Strictly Success

Secrets In Getting More For Your Training Dollar

Strictly Success — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:41:15 +0000

Note: Consider viewing the article pre-empting this post titled, “The Cost of Team Building”

Once we schedule a trainer/facilitator/speaker for your program, to a great extent, longer programs don’t really cost you, the client, that much more. The difference in the fees for a 2 hour are 4 hour program, at least for us, is nominal at best. The cost difference between a 6 and 8 hour program is typically minimal. Fees generally begin adding up when a client desires a four hour program however wishes to start at 9am and include a lunch – this generally turns into a greater commitment for the training company which generally translates to larger fees. Try a 8 or 830am start. So the lesson here – if your operation permits, when possible, at least explore the four hour option if you’re thinking about two hours.

Another consideration – there are “break-points” in which having an additional persons might not cost you anything more! Recently I had a team building program for 17 persons. We instructed the client that should they elect to include up to 20 persons, (and additional three participants) there would be no additional fee. The additional three persons created additional energy for the program and the synergy from the larger team was a win-win for everyone. We’ve made this same arrangement for teams of much larger sizes if the type of program had minimal material or activity fees.

Alternatively, there are points in which adding just 2, 3,or 4 persons can require adding another facilitator or trainer. This additional facilitator can drive the cost up 15% or so depending on the specifics of your program.

Don’t assume that because the trainer/speaker is coming from out of town the fee will be greater. Training companies know their markets and eventually we will all be local to some of our clients. Local training companies are fully aware what an out-of-town speaker/trainer will charge and adjust their fees accordingly. The real consideration should be the experience of the trainer/facilitator and frankly, if whether you believed the company was listening to your needs and proposed solid solutions in your interaction with them. If you saved a thousand dollars because you hired a local (or out-of-town) speaker/trainer/facilitator and they didn’t meet your objectives – did you really save?

Ask for a discount provided you utilize a follow-up program. We will typically extend savings to the client provided they request a follow-up or second program within a six month period.

About the author: Charlie Selcer has provided organizations with employee training and development through Strictly Success Inc. for over 15 years. Strictly Success is a U.S. based employee training company for both the public and private sectors including some of America’s Fortune 1000 companies. Strictly Success specializes in high performance teams and teambuilding, employee motivation, employee accountability and change management.

The Cost of Team Building

Strictly Success — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:37:53 +0000

The goal of the following piece is straight forward – we seek to provide enough information to help you get the exact teambuilding or other employee development program you seek at the price you want to pay – or at least a price you see as fair value.

I sincerely wish providing fees for team building, or employee motivation programs, DiSC (employee assessments) workshops or personal accountability workshops were as easily accomplished as purchasing a coffee (although this has even become complicated in our world today). However, it’s simply not that easy. We really don’t want to complicate things, trust us, we’ve tried spreadsheets and interactive programs designed to specifically allow prospects to price out their desired programs without having to speak directly to an individual – an app if you will. Such an app has so many variables and subjectives that it becomes more efficient for the client to speak with the provider. The greatest variable, is that our clients, by and large want a solution that will meet their objectives and they are not especially interested in a solution that might have worked last week for someone else. To clarify, we pride ourselves in providing extraordinarily accurate fees, providing fees with no surprises is easy once we have a sense of the client’s objectives and expectations. We’ve come so far, for many years now we provide all-inclusive fees – once we know the client’s objectives.

Please allow us a little leeway in th following description of what we do. This is not intended for self-promotion but rather to provide greater insight as to the difficulty training companies encounter in placing their fees online. We are not trying to speak for all companies, just providing some insight based on 20 years of training and speaking experience. Here is our experience.

“Our programs are typically provided either at the client’s site or off-site of the client’s facilities at perhaps a business meeting room in a local hotel, resort or countless other venues. Additionally, over the years we have also conducted programs at dude ranches, on riverboats, resorts, B & Bs, historical locations, and even on sailboats on Lake Michigan etc. We have created corporate treasure hunts, rodeo play-days, rope courses and sailing races to list only a few activities. We have worked with teams as small as ten persons and teams that number in the hundreds. Our programs have durations of 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 hours and multi-day (and about any duration between). We provide activities more cerebral in nature (and fun!) such as the DiSC Profile and Survival Simulation, and activities more physical like instructing participants on breaking boards with their hand, spider webs, mine fields and dozens of other engaging activities”.

