The Get Real Project Just Got Real-er
After many months of anticipation, and a whole lotta effort, we are proud to announce the official launch of the new website for The Get Real Project. <Insert fanfare here.>
Successful Trustworthiness Training: A Nine-Point Checklist
Can people learn to be trustworthy? The short answer is yes, with the right design.
Excerpted from The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, this article addresses some of the biggest challenges of trustworthiness training (or any “soft skills” training, for that matter) with nine specific strategies.
Use them as a checklist to make sure your investment in trustworthiness training is designed to pay off—whether you’re creating your own learning program or considering hiring others to help.
Real rant: tweeting is for birds
Last year I attended the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) 2013 Annual Conference and Exposition in Chicago. Over 15,100 people in attendance. Extraordinary keynoters like Blake Mycoskie and Dan Pink. Content-rich breakout sessions. (With any luck, attendees thought the breakout that Gary Jones and I co-led was one of them.) Throughout it all, to my dismay, there was a whole lotta tweetin’ going on.
How to build trust with your customers – seven practices every small business owner should embrace
The bottom line: Demonstrating that you are a trustworthy small business starts long before you land the job and continues long after the job is done. It also requires seven key practices, all with “big” mindsets behind them. Which practice are you most inspired to put in place, starting now?
Disruptive Improvisation
This month’s improv tip is written by Shawn Westfall, The Get Real Project’s improv guru.
If Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen’s concept of “Disruptive Innovation” taught us anything, it’s that the world as we know it won’t be the same tomorrow as it is today—nor will it be what we imagine. As Christensen points out, disruptive technologies, ideas, and business cultures have the potential to radically transform society as a whole, and often do.
ISO Creativity? Reinvent Leisure Time
This month’s improv tip is written by Shawn Westfall, BossaNova’s improv guru.
For a professional improv comedian, even “play” becomes work from time to time. In this article, Shawn Westfall shares his personal reflections of an important turning point in his 10-year teaching journey, with valuable lessons for us all about how and when to step aside and start anew.
The trust equation – four essential factors for building trust with sophisticated buyers part 2
In Part 1 of Four Essential Factors for Building Trust with Sophisticated Buyers, I suggested that even though trust-based selling is far from formulaic, it helps to approach it with a formula in your back pocket: the trust equation.
Four essential factors for building trust with sophisticated buyers, part 1
Here’s something I’ve learned about sales professionals in the years I’ve been leading training programs: they’re avid learners in hot pursuit of excellence. And for the best of the best, “excellence” is determined not by numbers, but by the difference they make. Use this four-part checklist to gain insight into ways to raise your game.
Improv tip of the month: the one skill all master facilitators know and live by
This month’s can’t-miss tip is from Barry Edwards, Improv Contributor.
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to work with a master facilitator, you know first-hand that great facilitation is more art than science. To be masterful, you must learn to lead in the moment and dance with the dynamics of the group.
A Leadership Mantra for Modern Times: “I Failed!”
This month’s improv tip is written by Shawn Westfall, the Get Real Project’s improv guru.
Somewhere around class three or four of the beginner’s improv class I teach at the DC Improv, I make the entire class stand up, raise their hands, and yell, as loud as they can “I FAILED! I FAILED AT IMPROV! I FAILED AT MAKING CRAP UP! HOORAY!”