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Big Impressions
Your shoes say a lot about you and are one of the first things people notice about you. Have a portable shoe polish or shoe shine handy at work and in the car so that your shoes always look clean and well cared for. 
Shake hands when you meet someone and when you close the conversation to create and leave a lasting impression. 
Your hands also make a first impression. Keep your hands moisturized and your fingernails clean and trimmed. Fingernail polish is not essential, but if you choose to use it, make sure that it is well-maintained and in a color that reflects your professionalism. 
At events with food and drinks, keep your right hand free at all times to shake hands with anyone you meet. You won't be able to hold both your food and drink, so choose to have one at a time. 
It is important at any event to meet and greet others who are present. At a networking event where people are sitting at tables, go around your table to greet each person individually before finding your seat. At a presentation, spend time meeting and talking with some members of the audience as they arrive if possible.  |
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Welcome to the Tero International Monthly eZine
Have you ever experienced a snow day? A day where the snow or ice meant for schedule delays, cautious transportation, and possibly cancellations? A snow day sometimes provides us the chance to simply stop the world and stay home, watching the snow fall outside our windows as if encased in a snow globe! In December in the United States' middle west, snow days happen fairly often and remind us of the theme of this months eZine "small wins".
As the ice and snow arrive, we begin to measure our days and our tasks differently. Darkness descends in the late afternoon. Chilly damp snows and icy sleet rains come and go. Our goal of the day can often be reduced to simply getting to or from work in a safe, warm, and non skid fashion. Activities and life are broken down to include only what is necessary, and we operate more on a survival mode as we are challenged by the season. This occasional forced slowing down of life illuminates the small steps that make up our days and our lives and gathers in our minds and hearts appreciation for small wins.
Each of us is on a unique journey as we navigate through the world of work. We set our goals to take us forward as swiftly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately caught up in the energy and motivation to move forward, we often fail to recognize the multitude of small accomplishments that fuel our flight. This month's eZine focuses on ideas and articles to help us recognize those small wins. The side bar shares tips that create opportunities for us to score small wins that will lead to big success. The development activity models a way to set goals for small wins and the article eloquently illustrates the varied ways to chart our success, and asks us to consider including the acknowledgement of small wins as success.
Although our wish for you will always be for good weather, we hope the seasons of your life include time to relish in your small wins. Someone once advised to make the journey the destination. We wish for you successful accomplishment of every goal, and that you succeed in feeling like a winner along the way.
A 5-hour Business Etiquette and Dining Tutorial workshop. February 28, 2008 (Des Moines) Image and Influence: Polishing Your Professional Look
IMPACT - How To Speak Your Way To Success
Time Management Through Goal Setting
Beyond Compromise: A Better Way To Negotiate
Ask Tero
This section contains questions asked of the training professionals at Tero. Do you have a question for Tero? Let us know! If there is a topic or question you would like to see addressed in a future eZine, please make suggestions so we can give you the resources you need. Thank you for the continued responses we receive each month.
Question: I was recently promoted within my department. Former colleagues are now my direct reports. How do I best handle the transition in the nature of our working relationship? I want to retain my friendships yet demonstrate effective managerial skills.
Tero says: Your first step might be to simply talk to the team about the transition, your goals and your concerns. Ask for their insight and input. This will involve them in the process of change and openly address possible areas of concern. Try to keep discussions focused on business goals and not on personal characteristics or relationships (this is always a good strategy at work anyway).
As a manager you will be required to give positive and negative feedback. When providing compliments, discuss the specific situation, the behavior and why it mattered rather than resorting to vague comments or judgments such as "good job", "you really care", etc. Your direct report will appreciate hearing specifics about their accomplishments, and that will separate personal conversation from business talk.
When coaching for improved performance, stick to specific behavior as well by discussing the specific situation, the behavior, the consequences and the desired behavior in the future. Again, avoid vague comments or judgments such as "you messed up" or "you have a bad attitude" or "you don't care about our customers". In our personal relationships it may be appropriate to address a close friend this bluntly, but not in a managerial role.
Question: What are some of the key areas I can improve to prepare myself for a managerial role?
Tero says: Key areas will differ among individuals and industry. Good communication, however is a common prerequisite to any promotion. Good communication requires much more than the words we say. Dr. Albert Mehrabian of UCLA did a study to find out what constituted the impact someone had in a face to face interaction. 55% is visual. To prepare to excel take a look at whatever is communicating for you visually. Your posture, gestures, non verbal interactions such as a handshake, your attire, all of these speak for you. What are they saying? 38% of your impact is vocal quality. Do you sound confident? Speak with intonation and clarity? Do you speak with an appropriate pace? Only 7% of our impact is on what we say. Although it is important to choose our words carefully and know our subject, to position ourselves to be promoted it makes sense to begin to pay attention to the visual and vocal messages we send.
