Well, the answer is NO, especially when you follow few simple rules.

In today’s dynamic, competitive market, one of the biggest challenges you will face at work is working with multicultural, multidisciplinary teams. These teams are designed to encompass different expertise required to face the global marketplace. YOU will be interacting with colleagues who have different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

Most companies will emphasize the positives of this diverse environment and the knowledge you can gain through your varied interactions. While this is a legitimate and a real advantage, most companies fail to train their employees (YOU) on how to react and handle disagreements and voice your own opinion.

How should you react when the data, evidence and conclusions you have do not support the majority decision? How do you respond when you have a concern with the team’s decision when you have a tangible concern that you can articulate and support? What do you do if you team lead or boss does not share your concern?

Imagine being in a situation similar to the one described above. It can be a major struggle to stand-up and speak your mind. Why?

1. If the majority or a senior person agrees, they must be right. Not true! There might be something that they have missed. Remember, each person has been exposed to different experiences shaping their perspective. Just because it is obvious to you does not mean it is obvious to others.
2. I am going to “look stupid”. Not true! If you have missed any facts or factors, you want to aware of that ASAP! This is a great learning experience for future projects where you might be the team lead with the entire team looking to you for direction.
3. You want to be a “team player”. Well, think about this: Being a team player means wanting the best outcome and success for your team. That is exactly what you will be doing by speaking your mind as long as the team’s best interest remains your focus.

Do you really want the team to end up down the wrong path when you have had reasons to foresee this outcome?

Even if you are not personally held at fault, who wants to be on a team that that does not meet their goals or misses their deadline? Today’s world is smaller than ever and overcoming negative history can be a serious challenge.

I absolutely believe that you can speak your mind and maintain positive relations within your team. Few simple rules:

1. Always remain calm and professional. Avoid being rude or arrogant. Do not ridicule other people’s suggestions or reasons.
2. Do not use accusatory language and especially do not point fingers at specific individuals.
3. Be open-minded to the fact that YOU might have missed something. Do not take any of the responses you receive personally.
4. Truly listen to the rebuttal offered to address your concerns.
5. Keep the best interest of the team priority and remain focused on the task at hand.

This is a formula that can allow you to assert yourself as a valuable, contributing team member and support the growth and success of your team, and ultimately the business.

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So what does that mean?

As described in “From Sage to Artisan”, as a sage leader, you need to be interested in the big picture. You need to examine the entire system, viewing everything within your sphere of knowledge as a piece in the puzzle, getting excited when you find new pieces that fit in the puzzle and add clarity to the big picture.

In order to locate all the pieces, you need to ask questions! You need to be inquisitive, observant, and continuously look for connections.

However, it is important to note that as a sage leader, you do not ask questions to increase uncertainty or procrastinate but rather to create a complete big picture. This allows you to make the best decision based on a complete set of information.

Think about this: It’s November and you have been performing above expectations in your job throughout the year.

However, this month, you missed a project deadline and had a conversation with your manager. Next month is your yearly evaluation.

How would you feel if your manager rated you as “Does Not Meet Expectations” referencing the deadline you missed in November without considering any of your other projects completed?

If your boss is a sage leader, then you have nothing to worry about. The sage leader will be able to evaluate you based on your entire career and not only the latest missed deadline.

If you don’t have a sage leader for a manager, then you have your work cut out for you.

The strengths of the sage emerge as he/she embraces challenges and utilizes them to generate ideas and identify best path forward. The sage leader is not intimidated with chaos or uncertainty and is able to create an environment where he/she can flourish, shine and be a leader.

If this sounds like a role you would enjoy, skills you will need to nourish, develop, or acquire include:

• Resourcefulness in utilizing past experiences and constantly “connecting the dots”
• Building a database of knowledge in fields related to your field of expertise
• Encouraging and sponsoring brain storming sessions to generate ideas and build a complete picture of the puzzle

However, the sage leader is not beyond mistakes and the role can be taken to an extreme where it can become a hindrance. To avoid that, always evaluate your skills and ensure that you don’t:

• Lose interest in important details while pursuing the big picture
• Use searching for puzzle pieces as an excuse to procrastinate
• Forget about the people – your colleagues and team members. The wheels of the best crafted system will reach a halt without the right people behind them

The sage is a dynamic leader, providing his/her organization with creative solutions and ultimately a competitive edge by being aware of the continuously evolving environment.

