Kim Zoller and her co-writer Kerry Preston’s new book Enhancing Your Executive Edge: How to Develop the Skills to Lead and Succeed can help you put that promotion within your

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Kim Zoller and her co-writer Kerry Preston’s new book Enhancing Your Executive Edge: How to Develop the Skills to Lead and Succeed can help you put that promotion within your reach.

Click here to listen: Kim starts at the 2200 mark.

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“Interdependence” is the wave for the 21^st century. That is what Boundary Spanning is about and why it is definitely a skill that expands from leadership to individual members.  It is the tool and method to build global interdependencies, which is the mutual dependence between things and can define complex systems! In this context it is used as a complex network of relationships.

Most definitions state that Boundary Spanning is “the efforts by an organization to establish connections both within and outside the organization”.   It can also mean establishing and building “bridges” between different levels of employees, like executives and managers, or even between a company and its distributors. In other words there are no boundaries. It’s building your own personal information network from many different sources.  The main tool is in building strong relationships.

There are five boundaries to work across in and out of your own organization:

We’ve explored what it is and why we need to develop this skill of communication, finding common interests and similarities across boundaries. Now we need to investigate how we can put this into practice!

Considered these steps:

• Direction: a shared understanding of common goals and strategy
• Alignment: the combined coordination of resources and activities
• Commitment: a commitment to collective success
• Manage: the process and strategy of finding common or new ground

Keeping this in mind, think of your own boundaries. There may be intrinsic rules to break in order to use this new skill and tool. These can be biases, our need to protect, or sometimes exclude out of fear or frustration.  Building an awareness of roadblocks and managing them will help you ride the wave of the 21^st century!

Recommended “ Boundary Spanning Leadership by Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason”

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Go to: www.whatismyexecutiveedge.com.

More than ever before, our clients are including Executive Edge or Executive Presence in their competencies. In order to be promoted, it is a necessary competency. The problem is, how do you train for something you are having a hard time identifying, when you are not sure what the behaviors are that describe the competency? The thousands of people whom we work with every day and who sign up for our Executive Edge sessions want very specific outcomes. Where are you in your career? Do any of these outcomes match what you’re looking to achieve?

•  To get promoted
• To appear more as a leader
• To know how to build a road map and plan for more visibility
• To learn better presence
• To build a strategy to increase comfort in executive situations
• To build self-confidence

What we know for sure is that in today’s competitive world, you have to have Executive Edge if you want to get ahead in your career. Ultimately, the question is, why do some people get ahead while others do not?

After working with more than 100,000 people over the last 22 years and after studying the research, we’ve concluded that the answer is simple, yet not simple enough to overcome. There are two sides of the coin: one side constitutes technical and job skills, and the other is interpersonal skills. Both are important in the workplace, but once you have the competencies or the ability to learn them, your interpersonal skills become critical and are actually more important.

Adapted from Enhancing Your Executive Edge – How To Develop The Skills To Lead And Succeed

For over two decades, Kim Zoller and Kerry Preston have built successful, highly customized coaching training programs for Fortune 500 companies around the world.

Recognized experts in business protocol, branding, leadership development, and presentation and communication skills, as well as customer service and sales training,

They are the authors of Enhancing Your Executive Edge – How To Develop The Skills To Lead And Succeed, “You Did What?” The Biggest Mistakes Professionals Make and “You Said What?” The Biggest Communication Mistakes Professionals Make.

For more information, visit their website at id360inc.com. To take an Executive Edge assessment, please visit whatismyexecutiveedge.com.

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BY KIM ZOLLER AND KERRY PRESTON

When a group of ambitious workers come together, there are bound to be some ulterior motives and hidden agendas. Here’s how to deal.

If other people are affecting how we manage ourselves to the point where it is affecting our executive edge–that special quality few people possess but many companies seek–then we’d better learn to manage behaviors that are hard to deal with in our workplace.

It would be wonderful if everyone were nice to each other and had each other’s best interest at heart. But the reality is, many people are out for themselves. Sometimes it is a personality issue, and sometimes it is the way the corporate structure is set up.

What do we do with all this? It is a big issue in many companies today. But if your goal is to have executive edge and lead and succeed, you have to see the big picture and realize that a leader is only a leader when there are followers.

You have to be above all the petty behaviors. Although difficult, it is critical for your future to learn how to deal with these kinds of behaviors. All these behaviors come from ego. While some ego is important, having an inflated ego can hurt you.

Have you ever gone to a meeting and not had the same goal as the person leading the meeting? If you have not, you are an exception. Why is it that we sit in meetings all the time and know that we have a different goal but do not think that others have different goals when we are leading meetings?

