Dale Carnegie Launches Knowledge Center

Welcome to the Knowledge Center—Dale Carnegie’s online resource library—providing tools of engagement that will help align the hearts as well as the minds of employees with your organizational objectives.

eNewsletter
Engaging Ideas – A Leaders Guide to Creating Employee & Customer Commitment is a monthly newsletter that focuses on the peoples side of business.

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Success Stories
Dale Carnegie works with companies and organizations of all sizes to produce measurable results.

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White Papers + Articles
Dale Carnegie Training as a leader workplace development writes whitepapers and articles on the subjects of employee engagment, leadership development, sales effectiveness, process improvement, presentation effectiveness and customer service.

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Quotes
Dale Carnegie wrote several best selling books during his lifetime.
The books garnered world wide appeal and have become a well of
inspiration for the millions that have read them.

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Videos + Podcasts
Dale Carnegie releases online videos and Podcasts developed to improve workplace performance.

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Tips
Access numerous tips to help you become more effective in the workplace.

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Press
As a thought leader in the workplace development field Dale Carnegie Training is frequently covered by news media outlets throughout the world.

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Tips to All-Win Negotiations

There are many faculties people employ when trying to negotiate solutions for a problem, a challenge or a disagreement. The best end to the negotiation process is when both parties can reach a compromise. Flexibility is the key to compromise. This involves the skill of the generation of alternative ideas. This involves many different situations, in and out of the business world. Whether the situation is that one comes up with a great idea that others do not agree upon, or a person with whom one does not “get along” with, or a turf war involving surfers in Malibu beach…people in everyday life must compromise and negotiate.

This has very much to do with business, especially during the current times. Some of the key ingredients to this process involve having a positive attitude. The two parties meet on a ground that is mutual, in person, as emails and phone calls take away the aspect necessary to effective communication, which is facial expressions. Both parties must do their homework so that the issues are clearly defined with simple and direct facts regarding the conflict.

One should always take care as well, to determine the personalities of both parties entering the process of negotiation. Levels of trust must be established for a sincere and viable agreement to be reached. Both parties may go about this, by simply becoming acquainted with the other person with whom they are interacting. Establishing similarities and finding each other is on the same side. Any previous conflicts will only serve to hinder the process, by increasing the perceived differences and taking away from any of the previously mentioned similarities.

By finding common goals and objectives, both sides can focus on the task at hand, and reaching more satisfying conclusions. The focus should be on the future, and conflicts of the past must remain in the past. When both parties are being completely honest, and are focusing on facts, not emotions, they will be better able to communicate. Communication is tantamount to the resolution of problems, challenges or disagreements, and will bring a successful negotiation to fruition.

15 Personal Skills You Need on the Job

Employers are looking for workers who have that special something: the skills, tendencies and attributes that help to keep productivity—and
profits—up.

What are they? Businesses are looking for employees with strong "personal" skills, according to ACT research. Keep these in mind, because employers
certainly are.

Carefulness: Do you have a tendency to think and plan carefully before acting? This helps with reducing the chance for costly errors, as well as keeping a steady workflow going.

Cooperation: Willingness to engage in interpersonal work situations is very important in the workplace.

Creativity: You've heard of "thinking outside the box"? Employers want innovative people who bring a fresh perspective.

Discipline: This includes the ability to keep on task and complete projects without becoming distracted or bored.

Drive: Businesses want employees who have high aspiration levels and work hard to achieve goals.

Good attitude: This has been shown to predict counterproductive work behaviors, job performance and theft.

Goodwill: This is a tendency to believe others are well-intentioned.

Influence: Groups need strong leaders to guide the way. Influence includes a tendency to positively impact social situations by speaking your mind and becoming a group leader.

Optimism: A positive attitude goes a long way toward productivity.

Order: "Where did I put that?" A tendency to be well organized helps employees to work without major distractions or "roadblocks."

