Self Help For Women: Angela Deitch
Test Your Emotional Smarts — Linda Hausdorff
Melding Multimedia Elements: Tracy Budge
Fine Tuning The Corporate Babel: Mel Silberman
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Kathleen McGinn Spring and Bart Jackson were
prepared for the March 12, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All
rights reserved.
Are You Ready To Be an Entrepreneur? Penni Nafus
When her children were young, Penni Nafus and
her husband looked at their finances and decided there was no way
they could save enough to send them to college. Both were working.
She ran a secretarial business out of her home and he was a
refrigeration
engineer working at the Essex Hunt Club in Peapack. The solution,
they decided, was a business they could run together.
“Just about that time,” Nafus recounts, “he was driving
a machine, and the engine blew up.” The machine was a Zamboni,
the ice rink fixture that kids love to watch as it smooths out ice
between skating sessions. He called the company’s California
headquarters
looking for parts, got to talking, and was offered a distributorship.
The couple had found its business. Nafus’ husband remained on the
job while she opened up a distributorship “in an unheated
garage.”
Moving from parts to service to sales, the company grew and prospered.
“Our exit strategy,” says Nafus, “was to sell the company
when our last child graduated from college.” On Jim Nafus Jr.’s
graduation day, they signed the papers, although her husband remains
on as a consultant.
Nafus, no longer an entrepreneur, not strictly speaking, is director
of the Women’s Business Center of the New Jersey Association of Women
Business Owners (NJAWBO). Among her tasks, more numerous since state
budget cuts took effect, is leading “Are You an Entrepreneur”
workshops. One of the workshops takes place on Thursday, March 13,
at 6 p.m. at the Merrill Lynch Conference Center. There is no charge.
Call 609-924-7975.
The workshop lays out the basics of business ownership, including
planning, budgeting, marketing, financing, business structure, and
insurance. “It’s definitely an overview of the things you have
to think about,” says Nafus. In addition to tangibles like the
need for adequate liability insurance, the workshop asks participants
to think about the softer requirements for business success. There
is a personality test, because starting up a business is not for every
personality type.
“Entrepreneurs are mavericks,” says Nafus. In her opinion,
a person who fits in perfectly “over there at Merrill Lynch”
could be very unhappy out on her own.
Out on their own, however, is where more and more women are finding
themselves.
“We’ve seen a change, an evolution,” says Nafus. “Two
years back a lot of downsized women were coming out with a package
and experience. Their attitude was `I’m going to start a business.
I’m not going to be downsized any more!’” Now, however, the women
she is seeing are embarking on business ownership without benefit
of a severance package. Many don’t have deep experience in business,
either. “It’s not middle management now,” she observes.
“We’re
getting to the workers. Companies are closing up. Everybody’s
going.”
The Women’s Business Center is fielding requests for information and
for help from “panicky” women. “Their unemployment is
running out,” says Nafus. While the new female business owners,
circa 2001, might have been using cash, contacts, and experience to
launch a substantial business, many women Nafus sees are now starting
service businesses on a shoestring.
This is one heck of a time to be breaking into a depressed and
uncertain
economy, but Nafus says the entrepreneurial drive will out. There
are successes — even highly improbable successes. Nafus speaks
proudly, for instance, of Jeannette Williams. A single mother
of three children, Williams had no assets, no access to credit, and
no backers. A mother at 15, Williams earned an associates degree and
landed a job in the insurance industry. But she wanted more. She took
NJAWBO courses, including Start Right, the follow-up to Are You an
Entrepreneur, and started a part-time business. She bought a mobile
food cart and, along with her children, sold snacks at weekend fairs.
Williams then signed on at the culinary arts program at Elijah’s
Promise,
a New Brunswick food kitchen. Through contacts she met there, she
opened an office building food kiosk. Looking for more income, she
decided to open a restaurant. “She talked it up to everyone,”
recounts Nafus. It was a hard sell. Funding a restaurant always is.
But Williams found a location opposite the court house, cobbled
together
financing from a number of sources, and recently opened the Food
Mosaic
restaurant in New Brunswick.
“She networked like crazy,” says Nafus. Williams also had
a little help from New Jersey’s Division on Women. It was only a small
grant — $4,000, but it enabled her to open the kiosk that gave
her a start. It would appear that the state got its money’s worth
from its investment in Williams, who hires welfare-to-work clients
to work in her restaurant. But, says Nafus, the seed grants are now
gone, victims of recent state budget cuts. Her Women’s Business Center
still gets federal funds, but badly misses the state money.