Hidden agendas can kill an idea, and if we are not aware, these agendas come out of nowhere and we are not prepared to battle them.

Every person is motivated by something different. It is important to remember that when keeping your goal top of your mind. How do you find out what people’s hidden agendas are so that you can meet your objectives?

HAVE MINI-MEETINGS BEFORE THE MEETING

Your goal is to build relationships and engage so that people feel connected to you. When you have a connection with people, aren’t you less likely to do something behind their backs?

TIPS FOR AVOIDING HIDDEN AGENDAS

• Be aware that hidden agendas exist in almost all situations.
• Make an appointment with key influencers before group meetings.
• Find out what their agendas are. What does each person want as an outcome of the meeting? Ask each person.
• In the meeting make sure you address all the needs you heard.
• Listen.
• Ask good questions; delve deeper.
• Start with simple, easy-to-answer questions and then build the questions deeper.
• Do not put anyone on the spot with a direct and uncomfortable question.
• Check for facts and make sure you are not imagining a hidden agenda that does not really exist.
• Be aware of what people say and do if you think they may have a hidden agenda.
• Be aware if a person says one thing and then does another.

Excerpted from Enhancing Your Executive Edge: How to Develop the Skills to Lead and Succeed (McGraw Hill, June 2014) by Kim Zoller and Kerry Preston, partners at Image Dynamics.

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WHAT TO DO WHEN EVERYONE AT WORK IS OUT FOR THEMSELVES

When a group of ambitious workers come together, there are bound to be some ulterior motives and hidden agendas. Here’s how to deal.

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President of Image Dynamics and Co-Author of Enhancing Your Executive Edge: How to Develop the Skills to Lead and Succeed

Click here to listen.

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Managing Partner of Image Dynamics and Co-Author of Enhancing Your Executive Edge: How to Develop the Skills to Lead and Succeed

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It would be wonderful if everyone were nice to each other and had each other’s best interest at heart. But the reality is, many people are out for themselves. Sometimes it is a personality issue, and sometimes it is the way the corporate structure is set up.

What do we do with all this? It is a big issue in many companies today. But if your goal is to have Executive Edge and lead and succeed, you have to see the big picture and realize that a leader is only a leader when there are followers.

You have to be above all the petty behaviors. Although difficult, it is critical for your future to learn how to deal with these kinds ofbehaviors. All these behaviors come from ego. While some ego is important, having an inflated ego can hurt you.

If you do not have humility, as a leader it is something you must learn. Humility allows you to keep your ego in check and makes you think before you act. If you have humility, the chance of your having these personality stallers goes down considerably.

Tips for gaining humility

• Do not put other people down to make yourself look good.
• Raise your empathy level and always keep others’ feelings in mind — increase your emotional intelligence.
• You may say that there are plenty of leaders who exhibit these personality blockers, and, yes, there are. The ultimate question is, what type of leader are you?

Ask yourself:

• Do people work because of you or in spite of you?
• If you have people who work for you, will they go the extra mile for you?
• Will they stay late?
• Will others take on an extra project just because you asked them to?

If the answer is no, they are probably not working because of you and are working in spite of you to just pick up a paycheck. When people work because of you, they will go out of their way for you. You motivate them to go the extra mile.

Go through the personality stallers below and make sure that none of them are hurting you. On the flip side, learn how to deal with others who exhibit the behaviors described, as it will only help you be a better and more effective leader.

Posturing and extreme one-upmanship

Have you ever worked with people who are obsessed with competing and making themselves look good? This is the definition of posturing in a nutshell. The person is constantly asking, “Who is the better one? Who can run the race the fastest?” Keep in mind that posturing is more than being competitive with others; it is a high level of “oneupping” another person. Posturing comes from a need to win and be known for winning. It may come from insecurity or jealousy of others.

A client recently shared a great example of posturing and oneupmanship. He was presenting his region’s sales figures, and in the middle of speaking, his coworker relentlessly interrupted to compare and share his region’s results. The timing was not appropriate, and the stage did not belong to the coworker. This behavior does not bode well for building relationships, nor does it reflect well on the person one-upping.

Strategies for not posturing and for avoiding extreme one-upmanship

• Do not “one-up” people.
• Be collaborative.
• Listen — engagement does not mean having the best idea or best story to tell.
• Do not be the subject-matter expert on every topic.

Strategies for working with others who are posturing

• Do not try to one-up them — you will never win.
• Do not get off ended; it is their way of feeling important.
• Smile and say things like, “That’s great,” and keep the conversation going.