However, if the sage leader does not fit your personality or skills, stay tuned. There are other leadership styles to explore as they are defined in the book “From Sage to Artisan”. Remember though, developing skills for areas of low preference is important for being a well rounded leader.

Previous Article: Nine Leadership Styles, Which One is Yours?

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Career development can be a remarkable journey for those who decide to embark on it. It can include understanding your strengths, locating your passion, and becoming a leader in field of choice.

To truly succeed as a leader, you need to realize what type of leader you aspire to become as well as what type of leader your current skills are apt for. Why? Asking that question is equivalent to asking “Why do I need to know if I am left handed?” As with everything, knowing where you are and where you want to be are Essential!

So where do you start?

Having been on a quest exploring leadership development myself, I have come across what I feel is a great model in the book “From Sage to Artisan”. The author prefaces his model by distinguishing a manager from a leader. A leader goes beyond management – he or she can create order, inspire action and improve performance of their team or organization.

Now getting to the different styles of leadership, “From Sage to Artisan” provides an easy to follow model that distinguishes different type of leaders by the operating principal for their leadership process and their focus of management resulting in 9 distinctive types of leaders.

An operating principal can be:

• Creating order in complex and chaotic circumstances
• Inspiring Action towards an overall worthwhile objective
• Improving performance by always looking for a better way and higher level of operation

The focus of management can be:

• Systems: Focus on the “Big Picture” and why specific things are important for the organization
• People: Focus on who is affected by an organization and its operations
• Work: Focus on the details of actions required to achieve effectiveness and efficiency

A balance of all 9 types of leadership is essential for any organization.

You tend to have a preference in terms of leadership style based on your strengths. That leadership style is usually more evident in times of crises.  Not knowing your leadership style means that you can be using the wrong set of skills which can create significant problems. You can not use the same set of leadership skills regardless of the situation or otherwise, this can be a case where your strengths can hinder your success.

Hence, developing skills for areas of low preference is important for being a well rounded leader. You can increase your agility and mobility between leadership roles increasing your effectiveness in a variety of situations.

Before we get into the details of the different types of leaders and the unique set of skills for each style, there are key points to remember:

1. Expecting to master EVERY style of leadership is unrealistic.
2. You are not confined to a specific leadership style.
3. We have to overcome our tendency to avoid our weaknesses.
4. There is no one type of leader that is better than any of the others. All leadership styles are important and needed for the success of any organization depending on the situation.

My next entries will be going into the details of the distinctive behaviors and skills required for each of the 9 different styles of leadership

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Did you know that your body language determines your job future, credibility and success?

Employers know within seconds of meeting you if you are a good candidate for the position. And they make a subconscious decision whether to consider you for hire within minutes of interacting with you. Those subconscious decisions are made mostly on the basses of body language and tone of voice.

Studies in the CollegeJournal reports that "Body language comprises 55% of the (impact) of any response, whereas the verbal content only provides 7%” the rest is determined by the tone of voice.

Basically what you DON’T say is more important than what you do say.

Proof:

Think of sometime you gave a present to and the person said “they loved it” yet you didn’t believe them… why? Probably you picked up on their body language and tone of voice.

Just like you can pick up on the body language of others, so can employers pick up on yours.

Here’s another interesting one for you. 

Did you know that employers pupils Automatically and Subconsciously react when they meet the right candidate… and if you know their pupils react and know  what to look for… then you can know instantly whether you got the job or not.

The good news:

Body language is learnable just like any regular language; In fact it is easier to learn body language than any other language.