So, when a prospect contacts us and advises they seek a team building and want to know our fees, you can see why we have a few questions. Team building and employee
motivation (programs), can mean something very different to different clients.

Foremost among all the considerations are the client’s program objectives. Just a few of our client’s past objectives have included:

v improving communication,

v furthering camaraderie,

v preparing your team for new challenges,

v reducing conflict,

v creating a culture of accountability,

v reducing conflict,

v employee recognition,

v promoting more effective business relationships

v managing change,

v or perhaps, just having fun.

In addition to these and other clear cut objectives the client may have, there is also the character or tone of the program. Are they seeking a program that is physical, entertaining and fun, or a program that is more cerebral, or perhaps you seek a program that is a blend of both entertainment and education; facilitation and activities.

Your objective will determine what type of activity we would suggest and therefore the skillset of your facilitator/trainer or speaker and the number of facilitators/trainer or speakers that are required. The number of participants will also factor into the number of facilitators required. There are times where a single facilitator can address hundreds of individuals in an interactive keynote, and other times, requires the ratio could be as little as one facilitator to thirty participants. Each of these considerations will help determine the fee.

If we offered but one program, say our “Board Meeting” activity in which we instruct in a martial art technique for breaking a board, and we offered it to meet but one objective – perhaps employee motivation, then perhaps a simple fee structure could be provided. However, while many times clients request the Board Meeting (or some or activity) as a stand-alone activity, other clients would seeks additional activities or the inclusion of a motivational keynote. A client may have 20 participants, another 300. A client may want us to go off-site to some really cool place while others seek to control costs by keeping the program onsite of their facilities.

Allow us to share a few more of the principle factors that affect the fees.

The number of participants
The duration of your event (1, 2, 4, 6, 8 hours or multi day).
The type of activity
Materials cost (assessments)
Facilities fees
Location of the event

So as you can see, it is almost as complicated as ordering a coffee. It is definitely not rocket science, but there are considerations.

It doesn’t escape us that we have put ourselves in a difficult position deciding not to offer either a single solution, a sort of one-size-fits-all solution. Such programs have a place under specific conditions and very limited circumstances and they are also conveniently delivered however, they can be a hit and miss in achieving the expectations of the client. By learning what a client is attempting to achieve, (improved camaraderie? managing conflict? improving communication? creating more productive relationships? etc) we can actually partner with a client in providing the solution they seek.

Pleas know this. Training and speaker organizations have a sincere interest in the client having a successful program. We’ve been conducting programs for two decades and we’d like to think that if you don’t use us this time, eventually we’ll have a chance to be of assistance – but only if you had a positive experience prior to our opportunity to work with you!

See subsequent article re, “Secrets To Getting More For Your Training Dollar”

Why Your Team May Not Be Performing (as a team)

Strictly Success — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:02:52 +0000

How could a company have a group of highly successful individuals not perform well as a team?

Over the years we have come into contact with organizations of highly motivated and successful individuals, yet as a team, they failed at achieving their potential as teams – and therefore as individuals. How and why does this occur?

Reason #1 Environments that emphasize individual performance through recognition and rewards systems generally get what they pay for – individual performance. While there is inherent benefit to such internal competition, a reminder that we’re on the same team can also prove useful at times. The benefits to working together as a team from the individual’s perspective as well as the organization’s perspective could at times use a little public relations work. Partnering top and seasoned performers with newer or struggling team members can not only improve immediate production results but have the residual benefit of promoting camaraderie which can produce a more enjoyable and fulfilling environment in which to spend 8 – 10 hours a day.

Reason #2 Lack of trust, lack of confidence in team members. It impossible to work with people you don’t trust. More specifically, it’s impossible to have and achieve shared goals with individuals that you’re unsure of and unclear as to their motivation. Real teamwork requires people to have faith in one another. Confidence that each other has the other’s back. Real teamwork requires real trust.

