When is John going to get me that report?”
“What is going on with the marketing report? When are they going to finish that thing?”
“I can’t believe Mary is so late in making those phone calls.”
“Okay…who dropped the ball this time?”
“Hey…that’s not MY job.”
Does this sound familiar? If so, your small business team may be faced with a big challenge with accountability, which results in finger pointing, frustration and broken trust…both with your employees and your customers. Personal responsibility and accountability can put an end to the blame game, saving your business thousands if not millions of dollars by increasing productivity and overall job satisfaction, which results in very satisfied customers. These five basic approaches can support you in increasing accountability, which are simple, yet they require actually building a culture of accountability for your business.

1. Communicate the big picture – Accountability stands a better chance of succeeding if everyone in your business embraces a larger responsibility for the success of the entire company. Spend time talking individually with team members about how his or her project affects the vision and mission of the business. With this communication, people can make wiser decisions from the context of the “big picture” rather than from the perspective of what may seem to be a detailed and boring task.

2. State clear expectations – If one person on your team does not meet your expectations, the entire team can fail. It is important from the very beginning of any new project to state the expectations clearly and repeat them over and over again until your team really “gets it.” These expectations need to be crystal clear, including dates, who is responsible for what, the details of the task and how you want the finished product delivered. If your expectations are fuzzy or confusing in any way, your team can break down, and the fine and very important details can fall through the cracks.

3. Accountability work groups – One of the best ways to achieve accountability is to develop shared accountability among team members. Accountability within the team can be accomplished by what Morris R. Shechtman calls “accountability groups,” groups which give team members the permission to speak and listen in a way which is frank and open. This accountability group can include 2-5 people and can then serve as a small unit of people working together to confide in with struggles, weaknesses and insecurities. They can then find creative strategies to work together in the direction of the growth the team intends to achieve.

4. Move to action – In order for accountability to work, people have to know that failure of completion will come with certain consequences, including written warnings, loss of a bonus or extra hours served on a week-end to complete the project on the table. Without consequences, your employees won’t take you seriously. They will think that they can use blame, justification and rationalization as a way to deviate from being responsible, because you have not followed through on what you said you will do if the tasks are not achieved.

5. Reward and recognition program – Employees need to know in a tangible way their efforts are indeed driving the company forward, and it is important for them to share in the fruits of their hard work. The offer of increased pay and benefits (vacations, time off and other perks) can keep accountability and morale high and can motivate employees to continue to strive for high levels of performance.

1) Women who want to move up must take professional risks before they feel ready for them. The day when you can say “Now I feel ready” is usually too late – others have claimed the opportunity you wanted. Get in the habit of asking yourself, “What do I need to be comfortable enough to do this?” Perhaps the answer is a mentor, an advisory council, family support, or training.

2) Use emotional intelligence to read people and situations, but don’t use emotions to make a case for something. When building your argument or making a case, keep things fact based ― not innuendo or hearsay based ― using phrases like “The data shows…” and “The facts are…,” rather than “I feel…”

3) Those women that make it to the top continually ask for what they want at work, rather than waiting to be noticed, rewarded, or promoted. They’re not afraid their requests will inconvenience someone or that they will look pushy for asking. When making requests, figure out where you have leverage ― the value you bring to your employer and the extent to which you’re relied upon for your skills.

4) Don’t be naïve about the extent to which politics govern the workplace. Find ways to proactively learn the culture and political climate of your organization, learning how people like to be communicated with, and how and when people have launched initiatives that have been successful. Solicit information from several parties as you accumulate information, never just one. Play in the politics or perish!

When I was writing my book, Self-Promotion for Introverts®, Warren Buffett shared with me that he was terrified of public speaking as a young man. He said that he “got physically ill even thinking about speaking.” So he took a Dale Carnegie class where he joined 30 people who had trouble saying their names. Isn’t it comforting to learn that even Buffett, who now speaks eloquently off the cuff about everything from investing to the price of ethanol, has his own turnaround story as a public speaker?

Does the thought of giving a speech feel scarier than death to you? If so, you’re not alone—that fear is widespread among introverts and extroverts alike. However, since you die only once but you can give many presentations in your lifetime, why not make public speaking not only less frightful but actually enjoyable?

