How Stagnation Leads to Poaching…With Customers and Employees
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
Release Date: 12/29/2016
The Real Magic Needed To Provoke Greatness in Your Team: An Interview with Lee Cockerell, former Executive Vice President (Retired & Inspired) Walt Disney World® Resort
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
Want employees who care greatly about creating remarkable results? Listen to this interview! Lee Cockerell is one of the most down-to-earth and transparent leaders I’ve been privileged to interview. Far beyond management and leadership, Lee got to the heart of what’s needed to provoke greatness in yourself and your team. Enjoy! Resources from the interview: Learn more about Lee Cockerell’s speaking and online courses . Here’s to your greatness, Misti Burmeister
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A Simple Strategy to Get What You Want Out of Your Career
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
“Why don’t they put more time and attention to that client? If they don’t, they might lose them.” “Can’t they see I would be excellent in that position? Why don’t they consider me?” “Don’t they understand that if they’d just have more team building activities throughout the year everyone would work better together? Collaboration clearly improved after our yearly retreat.” “Why don’t they spend a little extra money on the furniture in our waiting area? At least they could provide fresh tea/coffee and relaxing (or energizing) music for guests!...
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Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
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Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
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Why Establishing Core Values is a Waste of Time and Money
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
Company culture experts urge leaders to establish clearly defined values to serve as a guide for decisions and behaviors throughout an organization. To ensure they have the best representation of the values shared among those in leadership, companies often spend gobs of cash and time on experts who ultimately produce a document aligning the most common ideals. Mounted on the wall, and often on the website, these key words or phrases are meant to ensure everyone is on the same page about what’s expected and acceptable. While these values are typically...
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Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
The greatest teachers in life are rarely the ones with great advice. They are remarkable role models who consistently show the way, while asking the kind of questions that stop us in our tracks. Their questions infect us with the kind of curiosity that leads us in the direction of our own answers. You know the kind of person I’m talking about. Their question pierces through our internal chatter and commands the truth we’ve been searching for. In November of 2016, I witnessed a teacher so committed to his craft that he not only showed the way, but provoked questions in...
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The Truth About Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
We shy away from sharing or expanding into what we have to offer in the most obscure ways. We think that getting out of our comfort zone means doing something big, which is exactly what keeps us trapped and doing what we’ve always done. Finishing up lunch with a client at a nice restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland, I kept thinking about that beautiful basket of bread (that we didn’t even touch) going into the trash. While a business lunch is perhaps not the right environment to request a to-go box for the bread, I found myself imagining the delight of handing it off to a homeless...
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A Simple Strategy for Increasing Your Impact
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
In a rush to get from one experience to the next, we may miss the simple and seemingly superfluous opportunities to inspire greatness. Believing that inspiration only comes in oversized packages, we may forget to look for the tiny (barely noticeable, really) opportunities to inspire others into action. Having an “off” day and needing a shift in scenery, I headed to the pool for a workout. The moment I pulled into the parking lot, I started talking myself out of swimming—“It’s been a rough day… I could just go across the street and grab a hot tea, read and relax,” I...
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Energy, Enthusiasm and Economic Downturns
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
They should is a trap that kills enthusiasm and growth faster than any economic downturn ever could. When you catch yourself thinking, “They should or shouldn’t,” stop and ask yourself, “How can I help them reach their goals?” Consider letting go of the shoulds (work harder, pay their dues, respect me) and shouldn’ts (go above me, think so highly of themselves, be so lazy), and instead focus on communicating your vision while helping them reach their goals. Their success is your success, regardless of whether you’re the boss or the employee. Embrace this...
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How Stagnation Leads to Poaching…With Customers and Employees
Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister
Greatness chases greatness. Companies and leaders in continuous pursuit of evolution (personal/company brand), worry more about keeping up with demand then poaching. On the flipside, those who hoard resources and acknowledgment wind up losing their most precious assets to the competition. Sitting in one of the nicest business clubs in Washington, DC, just before the start of an event, Lena, a fellow businesswoman, peeked over her computer and asked, “Excuse me, are you familiar with LinkedIn?” “I’m no expert,” I said, “but what do you need?” “If I...
info_outlineGreatness chases greatness. Companies and leaders in continuous pursuit of evolution (personal/company brand), worry more about keeping up with demand then poaching.
On the flipside, those who hoard resources and acknowledgment wind up losing their most precious assets to the competition.
Sitting in one of the nicest business clubs in Washington, DC, just before the start of an event, Lena, a fellow businesswoman, peeked over her computer and asked, “Excuse me, are you familiar with LinkedIn?”
“I’m no expert,” I said, “but what do you need?”
“If I accept a connection request, can they see my list of connections?”
“I think they can see who you’re connected to regardless,” I said, “But I’m not certain. Why?”
“The person trying to connect with me is a competitor, and I don’t want her marketing to my list. Should I accept the invitation to connect?”
Lena’s question reminded me of the one I’d heard just the day before, from a CEO of a company with a little more than 100 employees—“How do I praise (or even acknowledge) my team publicly when doing so gives my competitors access to the names of my best employees?”
There seems to be two valid perspectives on ‘competition’—
- Beat them.
- Use them as fuel to step up your game.
One is focused on winning for you while the other is focused on helping others win. One tends to come from a limited mindset while the other assumes an abundance… of people, resources, and opportunities.
Whether we’re talking about customers or employees, the philosophy shared by the Lena and the CEO is the same—if I share, I’ll have less. This is technically true, if you’re planning to stagnate.
If you plan to stop challenging yourself to develop skills, strengthen your team culture, build relationships and learn, then you should be concerned. Not about them, though.
“Progress always involves risk; you can’t progress to second base and also keep your foot on first.” –Christie Manson
By focusing on becoming more valuable in any profession, you naturally attract more customers and opportunities to share your talents. By focusing on improving your ability to serve and generously serving those who show up, you keep the wheels in motion for growth.
Through their consistent pursuit of excellence in company culture and leadership, Honest Tea, Zappos, Google, Menlo Innovations and others have become magnets to some of the world’s greatest talent. They could have hoarded talent and protected their secret recipes; instead, these leaders opened their doors and said, “Come learn about what we’re doing.”
As a leader, sales professional, entrepreneur, barista or even a mechanic, what mindset have you adopted as your own? How are you ensuring consistent evolution?
Here’s to your greatness,
Misti Burmeister
P.S. Ready to step into your greatness… to uncover your purpose and figure out how to cash in on your talents? Book your Gearing For Greatness session today.