Reason #3 No benefit to performing as a team. Many leaders in the quest to shortcut success, focus their all their efforts on the results of individuals with the more visible natural talent while displaying sincerity (falsely) to working as a team. In business as in sports, focusing on individuals, will always result in performance as measured in individual terms, not in team results. Such an approach prevents any possibility of achieving synergy – a condition whereas the results produced are greater as a team than the sum of the performance of individuals.

Reason #4 Myopic focus: With a focus on a single measure of success, i.e. winning, sales or
production the result will be in best case, attainment of the focus. However, long term successful leaders recognize that winning (or sales or production) is but one measure of success. Other arguably critical objectives should be development, – teaching our kids about teamwork and teams is an equally valuable lesson. We are failing spectacularly in mentoring, modeling and teaching teamwork.

Reason 5 Every successful leader realizes whether or not a team performs as a team is the responsibility of the leader. This is the one person by virtue of the role, title and responsibility who is most capable of creating team results. The leader is the hub. No effective or mature leader will blame their team for not performing as a team – that is indicative of a leader minus the forethought to their responsibility.

For additional support, see also: ”Team Supplies For A High Performance Team“, “The Most Crucial Component of Teams“, “Elements of a High Performance Team“

The Commitment to Continual Improvement

Strictly Success — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 03:56:53 +0000

If you’ve had a cold or perhaps the flu, the doctor may have prescribed an antibiotic in which you were to take two dosages, twice a day, for 10 days.

How many of you actually took the two dosages, twice a day, for 10 days?

If you were like me, there is a greater possibility that you took the two dosages for several days began feeling better and the remaining dosages can still be found in your medicine cabinet two years later. Afterall, we began feeling better, we saw improvement and decided we didn’t need the remaining medicine.

Organizations do the same thing. As an employee development company, specializing in team building and creating a culture of accountability, organizations seek our assistance when teams within their organizations are not performing as expected and are presenting “ill” effects. Occasionally with more proactive organizations, the organization simply seeks to improve performance.

In either case, we will generally prescribe some form of team development, team building, personal accountability or motivation program. Many times, the client, from experience will “self-diagnose” and know precisely what type of program they require. Otherwise, we develop a program and present the program and team members, and teams, begin experiencing improvement – its’ that straight forward. However, (and this is where the antibiotic metaphor comes in to play), on seeing improvement, the organization sets aside the commitment to continual improvement and over time the team will relapse to the original troubled behavior.

The challenge is simple. Organizations must make a commitment to the continued improvement of their teams and employees. The organization must be used as a learning environment for their most valued asset, the employee. Interestingly, our experience is that money is not the greatest challenge to a company’s success, it may not even be a lack of leadership or vision, but rather the failure to develop and maintain their most expensive assets – their employees.

If you belong to an organization that has taken the initiative to improve the teams, please remember to continue the development and maintenance of your teams, afterall, you’ve already shelled out the money for the initial investment. So much of the continual improvement can occur internally by continuing the focus on the principles and ideas of the program you’ve just experienced, (i.e. team building, accountability or motivation program). Your commitment to furthering the development of your teams will produce a healthier team, organization and add profitability to your bottom line!

Staying Motivated And On Point

Strictly Success — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 03:52:45 +0000

Helping Our Employees Stay Motivated and On Point

Unemployment – close to 8% nationally and one of the highest rates in 25 years. Wage cuts, layoffs, reductions, and yes, the mention of corporate corruption in every issue of every newspaper and magazine we pick up. Company stock prices have fallen, many times detrimentally effecting savings and retirement accounts to say the least of foregone company stock option plans. We have been directed to do more with less – less manpower, less budget, seemingly less everything. And there’s a feeling that somebody needs to be blamed.

It is tough to get centered much less stay there. It’s also difficult, at best, to focus on our objectives and to stay motivated. The result is increased difficulty in accomplishing our organization’s objectives and personal goals; which then feeds the circle of decreased profit and employee morale challenges.

Truth is, in every generation there are both economic booms and times of growth. We have it no worse than perhaps any other generation – only a different set of problems. Yet there exists a tendency to feel cheated or a desire to blame someone – especially for corruption we have seen the past decade.