Public speaking is just a skill that anyone can learn, and it doesn’t typically take long to do so. If you’re an introvert, you’re probably more comfortable deep in thought behind the scenes than pontificating in front of a crowd under the spotlight. However, the beauty of public speaking for introverts is that it’s a highly efficient use of your limited social energy. When you get up in front of an audience, you can reach many people at once rather than having to ramp yourself up for meeting after meeting.

Whether or not you’re an introvert, if you’re afraid of public speaking, I recommend getting the support that you need to help manage your fear and to build your oratorical skills. Consider taking a workshop, hiring a coach, and/or joining Toastmasters International. Meanwhile, here are a few tips to help make your next speech easier, particularly if you’re an introvert.

1. If you typically find one-on-one interactions not so intimidating, consider relating to your presentation as a one-on-one interaction with each of the individuals in your audience (rather than as a scary blob of humanity!).
2. Remember why you’re there and what your audience will gain by hearing you speak. Focus on that rather than how they might judge you.
3. It’s particularly important for introverts to arrive well rested and to leave sufficient time between social interactions.
4. Prepare a few key points that target your audience’s interests.
5. Getting started is often the hardest part. So memorize your opening line. Use a quote, a statistic, a piece of news, or something else that your audience will find compelling.
6. Practice out loud, ask someone to videotape you, and then see what you do well and what you need to improve on.
7. Prepare something to do if you get thrown off, lose your place, or get a case of the shakes. My favorite technique is to focus on breathing.
8. Have a punchy closing line ready.

Check out her new book on www.amazon.com

Nancy Ancowitz, Self-Promotion for Introverts®: The Quiet Guide to Getting Ahead, McGraw-Hill, 2009.

On a hot, humid evening in Alexandria, the dinner party rises from the table.  Egypt in those days was a magnet for royalty in exile. On this particular evening, King Zog, the last ruler of Albania, is hosting dinner for Egypt’s ruler King Farouk, the Queen of Bulgaria and several members of the Italian royal family in exile.

King Zog is married to my cousin, Hungarian-born Queen Geraldine, hence my attendance. At six I am fully prepped for the guests and keep my mouth shut. That is fine, however, since Zog, a thoughtful man, joined me in the palace gardens several hours earlier to chitchat. He asked about the ups and downs of my life in Cairo and injected some gentle humor. A calm and kind man, he made people of all ages feel special.

King Zog

Tonight the guests are departing early knowing that Farouk is eager to play cards with Zog.  During the summer months, Farouk arrives unannounced at least once a week to gamble.  Zog adapts to these visits with grace knowing he is under the protection of the Egyptian monarchy.

I start moving towards the door with my parents to head up to our room.  All of sudden Farouk turns to me smiling and says “the little one will sit next to me and bring me luck.” While there are less attractive sides to the king, he is kind to children and has a sense of humor, so I join him willingly. For the first hour, I watch him play and we grin at each other as he rakes in the coins. Then I stretch out over his ample lap and fall asleep. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, he gently shakes me. “We have done well, ma petite,” he whispers in French, “now you will share my earnings.”  I hold up my white pinafore and he fills it with mountains of bills and coins — the equivalent of several thousand pounds (1 pound in those days was worth about US $5). I thank him and head out trying to keep the dozens of menservants standing in the hallway from dipping their hands into my bounty.  Upstairs, my parents stare at the pile in shocked amazement. The funds will keep us afloat for a number of months!!  As Hungarian refugees who arrived several years earlier, life in exile is interesting but not always easy. More details will follow in future blogposts.

LESSON LEARNED:  It’s not who you know, but how you get to know the person that produces dramatic results — especially if you are six years old and you fall asleep on the King’s lap.

By Guest Blogger: Annabelle Reitman, Ed,D, Career Management Consultant and Author of Talent Retention,” (ASTD Press, 2007), 

It is imperative in today’s competitive job market to know YOU – that is your professional savvy. By knowing what you have to offer and then marketing and branding yourself as the person with that information, allows you to stand out from your competition. How well you promote yourself depends on your ability to write your powerful story via your résumé.

