the elevator pitch

An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (say, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).
The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneurr pitching an idea to a venture capitalist to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitch to quickly weed out bad ideas.
It is said that many of the most important decisions made on the floor of the United States's Housee or Senatee are made "within the span of an elevator ride" as a staff aide whispers into a Congressman or Senator's ear while they head down to the floor to cast their vote.
A variety of other people, including entrepreneurs, project managers, salespeople, evangelists, job seekers, and speed daters commonly use elevator pitches to get their point across quickly.
An effective elevator pitch generally answers questions like...
What the product is
What it does for the buyer (e.g. the benefits)
Who we are

Source: Wikipedia

Some Key Characteristics of effective Leadership

Effective leaders have the ability to understand themselves and others, are great listeners strong communicators (both oral and written) get and keep people in action and develop a drive for achieving positive results consistently.

Why are Communications skills so important…..

The ability to communicate effectively is the most important skill you need to develop, whether you're giving speeches, pitching ideas to your boss, sending off an email, leaving a voice message or having a face to face discussion.
In a recent survey, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Business School among HR managers from companies with more than 50,000 employees, communication skills were cited as the single most important decisive factor in choosing managers. The survey points out that Communication skills, including written and oral presentations, as well as the ability to work with others, are the main factor contributing to success.
Employees in organizations spend more than 75% of their time in an interpersonal situation; therefore it is no surprise to find out that at the source of a large number of organizational problems we find poor communication.

As a consequence of that, employers are looking for more than a specific set of skills, they are looking at a candidate's flexibility, at their ability to change and to be trained for different roles. But, fundamentaly they are also looking for those who have strong communication and interpersonal ability .

Power Point .............

I have mixed feelings towards PowerPoint®. Used porperly, it can be a great presentation tool. Used wrongly (unfortunately its too often the case ) they are a unbroken stream of boring slide shows narrated by mediocre communicators.

Sex, Leadership And Rock N' Roll

"At last, a book that cuts through the jargon of leadership and personal development. It offers a real world source of inspiration and provocation in areas such as: creativity, innovation, relationships, motivation, leadership, high performance, learning and reinvention. The unique approach springs from the mix of leading edge concepts with the wisdom of the street in the form of rock music. This is served up in a quirky, challenging but intelligent way. Peter Cook has skillfully synthesized these diverse viewpoints using his background, both as a business academic, MBA graduate and tutor, strategy consultant and thought leader as well as a musician, writing and performing music, in rock bands. The book examines the issues using the analogy of "Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll" rather than the language of prophets, consultants and gurus. In this context, the letters MBA stand for "Management By Attitude." Let there be Rock n Roll Leadership!"

Source: Amazon

A shift in paradigm

In order to be successful in the future we need to change our attitude towards work in general and management practices in particular; instead of working harder we should focus on working smarter, and do this by:

• Increasing the speed of decision-making. Decisions need to be made faster, even if not always 100% right, we need to take our decisions embedded in a lot of uncertainty under a volatile environment.
• Much slimmer structure around organizations, much more entrepreneurship and initiative taken by individuals.
• Shift from “power and status” to “ownership and achievement.”
• Seek for new ways of compensation and reward, with more participation in the risk of Profit & Loss with ALL levels of employees involved in the business structure, enhancing the opportunity of bigger pay-offs.
• Start to shift the term employee to business partner.
• Foster higher level of creativity and innovation among all key stakeholders and extended it to all parts of the company.

