I am excited about our Group Wizardry. It is just around the corner – June 21-25. We have participants coming from Australia, UK, Germany, Sweden and from many parts of the states. Can you imagine how interesting the interaction and learning will be?  What an opportunity to learn about international group dynamics! This is GREAT.

 We still have a few spots available — to learn more visit http://www.michaelgrinder.com/class-list/group-wizardry/

See you this or next year,

Michael & Gail Grinder

p.s. Listen in to my Blog Talk Radio Beyond Lip Service interview (30 minutes of good tips on nonverbal communication) I did recently at

http://www.michaelgrinder.com/InterviewGW or download the pdf transcript

A big part of why I become a trainer is I love to inspire, motivate, and encourage people! Yet as you know, if you have ever had to manage or coach people, sometimes, we need to give feedback and possibly even manage a behavior.

Observing someone’s behavior, coaching them and giving feedback can feel rough, tough or scary (it certainly doesn’t need to be). And contrary to common mythology, giving “constructive criticism” is not constructive. It rarely motivates change, especially long-term change. What motivates people is specific behavioral feedback, and yes, they are craving specific feedback that educates them on how their behaviors effect other people.

Your success as a leader, teacher, manager, team member, coach, etcetera will ultimately be about what you do and how you inspire, motivate, and encourage people. So the question becomes how to do it successfully each and every time?

Michael Grinder’s Group Wizardry June 22-25, 2009

http://tinyurl.com/crs7z5

by Michael Grinder 

I often get asked about the qualities of an effective, charismatic leader. One important quality is the ability to be comfortable within one’s position – especially as it relates to the need to use power instead of influence. A person-in-charge’s comfort when managing directly affects the group’s ability to function. She manages in many directions such as upwards with bosses, downwards with subordinates, and sideways with colleagues. In addition, she often has different management styles based on the direction she is managing.

Her style needs to fit the culture of the group or organization. If the culture is "cat-oriented," she is expected to comply with the level above and to expect compliance from the level below. In a "dog-oriented" culture, she is expected to have fewer differences in how she interacts with people above and below her position.

The Key to Her Success

When she breathes low, it is a sign that she is comfortable with both the use of influence and power as it relates to management. It is wise for someone to pick a culture and a position inside that organization that matches their style of comfort.  In general, people want to work for someone who is comfortable buffering pressure from above, holding peers accountable, and supporting their handling of inappropriate subordinates.

To learn more about Being An Effective Charismatic Leader consider our upcoming Effective Charismatic Leadership Certification beginning in April 2009.

Hi Michael,
Hope you are well. I just wanted to share my story with you – it still astonishes and amuses me but I think its fantastic too and is obviously great feedback on the quality of your training, research and materials.

After the course, I decided to have a go at running a little ‘lunch and learn’ session about some of the non-verbal techniques. I offered it to some people I knew well; they came along, I got some feedback, refined it and offered it again. That was in April. Since then I have done two sessions a month – I do not advertise, nor send out details to my distribution lists – the sessions are filled purely by attendees going back and recommending them to their colleagues. Occasionally I have cancellations but always fill them with help from previous attendees. I have them booked up until September.
They have a life of their own, everyone loves them and the funniest thing – this isn’t part of my job, I just decided to do it off my own back but they have ended up being one of the best networking things ever – I have met loads of new people!

They are small (7 people) and very informal and friendly. Very interactive and we have discussions, share stories, and have a great experience. I have every level of person in the room right from the top -  Group Vice President and have wonderful stories from people who have used it. My favourite was someone who got a pay rise from going 3rd point. I get everyone in the room to have a go and then get them to feed back to each other (rather than me doing it). It works so well – and attendees love that they meet new people at the same time. I always make sure I have a mix of cats and dogs – so that the cats learn that not everyone is like them and the dogs all look at me with such relief – its very sweet.
Always tell them about you and share some of your stories and scare them by telling them you have taught yourself to not blink for 40 mins. As soon as I do that, they immediately know you’re seriously impressive and buy-in to everything:-)

Its is only since doing them that I realised how essential all of the practice was on the course as I can now give very good demos. Also had the ultimate validation from someone at a workshop last week – I was explaining afterwards about non-verbals and he said "Ah, that makes sense. In the workshop I noticed that when you speak everyone listens and the room goes silent. Now I know why"

Anyway, wanted to say thank you and let you know there are some much better communicators in BP because of you! Just a few examples of feedback enclosed (though obviously only dogs write and say thank you afterwards – the cats just go off and do it!)

Regards
Judith Parker
Change, Communications & Engagement Manager
Business Services Transformation Project
BP 

My good friend, Gary Phillips got some great news last week! His first book has been released…

It’s called, The Art of Safety. Don’t be misled by the title though. In this book, Gary has seamlessly blended advanced communication concepts into the world of corporate leadership, personnel management and his passion for occupational safety—a treasure trove of practical tools for every business leader.