A résumé’s overall purpose is to serve as your marketing tool.  It is your advertising piece (think “company fact sheet”), designed to attract a pre-determined targeted audience.  You need to remember, you are the product being sold and this is your marketing and advertising material!  What is the buyer looking for?  How can I showcase myself to match and fulfill the organization’s needs?  A résumé’s primary marketing objectives are to present you in a powerful, targeted, and concise manner in order to:

• Grab a reviewer’s attention quickly and to sustain the interest in you.
• Demonstrate that you have the experience and background they need.
• Show in an easy to read manner how and why you can be an asset to an employer.
• Create a professional image that evokes a “wow” reaction from the recruiter. 
• Enable you to make the first cut and be contacted for a first level interview.
• Guide an interview, keeping it focused, on your expertise, successes, strengths, and the data supporting your case for being hired.

In the job search process, a résumé is your initial contact.  Be consistent with your professional branding; recruiters are look for the most proactive and powerful results-producers.  You want to be noticed and have that interest sustained through several reviews of the pile of résumés.  Develop a unique professional niche – everyone’s experience and background is different – this is your individualized combination of assets and savvy – that is distinctive and coherent.  Create a demand for your professional brand. 

A targeted résumé positions you in a specific way so that your information, your image will be relevant and grab the reader’s attention. Ask yourself the following questions posed by Arruda and Dixson (Career Distinction, Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2007).

Is my résumé -

• Up-to-date?
• Compelling?
• Written in my unique voice?
• Does it communicate my brand message?
• Would others in my field be unable to use it?

If you can “yes” to these questions, your resume is branded and ready to promote and market you for your next career opportunity. .Annabelle also co-authored, Career Moves: Take Charge of Your Training Career Now! (ASTD Press 2006, 2nd edition), and High-Level Resumes: High-Powered Tactics for High-Earning Professionals .

Guest Blogger: Andrea Kay, Author of “Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 steps to get out of our funk and on to your future” andrea@andreakay.com

There’s never going to be a convenient time to change your career. If you’re waiting until you have no obligations, the economy is right or the moon and stars are perfectly aligned, you may as well forget it. Stop listening to the negative collective, which is saying: “This is not a good time to change careers.” Why would it be the wrong moment to change your direction? A time when thousands of jobs–maybe yours–has been lost and are never coming back. Why would this be a dismal time to search your soul for work that’s more fitting to who you are, where the world is headed and where you can be more employable?

Why, when you may not have even liked what you did all these years, would this be a deplorable time to listen to that restless gnawing in the pit of your gut that’s been nudging you to change? To take stock of what you’d like to have more of in your work.  Things like challenge, more meaning or more of a life.

This moment might be the perfect juncture for a career change. You’ll never know if you don’t ask yourself some practical questions like: What might a career change cost you in terms of time, money and relationships? Once you answer that, then you can decide if you’re willing to do what it takes and whether it’s a good time for a career change.

No one can guarantee how successful you’ll be. You may make less money than before. But it’s possible you’ll make more. You may get rejected 100 times before someone wants to hire you. Then again, one “yes” could change your life for the better.

If I sound impatient, I am. And you should be impatient with yourself too. Because I know you want more out of your life, and you have the ability to go after it. When it comes to making a career change, now is as good a time as any. And possibly better.

Article by Guest Blogger Jeannette Paladino, Writer-in-Chief, Write Speak Sell. jpaladino@writespeaksell.com.

During this economic slump, companies are looking at the most cost effective ways to get out the word about their products and services. They are struggling to control their brand essence and key messages, as the Internet becomes the most important source of information for many consumers. But companies are overlooking their most important communications channel to the outside world – their own employees.

It is employees who are most often the primary interface between the company and its customers. New technologies are transforming the way companies do business. But employees are underutilized as brand advocates. They are not being motivated to rally around the company’s mission and goals. It’s not an overstatement to say that business transformation will only be accomplished by gaining the commitment of employees at all levels to drive growth and performance. The key to ensuring success is consistency of communications to the right people at the right time with the right messages.

But the media is an increasingly intrusive “partner” as reporters pounce on every bad piece of company news – often coming from the mouths of unhappy employees who are left out of the loop about important new company developments. Online chat rooms sponsored by Yahoo and Vault and networking sites like Twitter and Facebook provide public platforms for employees to vent their grievances and the media and customers are tuning in.

So a word of advice to companies about using your employees as your most ardent champions to help drive growth during these tough times:

· Keep up a constant stream of information to employees so they are up to date on everything going on in the company and can funnel important information to customers

· Make sure they hear what’s new before they read about it in online media

· Encourage employees to use social media like Twitter and Facebook to promote the company

· Trust your employees to do the right thing – you are all in this together

Employees want their company to succeed. It’s in their best interests and they want to feel like they are part of the solution and not the problem.

