When someone says something less than positive about another, whether it’s conscience or intentional, whether it’s true or false, it colors perspective and can completely change the way we see one another.

It’s true in that it’s obviously one person’s point of view, but that doesn’t make it the truth. With the way we speak about others, we can create or we can destroy.
Given how hard many of us already work, and how destructive gossip can be, it’s worth bringing a great deal of awareness to how people are speaking in your business and replace it with a more productive habit…like get some work done!

Gossip: The Most Destructive Thing in Business is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

Start with the recognition that your business culture is what shapes everyone’s behavior. And everyone’s habits and behaviors are what produce the results. So, if you’re not getting the results you need, you need to tune up the culture of your business.

Either you manage your culture, or it manages you!

Working to produce success in a business where the culture is working against you, is very hard work, stressful, and frustrating. There is one thing that you need to transfer to your key staff and managers. It’s the one thing that will give them the training and experiences they need to think and act like an owner. It’s the one thing that gives most employees a great deal of satisfaction and reward, and it’s the one thing that most owners and managers withhold.

It’s the opportunity to solve problems and breakdowns–if the opportunity is offered in the right context.

Counter Intuitive Management: The Fastest Way to A Successful Business is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

It starts with a Culture of Accountability, Accountability at every level of the business. The real power in Accountability is what each person speaks for, what they give voice to.

Many people confuse this with a less powerful form of management where the speaking is done for someone, or work is assigned without the opportunity to choose, nor to speak up and report on results. When you take away someone’s voice, you cripple their productivity, which also impacts their personal job satisfaction. Bringing key employees and managers together to report on results is the most powerful management tool you can employ.

The Right Context for Business Success is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

Because if your daily problems and challenges are offered in the right context, they become the best tool you have to building leadership under you. Becoming masterful at anything requires practice.

The practice of solving problems in a team environment builds leadership skills. Key employees and senior managers need the practice of shouldering the weight of these challenges until they have the competence and confidence to handle anything that comes at them.

Why Daily Problems and Challenges Are NOT a Bad Thing is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

When making decisions regarding your business, never, ever give your power over to fear. It paralyzes, constricts, obstructs, stresses, and damages your business.

It starts with the misunderstanding that regarding some particular situation, you have no other option other than to stick to what you have. Whether that’s an employee who has been with you since the beginning, but no longer performing, or your marketing methods that worked great for years, but produce nothing now.

Remember this: You always have options to take action – Go for it!!!

The following is excerpted in honor of FDR’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933.

“This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”

To read the full address, click here.

The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

With even just a little Acknowledgment, you can accomplish so much like:
Praise – as in bringing attention to a job well done.
Educate – using a job well done to set a standard for everyone.
Empower – putting attention on someone for something specifically well done.

And the best thing is, if makes you feel good, it makes others feel great,
it makes productivity go up, and…it costs you nothing.

So come on, don’t be a k’vetch. Go find someone to acknowledge right now.

The 2nd Most Powerful Management Tool You Have is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

Building leadership under you…
Are you effectively leveraging this for the highest productivity in your business?

• It gives your employees what they want most — the ability to solve problems for you, the doing of which on a daily weekly basis accomplishes several things.
• It gives them the experience needed to think like an owner, (this is critically important).
• It gives them the challenges they seek for personal job satisfaction.
• And it takes things off your plate, making your day-to-day less busy and stressful.

Many owners feel they don’t have time to invest in this, but the truth is, you really can’t afford not to.

The Most Powerful Management Tool You Have is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

It takes courage, almost always involves some risk, and there’s almost always something you have to give up. Like being comfortable, or waiting for someone else to get it done. Or the notion that you don’t have what it takes, or you’re not the right person.

Here is a good rule of thumb: If you can see something missing, if in your view there is something amiss, if you have the ability to see that there is a problem somewhere, then you have the opportunity to do something about it. Go for it. That rare commodity we call leadership actually lives in all of us.

Some quotes from a great woman…

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

“Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.”

“We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.”

— Margaret Mead

You Make a Difference is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

Yet, is not every one of our lives preoccupied with this concern every single day?
Freedom to have time to yourself.
Freedom to travel where you want.
Freedom to do the things you want to.
In short, the freedom to live your life the way you want to. In honor of this year being an election year, I’ll occasionally share some of the writings of our founding fathers. I see a parallel between their wisdom for human nature and the concerns of their day, and our current day concerns in business.

THESE are the times that try mens souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value…
— by Thomas Paine – The Crisis, December 23rd 1776

(Click here to read the complete first paragraph)

Freedom – Just A Simple 7 Letter Word is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates

Winston Churchill is famed for delivering the shortest commencement speech ever recorded in college history:

“Never give in. Never, never, never–in nothing great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Start Your Year Strong, Stay Strong is a post from: Gregory Neil Associates