Here are some of the things you can start doing instantly to start getting the job offers you want and deserve:

To come across as open and warmly –

• Open-lipped smiling

• Open hands with palms visible

• Unbuttoning coat upon being seated

To come across as confident –

• Maintain eye contact

• Have your head up

• Use hand gestures while talking

• Walk with a purpose and have an upright posture

• Have a “firm” handshake

To avoid coming across as nervous move away from –

• Fidgeting

• Waffling with your answers

• Using the same phrases

• Coughing

• Yawning (believe it or not)

• Touching your face/hair

• Moving feet or twiddling thumbs

To avoid coming across as defensive move away from –

• Folding your arms

• Head looking down

• Closed body language

• Rolling of the eyes

• Touching your face while talking

• Frowning

• Tight-lipped grins

These hints should get you started and put you ahead of most if the competing applicants.

There are more tools available at the blog to help you with this and other things in your life, career, and business. There will be more tools coming up soon like the art of rapport building to convey trust, credibility and likeability (make sure you signup for the newsletter to stay up to date).

Now… you know that body language determines your job future, credibility and success… and I suggest you read the article on selfawareness to help you notice what you are conveying with your body language and tone of voice to others.

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Like most people you probably believe that the bad feelings result from factors beyond your control, like

your boss, your coworkers, and your job or project situation.

Here is the surprise for you!

Your feeling bad has very little to do with your boss, coworkers and your job; most of the time they are the result of your perception of the situation, and unfortunately your perception is filtered, distorted and generalized most of the time.

Yes, I understand you boss could be bad, your coworkers mean, and your job sucks! And there are legitimate times to be sad or upset. However, we need to be as realistic as possible about the situations around us.And make sure we are getting the negative feelings for the right reasons and not for made up ones by our imagination.

First read the following poem:

Lewis and Pucelik (1982) present this in their explanation of the Meta model in NLP. Did you notice that you did not see the extra “the(s)” in each of these sentences?

This is a phenomenon called deletion; where the mind automatically filters out some information in order not to overwhelm your conscious mind. This is an important feature of the mind and necessary for our survival. However, sometimes it has negative consequences.

Deletion is the not the only process working on our perceptions. There is a process called generalization: like when we abstract a bigger and general picture based on a specific situation, and there are distortions like when you see a rope on the ground and for a second you think it is a snake.

The method I am about to share with you will give you more control over your mood and your life; it will help you increase your perception of reality. Very soon you will realize that you have more control over how you feel than you thought ever possible.

Here is a list of distortions and example of them from real life:

Deletions:
When you pick a negative incident or detail and you overlook everything that is positive.

Example of deletions:
You get high rating on all your job review items except one detail. You obsess about the negative detail and forget about the rest of the good review.

Generalization:
When you take one negative incident and you think it is a recurring theme in your life or you make it mean more than it should.

Example of generalization:
You experience one or two romantic rejections and you automatically label yourself as a loser or you start saying this “always” happen to me! Even though it happened once or twice.
Distortion:
When something happens in reality and you make it something else in your head.

Example of distortion:
A friend of yours borrows money from you and forgets to return the money to you. You start thinking that he is trying to rip you off, he is forgetting on purpose, and you think that once you ask him for the money back he or she will get hurt and get mad at you!
What really is happening here is that your friend borrowed money and you want the money back (that’s it), the rest is just a story you created in your head, because there is no way to know what your friend is thinking until you ask for the money back: (maybe he really did forget about it).

Jerry is a 29 year old MBA student at an excellent university. He is very accomplished, very motivated and very lively. One day during a coaching session he said that he is feeling like a “loser.” I was surprised and confused because I thought he is doing great!

Jerry said he got a C in his finance exam, and now he feels like a loser. The incident is affecting his confidence in his internship, and in the rest of his classes.

He is not sure now if he is a good fit for the MBA program he is in.

What do you think Jerry is doing?

Can you identify the distortions, generalizations, and deletions in his thinking (it is easy to see other peoples and harder to see our own).