This is not another text covering the “what’s” – the nuts and bolts of safety. This is about how you handle yourself when interacting with others — how you communicate leadership and personal effectiveness.

Yes, it’s true, Gary’s background is in optimal safety performance for major corporations, but in this book Gary has combined his advanced training he has received from me in Group Dynamics and Non-verbal Communication along with his serious background in language patterns and NLP to produce a book that will become a communication resource for anyone that works with people.
I just got done reading it and I told him I’d do him a favor and help spread the word. Why? Well, because his first book is filled with  tons of immediately useful information. The Art of Safety book blends many communication techniques together, yet it also covers the serious component all communication success stories have… that many books don’t necessarily talk about – MINDSET!

Mindset is the difference between just learning and implementing. Any of you that have heard me for very long now, know that I say every chance I get, in trainings, my books and here on our website that at Michael Grinder and Associates we are all about IMPLEMENTATION!

      Here’s a link to grab it — www.artofsafety.net

By the way, this is not an affiliate promotion (not that there’s anything wrong with those). I just want you to know I don’t make a penny off of letting you know about this book. I truly believe it benefits you to own it, read it, and practice it.

And I’m not alone in knowing this book is immediately useful.

“I had an opportunity to read this book and found it immediately helpful. I was able to utilize the concepts to help me understand and resolve an issue in our workplace totally unrelated to a safety issue. Although aimed at safety the material, concepts and exercises are universal in nature and transferable to a wide variety of operational and organizational initiatives. It may be the Safety component that initially attracts you to this book, but you will find yourself employing these concepts in a variety of work and life situations.”
—Robert Gordon, Director of Court Operations, Ministry of the Attorney

“Would that I had Gary’s book years ago. Many health and safety meetings I attended over the years would have been shorter, more effective, and, in fact, enjoyable. This guidebook could have spared me many hours of frustration.”
—William Baarschers, Ph.D., Lakehead University

There really is no book out there quite like it. Let me know your thoughts when you sink your teeth into it—at my blog – www.michaelgrinder.com/blog  Add your comments about Gary’s new book below.

Guest Blogger: Sharon Sayler of www.impressionengineers.com

It is already midway throught the first month of 2008. I can hardly believe it!. Has that ugly word, procrastination found it’s way into your new year’s plans yet?  If you find it has, it is not too late to get started. Here are some tips to conquer procrastination.

Before you begin accept three things:

1. There is no perfection.
2. Expect some setbacks.
3. Everything will take longer than you thought.

And answer two questions:

1. Is this the best use of my time?
2. What do I need to really own what I’m trying to accomplish?

Procrastination usually happens because we don’t have enough information about what we are trying to do. One way to rein-in procrastination as we gather more information is to trick your procrastination "brain" by working backwards.

1. What do I want to do or what will the finished project look like? Describe in detail what it will achieve or change, including a completion date?
2. Break the project into tasks, working backwards, from the finished project to the current time.  Imagine the last thing you did to make it work? Write it down… What was it you did to get the last thing done? Write it down… What was it you did to get the second to last thing done?  Write it down… (you get the idea.)
3. Develop this list into small and easy tasks that can be accomplished quickly, no more than a few each day… 
   Do only one task at a time. Consider a thirty-minute plan—set a timer and work on something for just 30-minutes. At the end of 30-minutes, switch to something else if you want. (Chances are you are so involved you will keep going.) Reset your timer for the next 30-minutes.
4. At the end of each task, celebrate its completion.
5. Plan the next task and establish priorities for getting it done.

If you still find yourself getting stuck try modifying your environment, or enlist a friend to hold you accountable.

"There will always be reasons to wait…The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count."~Robert Anthony

Have a great day in whatever your adventure.
To success! To Life!� 

Sharon

More of her tips can be found at http://www.impressionengineers.com/blog/

HINTS FOR OVERCOMING RESISTANCE
by Toy Odiakosa, Director www.ela-consulting.com
Graduate MGA’s London Group Mastery Certification

A 52 year old sales director was sent to "get coaching" for his failure to interact efficiently with his line manager.  He was having meetings with the CEO and other members of the Project Board, however his inputs and interactions at that level had not been well received.  What to do… read the entire article

Further information on overcoming resistance can be found in Michael’s books Charisma: The Art of Relationships and his latest book The Elusive Obvious

We have added a fun yet informative quiz to our site that is adapted from our Charisma – The Art of Relationships (Cat and Dog) program. It is developed by Arielle Essex in London.  If you live in the UK, watch her web site for trainings she does – she is good!" 

Hope you enjoy it and find it useful. The quiz can be found at www.michaelgrinder.com/leadership-style-quiz/

Michael Grinder