Known as the Queen of Torts, she has been named as the leading product-liability lawyer in the world for 3 years by the industry’s top trade publication. Translated, this means she settles high-end class-action lawsuits. Her challenge is to be creative and avoid long drawn out battles and litigations. Several years ago, I interviewed her for my book Women & The Leadership Q. This is a short summary of the interview.

The path began in the South Bronx of New York where she grew up the oldest of three. Money was tight; but it was a loving, extended family. Her parents ran a grocery store and worked long hours. Birnbaum was the first in her family to go to College. Though she always wanted to be a lawyer, at everyone’s insistence, she took a job as a fourth grade teacher so as to “not be more educated than her husband,” she recalls with a grin. Two years later, a not-so-happy teacher went ahead and enrolled in NYU law school. The marriage did fall apart, but a childhood dream was about to come true.

Of course it was still the dark ages for women lawyers. She became of counsel to Skadden, while remaining full professor and later associate dean at NYU, later leaving academia to join Skadden as a full time partner. Today she is co-head of the complex mass tort and insurance group. They represent major corporations in complex litigations and class action suits.

Like other Color Q Reds”, Birnbaum describes her leadership style as collaborative. It is leadership by example, by working with people to achieve a common goal. “Even in negotiations, when dealing with an adversary,” she says, “we try to bring people into the fold so they have a stake in the outcome. I don’t believe,” she continues, “you can lead by dictating and coming down on people.”

Activities she finds most energizing are twofold: getting new business, and strategizing on how to resolve the crisis in major litigation suits. “Usually it is all-consuming,” she says with relish. “You are dealing with government investigations, lawsuits in the courts, media issues and you have to respond on many fronts and often at the same time. It is around-the-clock crisis management.”

Others see her as a super rainmaker. Rainmakers are defined as those who bring in a lot of new business for their firm. “She gets to the heart of key issues and senses the right time to settle better than anyone I know,” says a former adversary with open respect. Like many Reds, Birnbaum embraces risk and needs excitement. “The worst thing that can happen,” she says, “ is that the telephone doesn’t ring all day. The more that is going on, the calmer I am,” she adds, “and the more I handle.” She finds long term goals of less importance.” I never had a five or ten or fifteen year plan,” she says. “I am ready for change all the time. I came to Skadden because I met someone at a cocktail party.” She continues, “we never had a plan for the product liability practice, we just started it, it kept growing and now it is the biggest group of its kind in the country.”

Also like Reds, she finds high stress situations energizing. Dealing with details, however, is boring. “I hate reading agreements over and over again,” she says, “or dealing with the nitty-gritty of the factual development of the case. I prefer to let someone else dig up the facts, and I come up with the solution. I enjoy enormously,” she continues, “going to court, making an argument before a judge or appellate panel, and negotiating.”

For Birnbaum, work is highly satisfying. “When you are considered a top player, you converse with top players. And people in your field recognize that. Power is walking into a room and getting instant respect. Power is the ability to make things happen.”

She describes her leadership strengths as first of all being highly organized.  “I find the most direct and quickest route to accomplish things.  “I just look at someone doing something and immediately think of how it could be done more efficiently.  Secondly,” she continues, “I am a good delegator.  I look at my staff, figure out their strengths and weaknesses, and then pick projects that will challenge those strengths.”

And what do others say about her?  “They perceive me as very hard-driving, aggressive, demanding, practical and grounded.  They say I get things done.”  She personally attributes much of her success to perseverance and stubbornness.  Also,” she adds, “I pick my battles very carefully, and when I approach them, I try do so in the least confrontational way.”  Of course every style has its blind spots and she readily admits to hers.  “Sometimes, I make decisions too quickly or I  get caught up in the pure logic of the situation and forget to consider how others will react.”

Like others of her personality group, Sotomayor’s comments reflect an emphasis on planning, prioritizing and setting clear, measurable goals. 

 Today her goals are geared to personal development.  “I have achieved my lifelong dream 20 years early,” she says, “now I need to improve my physical and emotional well being.”  She plans to travel once a year, exercise every day and spend more time with friends and family.  “Personal as opposed to professional development,” she says ruefully, “may prove the biggest challenge of all.”