Rapport

So it's pronounced "rappore" kind of like the "report" in the "Colbert Report" :-). Silliness aside, you've probably heard of rapport. But most people probably don't appreciate how powerful of a leadership tool that it can be.

I would actually put two of the Dale Carnegie "Golden Rules" as precursors to being able to build rapport. #4 "Become Genuinely Interested in Other People" and #8 "Talk in Terms of the Other Person's Interests". Essentially rapport is all about building that connected feeling with other people. This is that feeling of "knowing someone for years" even though you may have just met them 15 minutes ago. There are many many components that go into the process of building rapport, e.g., body language, physical appearance, tone of voice, environment... and there literally shelves of books devoted to each of these topics that you can find at your local library. (You have been Sharpening the Saw lately right?)

Anyway, some people are naturally talented at building rapport. If you have read the recently popular book The Tipping Point you may remember the story about Paul Revere. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, calls Revere a "super connector", because he was a master at building the important relationships with people (and that why he was able to rally colonial forces during his famous midnight ride). Another, modern day example of someone very skilled with building rapport would be former president Bill Clinton. Politics aside, people again and again say that whenever they are speaking with the former president, they feel as though it is an intimate conversation between old friends, even if it is just 30 seconds at a huge charity dinner or political rally. He's just that good at making people feel comfortable and at ease.

You probably use rapport to some extent everyday, and for the most part without realizing it. That's why happiness is contagious and sometimes when you're in a bad mood you're best friend who you always hang out with might say "I'm mad at something... but I don't know what." Human beings are social creatures and we tend to pick up on these subconscious feelings. But it goes even further than that.

So how can we use rapport to help us become better leaders? Well essentially using rapport as a tool involves using the two Dale Carnegie rules I listed above. You need to first "get inside their head". I don't mean this as playing psycho-analyst, but instead figuring out what kind of basic emotional state they are in. The simplest way would be looking at the person's face. Is he or she smiling or frowning, has a tense expression or looks relaxed, is looking intently into your eyes or drifting out into space? These are all keys to understanding. However, one of the most effective tools for building rapport is mimicking (Tony Robbins). By taking on the physical characteristics of a person, facial expression, posture, breathing pattern, tone of voice... you can almost instantaneously "feel" the other person's state of mind.

This leads into the next step of using rapport as a tool for leadership. After you have successfully (and tastefully) mimicked the other person something will turn on in the other person's head and say "I like this person, he or she understands me and is like me". And at this point the other person will be much more receptive to hearing your ideas.

NOTE: Some may call this "manipulative", however if you look back at Rule #4 "Become Genuinely Interested in Other People" the key word here is "genuinely". Now this is a paradigm that needs to be made clear. If you can get to the point where you truly believe and realize that every single human being has valuable experience or knowledge or qualities
that you can learn and benefit from, then you will "Seek first to understand and then to be understood." And because of this respect and understanding of the other person, you are going to want to share with them your knowledge, experience, and qualities for them to learn and benefit from. This is where rapport comes in. Rapport is the tool for building understanding along the two way street of communication.

So why not try using rapport with your friends, you'll probably discover an even strong and deeper friendship. Until next time.

-Jason

Theodore Roosevelt Quote

"It's not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strides valiently, who errs and comes up short again and again... who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place will never be with those cold timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -- Theodore Roosevelt

Take a minute and think about this. It's tough being a leader. It's tough taking the responsibility of leadership. But the important thing is to remember that through your own effort and the effort of your followers, you can make a difference in your life, the lives of others, and even in the world. What's stopping you?

-Jason

The Dale Carnegie Course

So you might ask, "What is the number one most effective thing I can do to jumpstart my career as a Young Leader?" To this I can unequivocally say, "Take the Dale Carnegie Course, it will change your life forever!"

How can I make such a bold statement? Because I know it works. OK first off. This you need to understand that is not an "easy fix". It is not a magic pill. And you can't treat this course like an average lecture, taking notes and expecting to "pass the exam". It is a course that you can get as much out of as you put into it. My instructor likened it to "filling your pockets with sand, in which after the 12 weeks, they will transform into priceless jewels."

OK, one more caveat. This course is pretty expensive (about $1400 when I took it 4 years ago). Though, if you are currently working, most probably your employer would be more than happy to pay for or at least subsidize the tuition. The course also counts for something like 3 "continuing education" credits. I'm not 100% what that means, though I think it might be transferable to college credits.