You probable guessed it: Jerry got a C in his finance class and suddenly got focused on that and deleted the rest of his great accomplishments. He Over generalized his state and said he is a “loser”.

Then started distorting his reality and thinking he is not a good fit for the MBA program; even though he is getting "As" in all his other exams.

I had him write what he told me down on a piece of paper, and told him to underline and label each of his sentences with “deletion, generalization, or distortion”.

Once he was done he started laughing because suddenly his subconscious distortions, deletions, and generalizations became conscious and he could deal with them realistically.

You can do the same on your own. If you are bothered, upset or sad about something, all you have to do is write it down on a piece of paper just how you are saying it to yourself. And read it and underline and mark what you think is a deletion, generalization or distortion. (make sure you write it down, do not attempt to do it in your head!!!! this will make things worst!!!)

This by itself should work wonders and make you get a clearer picture of reality as it is. There are more techniques derived from NLP, Cognitive Therapy and Life Coaching to help you further and will be covered by future articles.

References Used For This Article
NLP: The New Technology of Achievement

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Why does one employee out performs another?

Why do two employees with similar education, age and experience have different job performance and satisfaction?

Is it simply: a personality, luck or an intelligence difference?

It is true that personality, luck and intelligence contribute to the job performance and satisfaction of an employee. Yet there another often unnoticed major factor that makes “top performers” out of employees.

The factor is “Career Strategy and Planning”

That is, if we have two similar employees the one with the career plan and strategy will outperform the other and will be much happier and more satisfied with his job and duties.

One of the things I was guilty off when I started my career and a trap almost every professional I know falls into as well- is spending time, energy and money looking for random ways to improve technically, but not for a systematic and strategic ways.

I’ve experienced it in my own career and have seen it over and over with clients and friends. Simply stated have a career direction and plan.

• Puts your mind at ease because you feel on track.
• Motivates you to perform because you have a direction.
• Automatically sky rockets your performance because you are motivated, committed and self directed.
• It puts you in control of your career and future.

So instead of going in circles, doing random things, stumbling with your career. Take control, take charge and setup a career strategy and plan and go forward.

Get your free e-course to develop your career plan and Super charge your career and professional development Now: http://www.incontrolcoaching.com/professional-development-plan

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Come closer I am going to let you in on a secret

“You either design your life the way you want or somebody else will do it for you

Let me give you an example, if you don’t let your boss know what kind of projects you want to work on you will get the project he wants you to work on.
If you don’t let your partner(s) know what you want for the business, you  will end up working in there vision and dream.
If you don’t know what you want, if you don’t know where you are, if you don’t know were you want to go, and if you don’t know were you want to be… you are in trouble… because someone else is painting on the fabric of your life…
Don’t stress out, there is a solution to everything keep reading

The solution is to design your own life and here is how:
You can take control and design your own life in three easy steps; I use the acronym K.D.OTm (pronounced like kido) to remember it 
Step -1- (K) Know where you are now.
Step -2- (D) Decide where you want to go.
Step -3- (O) Organize a blue print for success.

Here is a story to illustrate
It’s just like Waking up in a strange city you’ve never been to before.  After you finish panicking and pulling out your hair, you stop a taxi and the first thing you want to know is where are you at?
Once you know where you are, you could easily decide where to go from there.
If you can’t decide where you want to go, the taxi driver might throw you out. Or if the taxi driver is smart he would take you on loops and loops and give you the elusion of going somewhere, and you finally end up in the same place with little money, little time left and little energy to realize what had happened
Once  you tell the taxi driver where you want to go you start moving “ooh yah” you  can breath deeply now with relief. 
The taxi driver in your life is your brain and it will be super happy to tell you where you are now so you can tell it where to go.
So Know where you are, decide where to go and organize your way to go there. The following will explain the tree steps in details.