Sabotage

Unfortunately, there are people who will try to sabotage what we are doing to make themselves look and feel better. Sabotage is really a form of insecurity. There are so many clients who say, “I cannot seem to get my ideas known by anyone around me except my boss.” Or “My boss takes credit for everything I do.” Not giving or sharing credit is the behavior of a person who is sabotaging another person. The saboteur is trying to make the other person not look as smart as or as effective as he or she really is. What people don’t realize is that by making someone look good, we make ourselves look good.

• Are you excited for people when they are successful?
• Do you let others take credit for work they produce even when they are not in the room?

Strategies for not sabotaging

1. Give people credit for their work.
2. When someone else’s idea is chosen over yours, congratulate him or her.
3. Say nice things about other people and their work.
4. Realize that when you sabotage other people’s work, you will lose all respect from others.
5. Take comfort in the fact that people always find out who really did the work.

Strategies for working with saboteurs

1. Try to include others on e-mails so that they are aware of your work.
2. Do not speak badly about saboteurs. That will only hurt you—especially if they have any degree of influence.
3. Try to get included in meetings where the work will be discussed.
4. Speak up in meetings; do not fade into the background.
5. When the saboteur tells about the work that “he” had done during a meeting, use statements like, “Yes, and what I’d like to add was that when I was working on the project, I found . . .”
6. If appropriate, go to the saboteur and say, “I respect everything that you are doing. I would really like to be included in the reports so that others know what I am doing at the moment.”

Sarcasm

Some people think sarcasm is funny and do not realize how much it hurts other people’s feelings. There is always a hint of truth in sarcasm, which is what makes it hurtful. If you have something to say to someone, say it. Using sarcastic comments will only harm your edge and lessen respect others have for you. Keep in mind that sarcasm may be in your partially blind area. You may know that you use sarcasm, but you may not know the ramifications of it and what other people think and feel because of your sarcasm.

If you are not sure if you are sarcastic, here are some examples of sarcastic comments:

• Aren’t you justa ray of sunshine.
• Did you take your medication today?
• Do I look like a people person?
• Not the brightest crayon in the box.
• Don’t worry. I forgot your name, too!
• Nice perfume. Did you use the bottle?

Strategies for not using sarcasm

• When it involves trying to get a laugh at someone else’s expense, it is sarcasm — do not take part in it.
• If you have said something sarcastic, immediately apologize.
• When you have said something sarcastic to someone in front of other people, apologize publicly.
• Even if peopletell you that your sarcasm is not hurtful, do not believe them. Th ey are not sarcastic and do not want to hurt your feelings.
• Stop doing it and learn some real jokes if you are trying to be funny.

Strategies for working with sarcastic people

• Do not laugh when they make the joke; your laughter tells them it is all right to keep doing it.
• In private, say to them, “I know you may not realize it, but when you make those sarcastic jokes, they are hurtful. I know you would not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and so I wanted to let you know.”
• If you are comfortable, say to them, “That’s not really funny.”

During a seminar there was a participant who kept making jokes at the expense of other people. The first time he made a joke, the comment got a few laughs. After a few comments, people started to become uncomfortable. By the fifth comment, his colleagues were rolling their eyes. By the 10th, they were apologizing for his behavior.

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1.  Communicating Ideation

Communication is the basic building block of innovation. Properly sharing your ideas with colleagues will spark discussion, exchange thoughts, and provide a new perspective. This can lead to improved results. To further improve communication dynamics; encourage team members to work in small teams and open cube arrangements. Rather than working in individual spaces, open office plans can build indirect communication skills among colleagues.

2.   Building a Team

Select or encourage people who understand your vision and align with your culture. Teams that share common values help the organization run smoothly. Matching personalities and generational ideals help the mechanics of a functioning organization. When team members are able to connect on a personal level, they are more likely to connect on a professional level. Engage people who have passion for what they do. Add team members who will enhance your product or service. Their excitement will empower creative thinking.

3.   Breaking Down Barriers

Leadership/Management serves a number of daily roles when working with their team. There is a fine line between being a friend and being the boss. Upper management must be approachable and available to a certain degree to encourage outside the box thinking. Strong inter-office relationships across management levels enable organizations to function on a high and efficient level. Innovation can come from all company levels.

4.   Be willing to take a risk

More innovative concepts have been produced from failure than from success. By evaluating the mistakes of others, history can provide a blueprint for future innovation. Risk assessment is a multi-billion dollar industry. True innovation is a bi-product of creative thinking and execution. The risk lies in the execution. How could your business process be improved? Track your progress and evaluate whether or not your workflow became more efficient. You might just be recognized for installing new company protocol.

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