Safe work behaviors: Employers want people who avoid work-related accidents and unnecessary risk-taking in a work environment.

Savvy: This isn't just about job knowledge, but knowledge of coworkers and the working environment. It includes a tendency to read other people's motives from observed behavior and use this information to guide one's thinking and action.

Sociability: How much you enjoy interacting with coworkers affects how well you work with them.

Stability: This means a tendency to maintain composure and rationality in stressful work situations.

Vigor: This is a tendency to keep a rapid tempo and keep busy.

Article provided courtesy of ACT, an independent, nonprofit organization that provides assessment, research, information and program management services in education and workforce development. For more information on how to assess and build upon these and other "personal" skill areas—as well as "foundational" skills such as math,
reading and writing

What is Effective Leadership?

What is effective leadership? That sounds like a question for a philosopher doesn’t it? The truth is that anyone can be an effective leader. They just need to find the right balance between social, moral and business aspects of leadership. An effective leader is generally someone that leads by example and other people just tend to follow because they believe what they do is the right thing. Think of anyone you have looked up to in the past, were they an honest individual that put others before themselves? That is a quality of effective leadership. Being honest gives a person credibility and result in other people trusting and believing in that person.

Effective leaders lead by example and merely invite others to come along with them. Keeping promises is another sign of effective leadership. They believe in others and never fail to reward or compliment someone when they see they are doing well. Effective leaders admit when they are wrong and admit when they make mistakes. Everyone is human and makes a mistake at one time or another. It’s how a person handles a mistake that gives them a certain leadership quality. An effective leader can admit when they are wrong and by doing so, allows people to feel comfortable asking them for help and advice.

Good listening skills are a big part of effective leadership. A person who is willing to listen to problems or concerns an employee or a friend may have will give them more information. Therefore, the effective leader can make a well-informed and thought out decision. An effective leader gives positive reinforcement. Effective leadership is about asking or requesting a person to do something, not commanding them. Effect leaders make recommendations to follow. Effective leaders are willing to get their hands dirty. They realize that they are more than just a figure head or a boss.

Dale Carnegie offers an eight session training course titled ”The LeadershipTraining for Microsoft Managers“

Time Management to Reduce Stress

One critical habit to address in reducing workplace stress involves your productive and non-productive use of time. How do these positive work habits compare to your own?

Show Up Early
There is no downside to showing up early. When you come in early, you have extra time to gather your thoughts and get prepared, and you are sure to make a better impression in every situation. All the way around, this work habit reduces stress.

Maintain a Daily Planner
Whether you use software or plain paper, you need a daily planner to make sure that you are on top of all the daily details of your workdays. When you spend time planning, you reduce time spent executing tasks. Thorough daily planning is a key tool.

Be Present
How many times do you sit in meetings and allow your mind to wander from the subject under discussion? You are often physically present, but mentally in a totally different place. When you daydream during meetings, you end up uninformed about the meeting's topic and stressed. To avoid this tendency, sit up straight during meetings, take notes on the topic, and try to keep in eye contact with the speaker.

Avoid Procrastination
Everyone is motivated in different ways. Find what inspires and energizes you to tackle work issues, instead of putting them off. Commit to a regular schedule of work output and project completion.

Set Priorities
No one likes to leave work at the end of the day or week feeling like they didn't accomplish the most critical tasks. When you set and adhere to priorities, you avoid stress and keep on pace with the demands of your workload.

Protect Your Private Time
Some anxiety-provoking work habits, such as bringing work home or staying at work late, are more exhausting than we may realize. Sometimes it can't be avoided, but if it becomes a habit, you can start to feel like you don't have a life outside of work. Try to manage your time at work more efficiently so you can enjoy your time outside of the office.