So again why is the Dale Carnegie Course so great? (or Are you getting kickbacks for referrals? - No I am not getting referral kickbacks from the Dale Carnegie people, though I wish I could because so many of my friends and family that I told about the course have now taken it). In short, the Dale Carnegie Course is a tool for bringing about a paradigm shift. I would call it the shift from being task oriented or self oriented to becoming people oriented and ultimately towards being a LEADER.

If you find yourself tending to be shy, this course will help support you and gain the confidence to shine. If you need help with public speaking, this course forces you (in a nice way) to give speeches every class. If you need help "connecting" with people and working on those "soft skills" the Dale Carnegie course puts a number of tools at your disposal. And perhaps the reason why the course is so successful, is that it makes use of the power of positive peer pressure.

The course creates an air of positive energy that is contagious. Every week, your fellow classmates will motivate you to set high goals for your personal achievement and smash through them. By the end of the course you will have made 20 or so new close friends. It is not uncommon for people to reveal a lot of pent up emotions and a lot about themselves as they go through their "transformation". In my class we had a state trooper who wanted to be less "emotionally retarded. He started out very gruff and matter a fact, but near the end of the course he was standing at the front of the class in tears as he recounted a personal story.

Compared to the other numerous "leadership seminars" which merely throw different tools at you, the Dale Carnegie Course is 12 weeks of "personal transformation". Sure, you can still read the books by Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People and Stop Worrying and Start Living (which I also highly recommend), and any of the multitude of books on leadership to get the tools you need to be an effective leader. However, it is infinitely more difficult to bring about the change on your own.

So, please please please take this course if you can! And if not, check the books out and make it a goal to take the course when you can.

-Jason

Time Management (I)

If only there were another hour in the day! Time management is a very important an useful skill to have. With our modern lives spinning at an ever quickening pace, the only way to get everything we need done, leaving some time to sleep and eat, is through time management. I know what you must be thinking, “Do I need to get an expensive PDA (personal digital assistant), or some other type of expensive computer software to organize my entire life?”.

The short answer is ‘no’. In fact the leading trend in many circles is towards these so called “hipster pda” which is a low-tech and cheap solution to getting organized. It is essentially a stack of index cards held together with a binder clip or rubber bands. Yes I know that it might sound a little bit crazy, but thousands, if not more, swear by it.

But lets first take a step back. What is time management? Well to put it the most briefly, I would point to the 2nd Habit of Highly Successful People, putting first things first. Now stop, and think about that for a second. How much of your day is spent just “doing stuff”, but that doesn’t really have any value for you? How many times have we stopped at the end of an exhausting day and realized we hadn’t really accomplished much of anything?

Well that’s just the point. Too often we let ourselves get bogged down by life minutia and become frustrated. However, by first doing first things first, that is setting aside time to do the most important things instead of things that seem important but are merely urgent, e.g., phone calls, emails, busy work, and etc… Now I’m not advocating not picking up the phone when your mother calls you, but in order to get the most out of your days, you need to start asking some questions.

Is this activity important? Does this need to be done right now? How does this activity fit into my overall goals and plans? Is there anything else that I should be doing right now because it is more important?

True it does take a minute to think about these questions and their answers. But it is time well spent as they will pay dividends in giving you more control over your time.

Time management is such a huge topic, be sure to tune in for more updates and tools that you can use to manage your time. Until then, think making the first step to managing your time and putting the “first things first”.

-Jason

Servant Leadership

High school principals seem to love extolling the qualities of servant leadership that their favorite student council members have demonstrated. While I truly believe servant leadership to be an excellent paradigm for young leaders to follow, I don't always believe that these people know very much of what they are talking about when they speak of "servant leadership".

However, if they had read The Servant the original book about "servant leadership" they would probably understand this topic a little more. In the simplest terms, servant leadership reveals the difference between Power and Authority. As we've mentioned before, dictators, drill sergeants, and pure “managers” wield power, while true leaders wield authority. The difference between Power and Authority is that with pure power, you coerce followers (underlings) to do your bidding, however with authority you get people to willingly do what you want through influence.

In the beginning of The Servant, a businessman is nearing a breakdown in his professional and personal lives. He ends up attending a week-long retreat at a Benedictine monastery. There he learns that even though he had been very successful in many areas of his life, it had come at a great human cost. This cost slowly took its toll on his coworkers and family as he ruthlessly disregarded their needs in order to pursue his own goals.