The Future of Management

:For me, management innovation is about innovation in management principles and processes that ultimately change the actual practice of what managers do, and how they get it done. That’s different to operational innovation, which is really talking about how the actual work of transforming inputs into outputs, gets done. "

Gary Hamel

InnoExecution

Is a leadership philosophy developed from the result of a study focused on Corporate Leadership and goal achievement of enterprises. The study aimed to find out the reasons and solutions of the following problems common to most organizations under a competitive environment:
Most of the enterprises cannot meet its goals effectively? Why?
What is the most important factors affecting its performance?
What is the most important capability of an enterprise?
To answer these questions, extensive research has been conducted by Mr. Ka-Keung Chan on a large number of corporations and organizations in the following status:
Successful organizations
Growing corporations
Falling organizations
The study extended to historical events, fall and raise of nations, important battles and the leadership of their generals.
The result: Successful corporate leadership relies on the art of identifying the driving forces of an enterprise, and the balance of them
The most important factors that affect the value and existence of an enterprise is:
1. Innovation power - create new product or services for the client
2. Execution power – realize what is innovated
Innovation power is the ability to create new product to meet the changing needs of the market. Executive power is the ability to deliver the new product to the market effectively.

Source: Wikipedia

Power Map

“Sometimes at IMD we use a questionnaire called the Power Map to help participants identify their own culture (i.e. values they cherish, leading to certain behaviors), to identify other executives' profiles and discuss consequences on communication and leadership in a team.
To simplify, the four main types of profiles that our survey identified are:
People who like to 'control things' and introduce processes, develop more the 'now';
People who are more concerned with people, develop more the impact on people;
People who are more concerned with getting things done, start with key actions;
People who are more concerned with ideas, frame proposals in concepts. “

Jacques Horovitz is Professor of Service Strategy, Service Marketing & Service Management at IMD, one of the world's leading business schools.

Quotes#16

There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential."
-Rusty Berkus

Big Think Strategy

Bernd H. Schmitt argues that Business leaders need bold strategies to stay relevant and win. In "Big Think Strategy," the author explains ( based on some corporate examples) how one can bring bold thinking into current business by sourcing big ideas and executing them creatively.
According to Schmitt any leader can overcome institutionalized "small think"--the inertia, the narrow-mindedness, and the aversion to risk that block true innovation. A great Book from the Harvard Business School Press

Why is it that by presenting a new idea/challenge/project; people tend to see things from different perspectives? While some might search for the positive points in it looking at ( for example) new business opportunities , others will tend to search for roadblocks and for reasons not to go for it ? Is the glass half empty or half full? according to Wikipedia this is a common expression, used rhetorically to indicate that a particular situation could be a cause for optimism (half full), pessimism (half empty) or as a general litmus test simply determine if an individual is an optimist or a pessimist. The purpose of the question is to demonstrate that the situation may be seen in different ways depending on one's point of view and that there may be opportunity in the situation as well as trouble.

Quotes#15

A leader leads by example not by Force.

Sun Tzu

"I think it's very difficult to lead today when people are not really truly participating in the decision. You won't be able to attract and retain great people if they don't feel like they are part of the authorship of the strategy and the authorship of the really critical issues. If you don't give people an opportunity to really be engaged, they won't stay."
Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks

The Language of Business ...........Part 1

By negotiating with a Japanese counterpart some rules should be respected,… among others;… you should always be concerned that Your Japanese counterpart never looses his face; you can avoid this by, NOT; expressing sharp disagreement, embarrassing him, criticizing him in public or by showing disrespect. Causing loss of face can completely disrupt a promising business negotiation.Instead you should be committed to use polite forms of address and observing local customs and traditions, by acting like this you are effectively building a solid long-lasting Business relationship.If you make a mistake you may be able to save your face with a humble apology. And you can save the other party's face for example by allowing him a graceful exit from a difficult negotiating position.
Shouldn’t we also apply these rules as a universal rule in The Global Language of Business?
What do you think?

Let´s Brainstorm a bit of what is acknowledged as one of the most common Business killers: lack of focus.
With scarce resources to expend, heading to a specific, well-defined vision is critical for new companies. When entrepreneurs try to tackle too many problems or chase too many business opportunities at one time, they often end up with no trophy at All.
What do You think?

