always knew I was going to be here”

2. They leverage their circle of influence

You might think that high achievers do not need anyone, however none of them got to success without leveraging their contacts. Its not only about what you know, but also about who you know. Steve Jobs of Apple, used Bill Gates of Microsoft several times before launching his products…who would have thought?

3. They are flexible

High achievers adapt to the environment around them exactly like chameleons, and this is how they identify opportunities. While others are complaining about the financial crisis or high oil prices, successful people tend to create opportunities to benefit from the situation.

4. They play at work

None of the top achievers wasn’t extremely excited about what they did, they have all showed passion and excitement in what they do. So if you don’t Love What You Do, its time for a change.

5. They are compassionate

People who hurt others no matter where they reach do not make it far in life, , or at least they don’t grow comfortably. Donald Trump keeps bouncing up and down, went bankrupt, and has thousands lawsuits against him. Do you want to be there?

6. They help others

It has been observed this year that the top 3 of the fortune billionaires list donate large amounts of their worth to others, and more than half of the world’s richest people are big Charity Donors. Those people believe that “What goes around, comes around”. The interesting part is that most of the successful people do not wait till they get rich to start giving, Carlos Slim was always a person to go to when in need, and a free advice giver at all times.

So are you ready to step in the bandwagon of success? All you need to do is to adapt the above 6 attributes to your life.

For more information on how to enhance your life, career and relationship or to attend The Psychology of Success Workshop, visit our website on www.ideasgrp.com

Social Mania

At First Companies have rebuffed all social media, claiming that it was a waste of time for their employees and that it weights on corporate productivity. Then, as soon as some success stories rose about the use of social networks to make money – the likes of dell making $ 3 million in less than 2 years just out of twitter, and Perez Hilton becoming the friend of celebrities just by blogging about them, all corporates wanted to have facebook profiles, a presence on linked-in and a need to tweet. However this was done the wrong way.

Before jumping on the Social Networks extravaganza, companies, or even people who are looking for a personal branding e-campaign, should ask themselves the below five questions:

1- How is our SEO (Search engine Optimization) benefiting from our social network sites?: Social networks play an amazing role getting our website discovered by the search engines ( google yahoo, bing etc). Using key words on our social network will increase the rankings, if you don’t have a corporate social website its time to do so.

2- Are all of our social profiles and websites interlinked? What makes any website/webpage powerful is the amounts of links directed to that site, when connecting websites with links to each other, then you are creating your own web of sites and thus empowering your reach.

3- Are all of our profiles homogenous? Having different info on different social websites will confuse the visitors and weaken your reach. All the introduction texts in the “About us” section should say the exact same thing, and when updating one social site all the others should be updated in the same time.

4- Are we heard by the right audience? A lot of companies think of adding followers or members randomly. When choosing a “follow-ship” companies should be speaking at the right audience. A good way of building a great database of potential customers is to have a blog that can only be read by inserting contact details. Those blogs can be easily made of subjects that only interest your type of clients.

5- Are we offering to our public something of value? Some social profiles only portray publicity and ways of eliciting customers. The web 2.0 audience is always looking for something of value and for free….Wikipedia, Youtube, mashable, and …. Are perfect examples.

The social networks should be handled the same way we handle the traditional media, you should have a social media strategy, social media officers and an alignment between your overall strategy and online strategy.

Camil El Khoury

Are we born Charismatic?

Some people are just trusted by their colleagues, clients and friends; others struggle to gain that trust. Looking at trust and rapport in more depth, we find that this is something that you can work on, and not only born with.

True, some people are charismatic by nature, however studies have shown that 87% of charismatic people have worked on their development to become appealing.

What did they do? They have mastered the art of professional etiquette in all its forms. Charisma can be established and nurtured if you simply look at the following etiquette tips:

1. Business attire: How many times have we judged people by the way they dress? Unfortunately this holds true to most people. If you want to look like a banker dress like one, if you go to a meeting unshaved or with a flashy makeup and casual clothing, your clients wont take you seriously. As Queen Elizabeth once said "Dress gives one the outward sign from which people can judge the inward state of mind. One they can see, the other they cannot."