How to Make the Most of a Sales Meeting

As a sales leader in your organization, planning and conducting sales meetings can be one of the best uses of your time. Effective sales meetings keep your sales teams focused and motivated. A relevant, well-planned sales meeting has the potential to be some of the most productive time in the sales week, and it can be an event that the team is eager to attend every time. To get that kind of productivity and enthusiasm out of your sales meeting, you need to ensure that:

• The meeting is relevant to the sales team. If they are going to invest their time, they want to get something out of it.
• The meeting is participatory. Salespeople are always hungry for new ideas that work, and they are eager to share their own good ideas.

Tips for Sales Meetings

1. Keep meetings short.
2. Give team members some kind of tool or idea they can use in a sales call this week. Make certain they leave each meeting feeling better equipped to sell. This helps your salespeople feel that meetings create value and are worth the interruption.
3. Be consistent by planning the meetings for the same day of the week and time of day. This allows salespeople to schedule their time effectively. Give the sales meeting the same level of priority you would award a customer meeting.
4. Bring in guests to give your team an outside perspective. For example, have your IT person spend time reviewing features of your electronic customer contact system and answering questions. Bring in an external expert. Invite a customer to talk about their issues and to explain the benefits of doing business with you.
5. Remember to praise in public and reprimand in private. Sales people generally crave recognition, so be lavish in your praise. They also deal with a great deal of rejection, so don't add to it during your meetings.
6. Get your team members involved in planning and delivering meetings. Ask them what they want to do in meetings and what would be valuable topics to address.
7. Create a written agenda for the meeting. Send it to your salespeople a few days beforehand and ask for additional ideas. Then, stick to the agenda. Don't allow sidetracks to go too long unless they are critically important. Most sidetracks can be resolved outside of the meeting's allotted time.
8. Be a good listener. Encourage your salespeople do most of the talking in the meeting. This is your opportunity to hear what is really going on out there. Take notes to reflect on those issues later. Allow people an opportunity to vent some frustrations, and be ready to guide the conversation back to profitable discussion.
9. Consider conducting some electronic meetings, like webinars and ooVoo. These save time and money in travel. But keep in mind that nothing replaces face-to-face connections.
10. End on time.

Here is a sure-fire agenda for getting increased performance from your sales meetings.

Inspirational Open
The opening should be brief and inspiring. Utilize this time as a team building moment and opportunity. Consider asking for a volunteer to open each meeting and encourage that individual to stretch their "comfort zones."

Communication
Get this out of the way early in the meeting. Make sure to set and keep strict timeframes appropriate to the quality or necessity of the information reviewed. Use this time to cover schedules, new products, new processes, etc.

Goal Results Reporting
Set the tone by reporting on one of your own goal results. Have each person report, in a conversational way. If an individual hasn't accomplished the goal they'd set, coach them for insights as to what they learned and help them set a future commitment.

Customer Focus: Success Stories and Challenges
This is a good opportunity for people to tell their stories and share their knowledge. Keep the stories focused on business and avoid telling your own "war stories." Encourage listeners to take notes and use the examples they hear in their own sales presentations. Give people appropriate strength-centered feedback.

Training
Most sales meetings tend to be information driven and discuss hitting quota numbers, learning about products, and reviewing policy. Change this so that meetings help make salespeople more effective. Teach new skills. Share best practices. Demonstrate and coach, as appropriate.

Recognition
Most sales professionals thrive on friendly competition. Create team and individual contents. Publicly praise success. Remember to recognize people in sales support positions. Rarely does a salesperson work in a vacuum. Recognition often goes to the salesperson, without acknowledging the support team.

Commitment
Keep the focus broad-based and centered on individual needs. While revenue generating is important, activities drive results and are easier to control. By encouraging your sales team to set goals to build relationships with clients, you are driving future business.

Inspirational Close
Make sure the meeting ends on a "high" note.