Throughout the book, the author takes the main character through a paradigm shifting journey. He realizes that often times managers spend most of their time enjoying their rights as leaders instead of their responsibilities as leaders. He learns that the true servant leader is committed to fulfill the needs (not the wants) of his or her followers. And in the end, followers work more effectively under a leader who actually cares about how they are doing versus under an authoritative taskmaster who “leads” with a bullwhip.

Servant leadership is again something that is best learned through experience than just through books. It also comes in time as a person matures and learns selflessness versus selfishness. Not something the average high school student council member displays. But anyway, this is only an introduction to servant leadership. For a great overview check out The Servant.

-Jason

Public Speaking

Yes we’ve all heard it a million times. Americans fear public speaking more than even death. And to counteract this colleges and universities across the country are requiring students to take public speaking courses in record numbers. However, the classes are usually boring, focusing on the technical nuances of communication and stressing “proper” organization and structure. Most students leave these classes having read three or four speeches off of their note cards and hating the professor for not allowing them to talk about the topic they wanted to do.

This is a disservice to the young leaders who would greatly benefit from public speaking classes. Leaders, of course, need to use their public speaking skills all the time. Whether it is running a meeting, making a presentation, or networking effective speaking is a must have skill.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately) public speaking is a skill that gets easier with practice. The only problem is that for young leaders, you probably don’t have much of anything in the way of public speaking experience. But there are some tips for getting started.

• Realize that it is natural to have some measure of “stage fright”. Everyone, even the professionals, get it. In fact, a little bit of nervous energy can help you deliver a dynamite speech.
• Confidence is key. “What now I’m supposed to be nervous and confident at the same time?” No… well yes… but the idea is that you should be confident that you know what you’re talking about and your topic is important and that the audience ought to listen to you.
  Do you know what the biggest confidence booster is? Passion! Have the passion in whatever you’re speaking about and nothing can hold you back.
  And when all else fails, just fake it. If you act confident, you’ll feel more confident, try it!
• Practice, Practice, Practice! Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident. That being said, don’t ever ever memorize a speech word for word. You’ll probably forget and definitely will sound mechanical and dead. Prepare by organizing your thoughts in a way that flows. Think about the points you want to make and maybe some relevant anecdotes.
• Know your audience. Yes I know… I’m sounding like your high school English teacher. This is an extremely key point though. The only way you can get your audience’s attention (and hopefully convinced to agree with you) is to know them. Think about how they would react to certain speaking techniques, and tailor your speech accordingly.

There is a lot more good information in the book The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie. (Dale Carnegie is essentially the granddaddy of the personal development book genre – More on and his other books later). So check it out and get out there to do some public speaking!

-Jason

PS. A organization that can help you get public speaking experience is the Toastmasters. With literally thousands (or more) clubs throughout the world, there should be one near you!

Mission Statements

Yes, I’m sure most of us have played around with the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator. Throw together a bunch of random buzzwords and you get what the majority of mission statements look like, an unintelligible mess that doesn’t seem to say anything. Fortunately things don’t have to be that way.

Instead, a well written mission statement can galvanize a group to a vision. A mission statement serves as the guiding light for a group or organization, helping current and future leaders to decide what short term strategies and goals to employ.

Essentially a mission statement should be a short paragraph that does three things:

• Summarizes what it is you and your team have set out to do, e.g., “To land a man on the moon”, “To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people”, “To fight against and prevent acts of hate and prejudice as well as to support diversity”…
• Describes how the vision will be reached, i.e., “By increasing spending on science research and science education”, “By improving the standard of living for our customers and serving communities around the world”, “By giving a collective and unified voice to the issues that are affecting Asian Pacific American Penn State students”.
• Lay down the guiding Core Values that reflect the corporate culture, e.g., “Client Value Creation, One Global Network, Integrity, Stewardship, Best People, Respect for the Individual”

So how do you actually write one of these “hip and cool” mission statements? The real challenge actually comes from understanding what the group actually needs. Leaders aren’t geniuses who magically (and unilaterally) create “the perfect vision”. Instead, by understanding the people and their environment, they can discover their true best mission.

The rest should come naturally. Just make sure to be clear and concise. It also doesn’t help to make it memorable. Disney’s “To make people happy” is definitely a broad and perhaps audacious mission, but I’m sure that helped to make Disney a house-hold name globally. And as always, spend the time to review and edit the mission statement with peers as well as mentors. A mission statement is something that should be “forever”. Write as though you will carve it onto huge stone tablets.

Finally, remember a group without a mission, is just like a ship without a rudder, at best you’re going nowhere fast. Until next time.

-Jason