2. Business communications: Do we differentiate between business and casual communications? At home or with our friends, there is a greater chance that people will understand what we mean by our sentences because those people know us very well, on the other hand, at work, we have to use very straight to the point sentences, words that everybody will understand. In addition to that, we have to be very careful with how do we greet people, how do we talk on the phone and what gestures to use.

3. Cross-cultural differences: When dealing with people from other cultures you have to keep it as simple as possible; your goal is to minimize misunderstanding and reach a common point. In order to do so, you have to be very patient and keep a steady voice (yelling at the other person, won’t make them understand better). When traveling ask someone who lived in or has been to the country you are visiting about acceptable behavior such as what jokes would be appropriate, what are the definite “not to do’s”.

4. Basic workplace etiquette: When in the office, some behaviors are not acceptable at all, and still; some people carry on with those actions. It is ok to share with a colleague or two some of your private issues, however what is not ok is to talk private issues on your cell phone in front of all your colleagues; this will disrupt them and make them feel uncomfortable. So keep your phone ring on very low and if you want to take a private call, its better to take it outside the office. Second, If you lost your pen, or ran out of posts it, do not take them from the desk of your colleague without asking them; some people are very organized and loosing stuff from their table will de-focus them when accomplishing a task. And last, show appreciation when people do stuff for you; thanking someone and being nice is very essential, especially for the janitor or the tea person.

5. Netiquette: Now that we are all present on Social Media, blogs and specialty websites, it’s extremely important to have a Netiquette (Internet Etiquette). Do we do a google search on our names from time to time? It’s extremely vital to periodically check what is being written about us and what images of us are available on the web. Do we also portray a good image of ourselves on the social networks? I have once decided not to hire a qualified candidate for a job because of their facebook profile, which broadcasted a totally different image than the one in the interview. We also tend to forget that emails are permanent so if we gossip or talk behind the back of someone over an email (even private email addresses), there is a big chance that this person will see what you have written; IT professionals can restore deleted data.

Business Etiquette while being broad can be improved by very simple measures and very little effort. Walk that extra step in order to build your own confident persona. Camil El Khoury

New year resolution will definitely fail unless

Have you ever decided on a new year’s resolution? Of course you did…. And did those resolutions fail over and over again? Of course they did….

Lets us have a look at the top 5 most common resolution over the past 10 years

5- I want to be nice to people around me (family/friends/colleagues)

4- I want to make more money

3-I want to hit the gym

2- I want to quit smoking

1- I want to start a diet

Now if we examine why did we fail over and over again in applying those resolutions, we will notice that once we start applying any of them, the daily habits will kick in and takes us back at square one. We would start justifying our actions by sentences like: I need this cigarette; I have too much pressure, or a bar of chocolate won’t hurt me now; it is just one.

Al of this is natural for two reasons:

1 - We don’t commit to ourselves: as long as no one is scrutinizing what we do, we don’t have a clear discipline and will tend at breaking our promise to ourselves

2- The goal is not worthy enough; we will end up saying that by smoking a cigarette or grabbing a piece of cake it’s not the end of the world.

But what is the end of the word?

This year, resolutions are pointing to a very different, yet focused point; saving the world and more specifically saving the world from Global Warming. Everyone is taking that resolution seriously and that is mostly due to 2 events that have happened in the last quarter of 2009: Copenhagen summit and the movie 2012. In the later, the difference that we have witnessed compared to other similar movies is that, the end is very near and that is, not even in 2 years. We need to take action and action starts at home. By turning off that light we don’t need by turning of the TV and DVD plugs when not in use and by closing the water tap when we brush our teeth or shave, we would be contributing in saving that world. It also goes to using our cars; do we ever car pool? Do we walk to the shop that is 200 meters away? Being environmentally friendly follows us at the office, we don’t need to print every single document that we use, we shouldn’t use plastic and paper cups but replace them with our glass cup or mug, and we should be recycling everything we use.

If we commit this year to a green resolution we will for once be doing a good deed not only for ourselves but for people around us and generations to come.

So let’s turn our green resolution into a habit and do something different this year.

The author Camil El Khoury is the Chief Vision Officer of ideas group; the Middle East leading experiential learning consultancy. www.ideasgrp.com