Dale Carnegie on Happiness

Dale Carnegie finds happiness in the small things and in everyday. Here are some quotes from Dale Carnegie:

1. “Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.” (Carnegie 83)

2. “Many people think that if htey were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happisness out of what you are doing as you can and don’t put off being happy until some future date.” (Carnegie 87)

3. “Life truly is a boomerang. What you give, you get.” (Carnegie 88)

4. “I know men and women can banish worry, fear and various kinds of illnesses, and can transform their lives by changing their thoughts.” (Carnegie 89)

5. ” I know with a conviction beyon all doubt that the biggest problem you and I have to deal with- in fact, almost the only problem we have to deal with-is choosing the right thoughs. If we can do that, we will be one the highroad to solving all our problems.” (Carnegie 91).

6. “Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It it the way we react to circumstances that determines our feeling.” (Carnegie 93)

7. “Am I advocating that we simply bow down to all the adversities that come our way? Not by a long shot! That is mere fatalism. As long as there is a chance that we can save a situation, let’s fight!” (Carnegie 92)

8. “The trouble with most of us i that we keep our eyes closed to opportunities that thrust themselves at us; and rare is the man who searches for his opportunity or sees one even when he stumbles over it.” (Carnegie 95)

9. ” As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.” (Carnegie 94).

10. ” When ill luck besets us, to ease the tension we have only to remember that happiness is relative. The next time you are tempted to grumble about what has happened to you, why not pause and be glad that it is no worse than it is.” (Carnegie 96)

11. “Here’s a though to carry with us: Let’s forget everything that aroused rancour, distrust and unkindness in our minds. At any time you can adopt the practice of forgetting a wrong.” (Carnegie 97)

12. ” If we think happy thoughts, we will be happy.” (Carnegie 98)

13. “It isn’t work that makes you tired, it’s your mental attitutude.” (Carnegie 99)

14. “By talking to yourself about things you have to be grateful for, you can fill your mind with thoughts that sing and soar.” (Carnegie 101)

15. “Do you know that you can be happy by just making up your mind-and sticking to it-that you are going to be happy?” (Carnegie 100)

16. ‘There is only one way on God’s green footstool that the past can be constructive; and taht is by calmly analyzing our past mistakes and profiting by them-and forgetting them.” (Carnegie 103)

17. “One of the most tragice thing I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living.” (Carnegie 107)

18. “Let’s be content to live the only time we can possible live: from now until bedtime.” ( Carnegie 108)

19. “Today is life-the only life you are sure of.” (Carnegie 111)

20. “This day is too precious to be corroded by acid worries and vitriolic regrets. Keep your chin high and your thoughts sparkling, a mountain brook leaping in the spring sunshine. Seize this day. It will never come again. (Carnegie 113)

Tip of the Week

Leaders must be determined to focus on their goal and to coach their employees to do the same. Here are some tips on coaching employees to persevere in the attainment of their goals:

• Build rapport with your employees so that you have a good relationship from the start
• Begin with praise and honest appreciation
• Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly
• Reassure employees and give the other person a fine reputation to live up to

Success Coach Says Take Steps to Delegate

Michael Crom, an executive vice president of Dale Carnegie Training, offers his advice for greater success at work…

Question: I have recently gotten a promotion at work and I am very excited about my new role with the company. With my new promotion comes a number of new responsibilities. In order for me to accomplish all of my tasks I will need to delegate a certain amount of work to other employees. Do you have any advice on the best ways to make use of delegating?

Answer: Delegation is not just about handing work out to the employees that work for you. There should be a purpose and meaning for all involved in the process. Here are some principles that will allow you to make effective use of delegation for all parties involved.

- Know the skills and abilities of your co-workers. You want to put the person who is helping you in the best position to succeed.

- Know the performance standards. Make sure expectations are clear so that there can be known success and improvement areas.

- Process is equitable. You want this to be a mutually beneficial job. The person should know that there is a reason why they are doing this job instead of someone else.

- Give sufficient authority. Make sure you give proper authority to the person so that they do not get push back from others.

- Show that help is available. Make yourself and all other resources available to the person, and let them know it.

Copyright 2009, Dale Carnegie & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved