How to be invaluable

What's funny about our technological age is how, with all the options to communicate at our fingertips, most of us do not follow-up or follow-through.

Emails are left unanswered. Calls are not returned. Texts are ignored. Calendars are not updated. Promises are not kept. I'm not complaining; it's everywhere and there can be an advantage for someone or some company that wants to stand out: communicate clearly and timely.

If I find someone who, as a rule, follows-up and keeps their promises, that person is very important. I've known wonderful people who seem to sabotage themselves by showing great potential but then have to be tracked down in order to have them share status.

Why does this happen? Are we afraid to share status? Do we like the feeling of importance that having to be tracked down gives us? Do we just not care enough to let those we work with learn where things stand?

I don't know and would love any of our readers to share their theory on this. But, I do know this: be the rare person who follows-up and follows-through and you are automatically more valuable than a more gifted person who doesn't.

Barry LaBov
LaBov Marketing Communications and Training

www.labov.com

Facilitate

The word, "facilitate" is a rather cold, unexciting word. But I've grown to love what it stands for. In fact, I think we could use a lot more of that and lot less complaining, finger-pointing, judging, commiserating and whining in the world.

If you are a manager, why not choose to facilitate your people to work together better, to run their business a little better and to see the good in what they're doing?

If you are a creative person, why not facilitate your team or your customers or the world into seeing how something can be even more inspiring or how a problem truly can be solved and make everybody even happier?

If you are a teacher, why not facilitate your fellow teachers in how they can engage and motivate their students to become great?

A facilitator makes things happen, brings people together, calms things down when they're too electric, and does it all without drawing attention to himself or herself. We need more of that.

I think if you feel you have an under-appreciated job and would like a little more love, be a facilitator. As funny as it may seem, you will elevate yourself by helping others achieve.

Barry LaBov
LaBov Marketing Communications and Training

www.labov.com

Protect me

How many of us work in an environment where someone has the job of protecting people against others in the organization? You know, you have the foreman at the factory who feels his job is to protect his line workers from unfair sales requests or the assistant who shields employees from talking to the boss.

Those positions certainly have good people doing what they think are good things, but aren't we creating or fostering conflict within our companies by having to "protect" our people from our people?

Isn't the foreman who is shielding the sales department from his workers, in effect, saying that those salespeople are bad or troublesome? Isn't the assistant who builds a wall between the employees and the boss implying that the employees are a bother or are beneath the executive she works for?

If we dropped all the emotions around protection, the foreman would look at his job as making sure that all new sales are responded to in the best way to ensure they are done on-time and at the highest quality. The assistant would be focused on ensuring that all employee needs are addressed by the right person in a timely fashion.

Do we create these protection mindsets because we like the importance of being the protector instead of the facilitator? As my 19-year-old daughter and her friends say when their friends overreact and things are unnecessarily emotional, "There's too much drama." Maybe this protection approach is just too much drama.

Barry LaBov
LaBov Advertising, Marketing and Training
www.labov.com