At risk of shameful promotion which I hope will be forgiven with the novelty of this idea and our success with this approach, I’d like to make a suggestion. In the course of our own business at Strictly Success, I have historically resisted our being referred to as a motivation company with motivational speakers. We really believe we cannot motivate anyone to do anything that they simply do not want to do. However, I have begun to see the motivating effects of our Accountability programs which have had the dual effect of improving employee morale and furthering a culture of accountability. This is not intended as a unabashedly promotion of one of our programs but rather an attempt to suggest that perhaps more of our energy would be better served in promoting self-initiative, personal accountability and becoming more self-managing. In our own little test lab, it has been both fascinating and rewarding to see the motivating effect employees begin experiencing after realizing the extent to which they can positively impact their futures. Many times the motivation stems from the affirmation of a participant’s current habits, while for others, at some point during our discussions, it is the recognition that we can no longer hold our company, our manager, our husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend responsible for creating successes in our lives. That blaming our President or Europe economic crisis, or the Middle East, or whoever and whatever current crisis for all our troubles seems a little like promoting victimization. Certainly, there is enough blame going around for everyone yet it is the happiest and successful of people that continues to direct their energies at improving their situation instead of talking problems with no solutions or complaining about what others have or have not done.

With that, I leave you with this thought, “If you believe breaking is possible, believe fixing is possible” (Rebbe Nachman of Breslov). Or, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” (William H Johnsen).

Elements of a High Performance Team

Strictly Success — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 00:38:35 +0000

I wish there were only one, two or even three characteristics of a high performance team. That would make describing them perhaps acquiring such attributes somehow easier. But it’s just not that easy – but it isn’t that hard either! No doubt this list is not all-inclusive, however I would suggest it would be difficult to find a high performing team without each of these attributes.

Mission driven team members: Possessed more than a mere goal, they possessed a vision of their future and they conducted themselves with inexplicable energy.

Shared commitment:  Commitment to the team and its’ goals was undeniable – unquestionable.  Such commitment forms the foundation to which trust is developed.

Trust: Trust implies accountability and reliability.  Trust is the glue that maintains individual and organizational integrity.  Real teamwork requires people have confidence in one another. (See "Top 6 Signs Your Team Lacks Trust")

Excellent communication: The ability and willingness to communicate vision, goals, purpose and values. Words are only a small percent of our communication – there is so much more, ranging from non-verbal communication that accompanies our words, to our actions.

Accountability: In organizations and teams, rules are a necessity – they define expectations.  They also dictate the guidelines for our daily interaction with others.  Our ability and willingness to adhere to these “agreements” (rules) determine in large part how our team members will view, relate and ultimately judge us.

Talent: arguably as important as any other attribute, it’s difficult to get to the moon with talented rocket scientists or win a gold medal in an Olympic hockey game without superb hockey players, however, there are countless examples of ordinary individuals combining their mediocre skills to produce extraordinary results.

What is Team Building?

Strictly Success — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:03:35 +0000

When we think of the concept of team building there are many different visions that may pop into our heads. We might envision quick and fun activities designed to help members bond, or interactive day-long retreats where members participate in some type of complex interactions with each other or something in the middle of these two. In determining which type of activities that should be presented to help build our team, we must first look at why team building is important and what our team might be lacking.

We must understand that a team is just that, a team. A team does not function with the input of just one or two individuals or a single leader. It is a conglomeration of all the different skills and input from all the team members. The saying “United we stand, Divided we fall” comes to mind. If all of the team members understand and genuinely feel that their contribution to the team is essential for the whole organization’s bottom line, as well as their own well being and job security, then they are more likely to give the team all they have. This type of behavior by employees is often the core of what makes successful companies flourish.

There are various trains of thought as to how to achieve a great team. Some corporations believe that teamwork can be force-fed to employees by management and that they can retain control by dictating what each employee can or will contribute. Most often this alienates employees and keeps them from expressing their true capabilities. This can also undermine what accomplishments the team can achieve as a whole while limiting the success of the company. Successful corporations understand that by recognizing employee ideas and giving team members some freedom and control over what they contribute as well as empowering them with responsibility, the result can be continuous achievement of the company’s goals. This is also beneficial for development of happier employees who want to contribute all of their potential, as well as a happier and friendlier workplace which in turn helps create a team that can and will work together effectively. This most often leads to a better bottom line for the company.