The Baked Potato Allegory
You can admit it. There is a difference between potatoes baked in the oven versus those baked in the microwave. Despite which appliance is used to cook the potato, when it's done, it's still an edible baked potato - in most cases. However, the difference comes in the taste. The potato cooked in the oven took much longer than the microwaved potato, and the oven-baked potato also tends to win taste tests, but not always.
And that is the Baked Potato Allegory. It's a little more rustic than some of the famed allegories, such as Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, or George Orwell's Animal Farm, but it is indeed a modern metaphor for the human behavior of achieving goals.
As we approach the New Year, we find ourselves digging through our faults and looking for ways to improve. Losing weight, volunteering more, and spending more quality time with family can be spotted on the top ten lists and in national polls each year. And many people, as a result of these resolutions, join gyms (at least for a couple months), help at soup kitchens a few times, and plan family vacations. But when September comes about, our resolutions have seemed to fizzle, and when New Year's approaches in December, we unearth these dormant goals and give them another go. Our New Year's Resolution routine can best be summed up in a popular quote by Benjamin Franklin, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
Professional Development Activity - Achieving Small Wins
Change is scary. It is easy to make excuses that the risks of failure are too high and reconcile ourselves to the comfort of the familiar (even if we don't particularly like the familiar and don't find it all that comfortable.) Wise people know this and know that they will need to start small with recognizable, feasible steps toward the larger goal. Tackling the whole thing at once would be too overwhelming. The small, doable steps are called "small wins" and they are imperative for fueling the positive momentum toward the final goal.
Consider this story cited in The Leadership Challenge by authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner (1995)
Charlie Mae Knight knew about small wins. She was superintendent of a dying school district in California where 50% of the schools in the district were closed. Those that weren't closed were run-down with broken windows, graffiti on the walls and rats running all over the yard. Worse yet, the teachers were demoralized, the dropout rate was really high and 98% of the children that remained in school were performing in the lowest percentile for academic achievement in California.
She started with small, observable wins, rather than suggesting that she was going to improve test scores and reduce dropout rates. She recruited volunteers to help her repaint the walls and got pellet guns to kill the rats. Soon people started noticing that the place looked nice and they began to believe that a change was taking place. Eventually, test scores did improve and dropout rates were reduced. Ms. Knight knew that to bring out positive change, she would have to start with small wins that would give people the hope and encouragement to keep going. A small win is something that you can do right away that will represent a baby step in the direction you want to go. Once you have several small wins, momentum picks up and the ball starts to roll faster. Momentum is your secret weapon! Here's a template to help you determine and achieve your small wins. 1. Determine three goals, personal or work related.
Resources
Outstanding In Life: A Parent Resource
You've asked us for it. Now you can give your adolescent the edge.
"Outstanding In Life: A Parent Resource" is a NEW monthly subscription that gives your 12 to 17 year-olds the social skills they need to survive and thrive in their world. This resource will help you tackle key areas of development during your child's most crucial learning years. Best of all, this skill-building can take place during everyday conversations, such as at the table or in the car.
Here are some of the monthly topics your subscription will cover:
Click here to learn more about Tero's "Outstanding In Life - A Parent Resource".
Five Employee Development Trends Every HR Professional Must Know In 2008
On December 5, Tero hosted a lunch for the Central Iowa Society of Human Resources Managers at its facility and presented on the Five Employee Development Trends for 2008. The event filled to capacity the day the invite went out, and therefore a second session was scheduled for December 11. Due to weather, it was postponed to December 19.
There were many copious note takers, and for those who were unable to attend, and for all those wishing to receive more information, watch future eZines, as a complete article on this topic will become available to you.
What's New at Tero
A Kind Farewell
It is with great respect that we bid Sirintaraporn (Start) Soratkittiya, a Research and Development Intern with Tero International, farewell. Start will be returning to her home in Thailand at the end of December. Start recently completed her studies at Drake University, and has served Tero in a number of capacities for over a year.
Click here for Start's bio and profiles of other members of the Tero Team.
Online Resources
Are you a graduate of a Tero workshop? Your feedback is important to us.
Click here to fill out an evaluation of how your Tero acquired knowledge has impacted your everyday work and life. This opportunity is available in each eZine or you can visit the Tero website at www.tero.com to give us your feedback.
Inspiration - Things to Think About
Small wins create quality. When we win along the way we breed a feeling of success and reexamine any limiting thoughts or limitations we may have placed on ourselves. Small wins push us out, so we strive a bit further than we may have originally thought necessary or useful. Small wins encourage, inspire, and create. They provide us extended vision and this influences greatly the quality of ourselves, our products, our business relationships and the experiences of our lives.
Willa A. Foster The Tero International Monthly eZine is written for the graduates and friends of Tero training programs. It is published by Tero International, Inc., 1840 NW 118th Street, Suite 107, Des Moines, Iowa 50325. Copyright 2007, Tero International, Inc. All rights reserved.
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