When change comes to town, it seems to divide people into two camps: victims and villains. Those who precipitated the change are often the bad guys of the situation. And everyone else seems to be warily looking for their name on the chopping block. Change has the same effect on businesses, which is why mergers and other structural shake-ups can be so damaging to morale and productivity.
Credit: busy.pochi, via Flickr
But they don’t have to be. While reading Sharon Melnick’s new book, Success Under Stress: Powerful Tools for Staying Calm, Confident, and Productive When the Pressure’s On, I came across her seemingly stellar exercise for people who are going through this kind of flux. It’s called “WIN at Change.” While it is intended for the individual, I think that brokers, managers and leaders of all kinds could benefit from it.
The exercise is predicated on Melnick’s theory that if you take responsibility for your 50 percent of any given situation, your stress level will decrease, as you’re holding up your end of the bargain with the understanding that you can’t do it all. I think that’s a key component to this exercise, and I think managers would do well to mention that ideal as an introduction to the exercise. As Melnick says, “It’s tempting to comment negatively on other peoples’ decision or to be fearful of the uncertainty, but the way to stay productive is by managing yourself” (emphasis hers). If nothing else, it should quiet detractors long enough to get through the exercise!
So, here’s what you do. Gather all the stakeholders and hand them two pieces of paper. The first one should be split into thirds, and the second one blank. Here’s your script: Continue reading »
While running like crazy around the Las Vegas Convention Center covering the 2013 International Builders Show last week, I didn’t imagine I’d find time to hear assertions about similarities between Jesus Christ and Bernie Madoff. Thankfully, I got a chance to unwind with author and sales coach Jason Forrest, for whom unconventional irreverence comes naturally.
Jason Forrest, chief sales officer at Forrest Performance Group
We managed to find a somewhat empty meeting room to talk, just minutes after he sold his last Builders Show copy of his new book. Forrest already has two books about becoming a better salesperson under his belt, but his latest, Leadership Sales Coaching: Transforming From Manager to Coach, takes training to the brokerage level. I asked him about some of the challenges he, as one of Training magazine’s Top Young Trainers of 2012, encounters in the old-school world of established real estate brokerages.
“One of the biggest benefits of being younger is that I can wear jeans when I speak… If you’re older, you have to wear a tie and a suit that doesn’t fit well,” he joked. “People sometimes don’t like what I say at first [but] I am able to bring a fresh approach in an old-school way.”
One of the challenges Forrest faces at some of the more established brokerages is with his company’s emphasis on “culture change.” He said that if a company’s top brass is on board with the notion of change, the experience can be truly “transformational,” comparing the effort with working on turning around a failing school. Continue reading »
It seems that whether you hate continuing education (CE) credits with a passion or you’re a card-carrying member of the Raise the Bar group, you’d agree that good real estate training is hard to find. I hear brokers and sales associates alike complain bitterly about the educational dearth on both the giving and the receiving ends.
Credit: ©Mustafa Khayat Photography
“The average real estate training program is no program,” a trainer and former real estate professional told me recently. They went on to say that associates generally don’t try to fill the gap themselves, either, usually because they feel like they’re too busy. “They do CE because they have to… They don’t even know they’re clueless.”
Now Jeff Cobb’s new book, Leading the Learning Revolution, is targeted at people who want to become teachers, lecturers, educational gurus, and the like in this new age of adult learning. And if you fall in that category, I’d recommend it as a resource in your endeavors. But it’s not really aimed at brokers simply trying to train their sales associates. Regardless, in reading the book I came across a chapter that could help solve this real estate training conundrum.
Let’s say you’re a broker trying to offer some useful training to your associates. Why aren’t they showing up in droves, you ask? Well, Cobb has a checklist that might provide some insight as to what you missed. Continue reading »
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