Can We Teach Accountability?

Strictly Success — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:32:34 +0000

Accepting responsibility for our actions seems almost novel.

The idea of accepting personal responsibility for our own actions, while not new, sometimes seems almost novel. On any given day we hear in the news of another event in which someone faults others for personal mishaps. Afterall, there is great comfort in holding someone responsible other than ourselves for the bad things that happen in our lives.

As for developing more accountable employees in organizations, To some great extent, as organizations we created our own challenge. For the greater part of the 20th century, corporations nurtured a parental relationship with the employee assuming the responsibility for the employee’s development, training, communication, pension and healthcare. Not suggesting corporations should /should not have assumed this responsibility – the economy afforded companies this opportunity. However, as our economy changed – more accurately expanded into a highly competitive global economy – the luxury of providing such employee benefits became difficult at best.

As employees we relinquished much of our personal responsibility for our development, after all, the companies were willing to assume to assume the responsibility. No longer is that the case. Employees can no longer expect life-time employment with a single organization, employees cannot expect to be provided the necessary company sponsored training as organizations are as apt to hire the necessary skills than to burden the expense of training personnel. Additionally, employees are experiencing an erosion of traditional retirement benefits, as pension plans are not being offered to new employees and being frozen for existing employees. As for healthcare, employees are being expected to shoulder a much greater part of this expense.

As employees we are now expected to assume the responsibility for our own development, training, communication and as of recently, become more involved in making appropriate retirement decisions.

Back to our original question, can we teach accountability? Can we convince employees to become more accountable for their own success and that of their company? Absolutely, and it begins with conveying to the individuals of the organization the value,necessity and benefit of becoming more self-managing. Further, we communicate the alternative to not assuming such responsibility and personal accountability. Employees must begin realizing the possible repercussions of placing their success exclusively in the hands of someone other than themselves.

And following this communication, we begin directly answering the question that begs from every employee, “what’s in it for me?” Seeking dialogue with our employees and teams as to their goals and objectives is crucial. It is important to make clear the relationship between the employee’s goals and those of the company. And in so doing, a motivation to succeed arises – the realization that the more we help our company achieve their goals the more we help ourselves. Also, as employees become more accountable for their success, through assuming responsibility for their development, they also become a more valuable and less dispensable asset to the organization.

This is only a starting place as an organization; it is important to continue the dialogue as to how leaders can develop the skill set and capability of “coaching” personal accountability and self-responsibility.

The Soft & Essential Side of Team Building

Strictly Success — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 15:26:43 +0000

Creating a team or developing an existing team into a successful team capable of achieving an organization’s goal can be daunting. While there are numerous organizations that recognize employee teams require maintenance as any other organizational asset, there are others that do not.

To expect that a group of employees, many times hired at separate times under very different conditions or by previous team leader, will perform as a finely honed machine is unrealistic. It is also unreasonable to expect that a group of employees banded together by a department name and loosely referred to as a team, will perform anywhere near the level of that of a high performance team. In addition to these challenges to fielding a highly successful team, another consideration is how well an employee can perform on their own and not succeed as a successful team member, and rarely, can an individual produce anywhere near the level of a successful team.

If an organization’s goal is to produce the greatest possible profit while providing a quality product the path must surely be through the collective, high performing contributions of its’ team members; and “loosely formed” will not suffice.

In providing a successful team building experience designed to boost the overall performance and satisfaction of the team members, organizations and training providers should include segments of soft skill topic matter. Two such soft skill topics from our perspective include heart and spirit. These two elements seem almost exotic and elusive in today’s hectic business world. Heart is represented by the effort put forth in an endeavor, and spirit is that portion left behind in the endeavor that uniquely identifies with the individual’s or team’s contribution. Consider the difference between an individual or team identifying with a purpose, a goal, or objective, and another that might identify themselves committed to a “cause”. The difference between pursing an objective and that of a cause, rests almost exclusively in the level of heart and spirit present.