Three Steps to designing your life K.D.OTM

Step -1-Know where you are Now
The first step for designing your life is to “know where you are right now.”
That is you need to know exactly where you are right now in your Health, Money, Career, Business, Relationships, Family etc.
How would you rate your life satisfaction out of 10 (10 being very satisfied and can’t be any better) in all the areas of your life: and be really honest with your self.
Here is what an evaluation might look like:

• Health and Peace_7_out of 10
• Money _8_out of 10
• Career _2_out of 10
• Business _4_out of 10
• Relationships _5_out of 10
• Family _8_out of 10
• Spirituality _6_out of 10

It helps to write this evaluation in your journal or notebook. From your own evaluation you might notice that some of the areas you are very satisfied with and some you are not (that is normal). The important part is to realize it consciously. Now it is time to answer a couple of very important questions:
Things that need work:
Using the scores from the previous exercise, which areas of   you life would be the most beneficial to work on now?
From the sample given it is obvious that Career would be the best choices (it have the lowest score) so which would be the best area for you work on??
Things you are happy with:
Which areas should you be thankful and appreciative for? 
Again, from the sample response it would be obvious, that money family and health would be the areas to be thankful for.
IT is good to know, because sometimes we’re not conscious of all the good things we have already J
That is all you need to know about where you are now. There is no need to dwell on things; it is time to decide where you want to be instead.

Step 2 Decide where you want to go

The second step for designing your life is to “Decide where you want to go.”
 Notice it says “decide” and NOT “know”, NOT “think about”, NOT
“dream”, Just Decide™

You might think to yourself: what if I don’t know what to decide on! It does not matter, Just Decide for now and you can always change your mind and go for something else.
Deciding now will either get you what you want or it will get you closer to where you want to be. (Read that again and make sure you get it and decide now before you go on)
So have you decided? Make sure you do before you go on….
So have you decided now? Good. Its time to move to step three and   organize and design a blue print

Step 3 Organize a Blue print for success
The third and final step in designing you life is to “organize a blue print” to guide you in your journey.
In life there are so many distractions and so many things to do, and if you don’t have a road map to guide you in a certain direction, you might get lost, waste time and go in circles.
To avoided that we need a map to follow, and a map is so easy to create, all you need to start is where you are now, and where you want to be (I hope this sounds familiar by now J).
Here is how to do it:
At a piece of paper: at the bottom draw a square and write in it  “now”
At the top of the paper draw a square and write in it your goal of where you want to be.
Work backwards and build up a blue print from where you want to be to Now.

Here is an organized blue print for getting a new job might look like:

Notice once we put down the goal and the now squares we work backwards starting from the goal till we reach to now.
We do that by asking our selves what has to happen for this step to happen and we keep working our way down till we reach the now.
Once you reach the now, you get to the steps where you can take care of literally “right now” to get started on the journey of  achieve your goal.
You can do this for all the goals you have, you can do it for all your life. I personally have a 10 year blue print; sure it changes all the time as I grow and learn more about my self, however it is something I go back to when I feel a lack of focus in my life. The blue print reminds me of where I am and where I Want to be and gives me direction on a possible way to get there. 

Summary:
Once you know where you are now, and decide where you want to go, all you have to do is organize a blue print to get you what you want. buy following these simple three steps you will have a blue print, a design for your life so you will be in control

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You have  heard this before.

This saying  is  especially  true  when it comes to career and professional development.

Unfortunately most people just “go with the flow” with their jobs. They don’t have goals, purpose and direction.
One day they find them selves trapped in an emotionally draining and unsatisfying job. This is the harsh reality for many professionals.

The  good news  is that “you can control your career path.”
With the advancements in the information age, globalization, and the current economic development there are more opportunities than ever to get the career you are passionate about.

Think of career planning as you would if you are planning a trip.

First you would decide where you want to take off from, where you want to land at. Then you would work out the schedule, the timing and the intermediate stops.

If you don’t like planning trips, “relax” you can hire a travel agent. If you don’t like planning your career you can  hire a career coach to guide you through it (I recommend trying on your own first, because it makes your career coaching session much more efficient and beneficial).