Assertiveness

A leader’s goal is to steer the direction of his or her company. By being assertive in delegating tasks to his subordinates without being too autocratic or threatening, assertive leaders will achieve high levels of confidence and respect among their followers.

According to Wikipedia, Assertiveness is a trait taught by many personal development experts and psychotherapists and the subject of many popular self-help books. It is linked to self-esteem and considered an important communication skill.
As a communication style and strategy, assertiveness is distinguished from aggression and passivity. How people deal with personal boundaries; their own and those of other people, helps to distinguish between these three concepts. Passive communicators do not defend their own personal boundaries and thus allow aggressive people to harm or otherwise unduly influence them. They are also typically not likely to risk trying to influence anyone else. Aggressive people do not respect the personal boundaries of others and thus are liable to harm others while trying to influence them. A person communicates assertively by not being afraid to speak his or her mind or trying to influence others, but doing so in a way that respects the personal boundaries of others. They are also willing to defend themselves against aggressive incursions.

By definition Assertive style of behavior is to express your own feelings in an honest and respectful way that does not insult people and to stand up for your rights while you know what you say is not the only valid truth. Being assertive is to one's benefit most of the time but it does not mean that one always gets what he/she wants. The result of being assertive is that 1) you feel good about yourself 2) other people know how to deal with you and there is nothing vague about dealing with you.
Assertiveness seems to be a key characteristic that describes a competent leader it can be also confused as overbearing or being pushy, but in general terms it is more clearly stated as the ability to pursue the path that seems the best for the organization/company.
What do You think ?

Charisma

Every Leader in the business world in his relentless quest to achieve significant success is obsessed with getting things done; effectively and efficiently. Those leaders want to be heard, seen, respected, and appreciated.
They are often willing to go more than the “usual” “extra mile” to reach the top of success. But often, in spite of all the efforts, success is still absent. Could the answer lie in the need to develop `Leadership Charisma’ ?
What do we exactly mean by Charisma ?
According to Wikipedia, The word charisma (from the Greek word χάρισμα (kharisma), "gift" or "divine favor," from kharizesthai, "to favor," from kharis, "favor": see also charism) refers to a rare trait found in certain human personalities usually including extreme charm and a 'magnetic' quality of personality and/or appearance along with innate and powerfully sophisticated personal communicability and persuasiveness. Though very difficult or even impossible to define accurately (due to a lack of widely accepted criteria in regard to the trait), charisma is often used to describe an (elusive, even undefinable) personality trait that often includes the seemingly 'supernatural' or uncanny ability to lead, charm, persuade, inspire, and/or influence people. It refers especially to a quality in certain people who easily draw the attention and admiration (or even hatred if the charisma is negative) of others due to a 'magnetic' quality of personality and/or appearance. Similar terms/phrases related to charisma include: grace, exuberance, equanimity, mystique, positive energy, joie de vivre, extreme charm, personal magnetism, personal appeal, "electricity," and allure, among many others. Usually many of these specific qualities must be present within a single individual for the person to be considered highly charismatic by the public and their peers.
Despite the strong emotions they so often induce in others, charismatic individuals generally project unusual calmness, confidence, assertiveness, dominance, authenticity, and focus, and almost always possess superb communication and/or oral skills. Although the etymology of the word ("divine gift") might suggest that charisma can't be acquired, and despite the persistent inability to accurately define or even fully understand the concept, it is believed that charisma can be taught and/or learned. Others disagree with this assertion and maintain that it is an inborn trait and that it cannot be learned, taught, or 'gained.'

The power of a solid vision…

The Spirit of St. Louis is the name of the airplane that Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic .In search of potential sponsors for that project Lindbergh was put in contact with the head of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, Harold Bixby. Meeting with Bixby, Lindbergh predicted great things for St. Louis if the city were to put its support behind such an historic flight. Painting a picture of St. Louis as an aviation hub, Lindbergh convinced Bixby to sponsor his flight. A budget of $15,000 was agreed upon.
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/