In addition to heart and spirit, another “must” team building soft topic is “bonding”. The bonding or enduring of employees to one another is critical in furthering camaraderie, commitment and ultimately, more cooperation, collaboration and communication – the 3 “C”s of teamwork! During the bonding process, a process in which employees become more endured to one another, talents and strengths that an individual possesses can more fully be exposed. Rarely does the workplace with its more routine responsibilities allow the full scope of an individuals talents and skills to be displayed.

In order to have the reasonable expectation that employees will work together, and work together effectively, organizations must do things that bring employees together. On-going organizational efforts might include volunteering for a humanitarian effort (helping flood victims, the homeless, etc). Another alternative might be company sponsored activities centered on events such as attending a baseball game (or creating a sports team), picnics, recognition events, etc. Still another alternative is to seek the assistance of a professional team building organization. Just as your organization focuses each day to provide the best product or service to your customers and clients, there are team building organizations – employee development companies – that spend countless days a year providing team building assistance to their clients. The benefit to you is obvious, in the process of conducting such training and development, they become even more expert towards the end of creating the most efficient and effective team that your team can field.

It has been several years since a client made the following statement about soft skill training – “soft skill training is near impossible to measure, however, we know this, our competitors are using it and if we choose to compete with them, we had better do the same!”

About the author: Charlie Selcer has provided organizations with employee training and development through Strictly Success Inc. for over 10 years. Strictly Success is a U.S. based employee training company for both the public and private sectors including some of America’s Fortune 1000 companies. Strictly Success specializes in high performance teams and teambuilding, employee motivation, employee accountability and change management. Interactive training includes events, workshops and keynotes ranging in duration from 1 hour to 2 days.

Something You Should Know About Managing Change

Strictly Success — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:30:41 +0000

Change is rarely easy to accept

WHAT IS AT ISSUE? Why must change management be addressed? Why is change generally the source of disruption? It’s important to understand the problem before solutions can be applied.

Change is rarely easy to accept. It doesn’t always occur as a positive stroke favoring any one individual. For those times we are positively effected, there are other times that did not smile on us so graciously. It is these latter times, and more specifically the feelings associated with the negative effects of change that has created an entire cottage industry oriented around managing change.

The essence of why change can create such disruption in an organization is its’ association with “the unknown”. It is the unknown that can generate feelings of fear, stress, anxiety and miscommunication. Ultimately, these symptoms experienced by an employee can result in mistrust of management, loss of production, loss of profits and eventually loss of jobs.

Except for a small segment of our population, the unknown is not a condition in which we welcome. The unknown includes such issues as “how it will affect me?”, “what will it require of me?”, “will there be a benefit to me or can I expect to be negatively impacted…again?” and, of course, “what is it I’m not being told?”.

Each of these feelings can generate fear. The fear is generally a private and closely held fear which lurks around the corner and goes home with us in the evenings. This fear also raises the questions, “is my job on the line?” “what will happen if I loose my job?” “will my compensation be effected?” “will I be asked to change responsibilities? “my hours?”, ” will I be required to relocate?”

Therefore, in the absence of knowledge, our imagination begins to take over our common sense, and, for most of us, our imagination is far more effective at coming up with reasons for fear to exist.

CHANGE CAN BE MANAGED

There is a believe that to cope with change, an organization must complete some form of intense long-term program. The reality, however, is that there are very simple processes that can be used to successfully support change. It begins with recognizing that change causes discomfort and concludes with addressing these causes. Oversimplified? Not really, learning to address change is not as difficult as many would have you believe.

As to organizational change, the premise is that a company will do what it must to survive and thrive; this by nature will require occasional change in the way an organization operates. The organization’s responsibility should be to assist the employee by providing strong leadership, clear direction, and the coaching assistance to become more self managing as an employee.

Employees should commit to taking initiative to support the goals of the company. In the process of supporting the company’s goals, the employee becomes more valuable to the organization. The personal initiative required to support the company’s goals can also lead the employee to become more self-sufficient thus allowing the employee to thrive both professionally and personally.

The long term benefit is apparent, the results are a highly motivated and productive environment.