You can draft your Career Plan in three easy steps; I use the acronym K.D.OTm (pronounced like kido) to remember it

• Step -1- (K) Know where you are now.
• Step -2- (D) Decide where you want to go.
• Step -3- (O) Organize a plan to get you there

 
K - Know where you are now.
The ancients knew it best when they said “know they self.” You can know yourself by looking at your surrounding and knowing where you are now. Take a real look at your career now; what do you like about it? What don’t you like?
Make sure you take what you like now with you when you go to where you want to go!
 
D – Decide where you want to go.
Based on the information you gathered from where you are, Decide your destination  now. Write it down and get excited about the possibility (everything is possible).

O – Organize a plan to get you there.
Winners have plans. Planning happens by back-tracking from your desired destination all the way back to your current place and position. Step-by-step work your way backward till you have a completer path.

If you are visual person chart it out, if you are logical outline it, and if you are creative mind-map it. And if you are  like me  you would do it in all the previous forms discovering different insights with every way.

The important thing to learn is this: to get ahead with your job and get far more satisfaction with your career you need to create a career plan that will get you smoothly from where you are to where you want to be.

Jot down the KEDO steps and start your career plan ‘today’, it is easy and straight forward, and notice how excited you are when have that plan in your hand.

Get your Free e-course to develop your career plan and Super charge your career and professional development Now: http://www.incontrolcoaching.com/professional-development-plan

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1. Pouring Rain
2. Enchiladas
3. Google maps
4. Ice Cream
5. Internet
6. Soft afternoon breeze
7. Happy endings
8. Cuban Cigars
9. Laser printers
10. Passionate love

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“Where there is a will there is a way”

You know that exercise is good for your health yet sometimes you end up watching TV instead. Some times you want to start a business, go back to school, or work on your professional development plan yet you lack the resolve or will power to just do it.

You probably tell yourself: “I wish I’m more disciplined.” And you wish to get more control over your life by making decisions, plans and following through with them

It is amazing to see that a person might be of an amazing intellect and credentials yet a complete failure because of the lack in will power. On the other hand a man may possess just moderate abilities and yet achieve great success because of will power.

Let’s start with the definition of will power: Will power is the ability to do what you want regardless of your circumstances, feelings or states of mind. Wouldn’t it be nice to say you want to do something and just do it? Wouldn’t be nice to say you want to take a walk today after work and do so. How about in the future when you want to start a business, or make a career move, wouldn’t it be nice to just do it and succeed regardless of the hesitation, tiredness and fear?

Will power is all you need to get things done in you career, relationships and business. Cultivate it and you might be surprised to what you can achieve and do in your life.

Will Power Exercises:

Fortunately life is full of opportunities to practice your will power. Anytime you feel the resistance to doing something is your chance to practice will power. Any time you feel lazy to do something, just do it anyways. Any time you feel overwhelmed to so something, just do it anyways. Any time you procrastinate to do something, just do it anyways.

• 1. When you come home from work and you see the dished piled up and you know you need to do them and yet you tell your self maybe later, shake that feeling off and do the dishes first.
• 2. When you have the desire to eat a piece of chocolate, decide not to eat it now, set a specific time to eat it on the next day.
• 3. When you find yourself feeling a negative emotion, try not to express that emotion.
• 4. When you feel lazy and just want to watch TV, get up and go for a walk.

Don’t try to do all these exercises at once. Start with one and build on what you gain. With the will power exercise you are training your mind to follow your command. One of the big elusions Man has is that Man is one. Each person has many I’s inside of himself, one might be lazy one might be energetic, and another might be something completely different. In fact in each person there are hundreds and thousands of I’s controlling the person’s behavior. By developing the will power we are developing one of those I’s to be a leader of the whole, so when you decide on something you can summon every inch of your body and mind to help you get it. If you don’t you shall always live in internal chaos with many I’s running the show, one day you feel lazy, one day you feel sad, one day you do things and one day you just sit there doing nothing.

The subject of I’s will be covered in depth later on, for now start developing your will power step by step and gain mastery over what you do and get what you want.

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