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Making A Difference – Thoughts, Observations and Opinions
This is Dave Brock’s Blog.
It offers my views on a variety of business, sales, marketing, and leadership topic. My goal is to make a difference for you, the reader, in both your professional and personal lives.
Latest Posts
The Problem With “What Is Being Said”
Yesterday, I was in a fascinating discussion and I made a huge mistake. I responded, too quickly, to what the other person said. Inadvertently, it created huge tension in the discussion and was off-putting to the person I was talking to. While I was well intended, my sloppy response, created a bit of a set back. Fortunately, through the patience of the person I was speaking with, we were able to get our conversation back on track. We do this all the time, too often out of carelessness, sloppiness, or just poor listening skills. We respond to what is said, […]
On Change, Tension, Conflict…..
Might as well get this “ugly” topic out in the open for discussion. It’s amazing that we seldom talk about them, explicitly, or that we try to “mask” them through all sorts of manipulation, or that we try to avoid them. But topics like tension, change, conflict, persuasion, convincing are natural elements of business and selling. Yet there is so much negativity attached to these words. But when we talk about change, within our organizations and with our customers, we are talking about new ideas, opportunities, and different approaches. The nature of exploring these will always involve differing opinions, points […]
Outsourcing “Coaching”
Coaching is one of the highest leverage activities a manager must engage in to maximize the performance of each person on the team. Sadly, too many managers don’t take the time to coach or, when they do, they are very bad at coaching. “Outsourced” coaching is rising in popularity–for many good reasons and too many bad reasons. In my own career, my managers have taken strong roles in coaching, and I have had a few “outsourced” coaches to complement what they do. And, as part of our business, we do a huge amount of “outsourced” coaching. I’ve gotten huge value […]
Start With Why, Then Ask Why Again, Then…
No I’m no channeling my inner Simon Sinek. But “Why” is a fundamental question we too seldom challenge ourselves with. The concept of the “5 Why’s” appears to have originated in in the 1950’s-60’s with Sakichi Toyoda as a cornerstone of the Toyota Production System. It is a fundamental problem solving/diagnostic tool, focused on helping us understand root causes. Why is this important? We have a tendency to react to and act on symptoms of issues we face–within our organizations. Our customers do this, we do this as we look at performance issues in sales and our businesses. We see, […]
Behind Every Problem Performer…. There Is A Problem Manager
In every organization, there are problem performers. People who, for various reasons, are not meeting performance expectations. They may be “C” players that need to raise their performance. They may be “D/F” players where other actions may be necessary. Too many managers think it’s the person, the problem performer, that’s the problem. They blame that person for their lack of performance. They fail to recognize their role/performance in enabling problem performers in the organization. Stated differently, behind every problem performer, there is a manager that hasn’t fulfilled their responsibility with that individual. Let’s dive more deeply into this, how do […]
Our “Attention” Problem
Recently, I participated in a Clubhouse discussion, it was my first and I was surprised to be invited to be part of the panel. After the discussion, one of the hosts asked my impressions. “It was interesting, we covered a lot of different ideas. But I wish we could have gotten into a few things much more deeply.” She responded, “I know what you say, but no one wants to get deep into these ideas. They prefer going through a lot of things at a very high level.” I reflected on her words, recognizing that we experience the same thing […]