The cuts mean fewer instructors for center’s courses. Last year, it
gave 1,362 seminars throughout the state. This year there will be
fewer. Taking up some of the slack, Nafus is about to run her 51st
Are You an Entrepreneur? seminar.
For her, the answer is yes. “It’s in your bones,” she says.
Although she draws a paycheck now, Nafus has an entrepreneurial job.
“Nobody could set my schedule,” she says. She is all over
the state, creating and leading programs. She has to answer to a
board,
but has great latitude in her work. She says she learned about running
a business from her mother, a hairdresser, and passed on the
entrepreneurial
gene to her son.
“He’s a teacher,” says Nafus, “but he runs an Internet
business on the side.” Her son started RefCloset
when he was 16. The E-tailing site sells equipment to hockey referees.
“My daughter is the black sheep,” she jokes. “She doesn’t
own a business. She’s finishing up her Ph.D. in anthropology.”
Which goes to show, some people thrive on the life of a business
owner,
while others aspire to lifelong employment — or at least to a
job. Undecided about which road to take? Nafus offers this advice:
Think about timing. There are people who would be finebusiness owners, but not just now. It is important to realize thatbeing the boss does not come with a time clock. It comes with afull-timecommitment. Anyone unable to devote nearly every working hour to anew company may have a hard time growing it.Count your cash. Nafus says she has seen any number ofbusiness owners who, seven or eight months after opening, are makingsales, but are going under. “They say `business is good. I’mmakingmoney,’” she says. They a lease. They hired employees. But they’reout of money.Save until you have enough capital to go the distance, she says,pointingout that payment may only come many months after a sale. “Ifyou’reworking with the government, it’s 120 days,” she points out.Meanwhile,suppliers demand payment after 30 days.Shift the load. Nafus says she made every possible mistakein the early days as a business owner. The biggest, she believes,was “trying to do everything myself.” She finally realizedthat it did not make sense for her to do bookkeeping when she couldhire someone for $10 or $12 to do it for her. Eventually she hiredfive employees. But did they do as good a job as she had been doing?”Better!” she exclaims. “I did a 360 degree turnaround.I realized there were a few other smart people out there.”I didn’t settle for good enough,” she says. “I was moredemanding of the people who were working for me than I was of myself.I expected them to do the job better than I did.” She realizedthat she was hiring experts, while she had been trying to be expertat a number of tasks.Supervising employees, meeting a payroll, rounding up clients,getting clients to pay on time; none of it is easy. Yet, says Nafus,there is nothing like cashing those checks when they start to rollin. It’s one of the things that makes so many people take a chanceon opening a business. Says Nafus, “it’s like making vicepresidentat Merrill Lynch.”Top Of PageSelf Help For Women: Angela DeitchHow does one half of the world defend itself againstthe other half? For the employee, the womanly art of self-defenseincludes a hefty blanket of well-intentioned law, which has nailedloose tongues and eyes firmly to the desk, and made corporate defenseattorneys weigh in interaction between the sexes. Sexual harassmentlaws and internal policies governing on-the-job behavior have comeof age. But relations between fellow employees scarcely make up thetotal of all business interactions.When the business person steps beyond the protected confines of herown firm, she faces a fairly lawless land. “Self-DefenseStrategiesfor Women,” sponsored by NJAWBO, provides a look at how tosurvive.Taking place on Thursday, March 13, at 6 p.m. at Merrill Lynch’sHarrisonConference Center, the event features Angela Deitch, owner ofAngela Deitch Consulting in Ewing, and Corrine Lagermasini ofPhiladelphia-based Women’s Anti-Violence Education (WAVE). Cost: $35.Call 609-924-7975.”I think the most important thing women need to know,” saysDeitch, “is that they can not wait this out. The fact of genderharassment will not go away in their lifetime.” While society’sawareness is rising, so too are the number of gender harassment casesthat reach arbitration by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC). Last year, 35 percent of the EEOC’s 84,000 discriminationcases involved gender harassment against women. This is a 6 percentrise within the last decade.Since l995, Angela Deitch Consulting (www.angeladeitchconsulting.com)has labored to quell the gender conflict both directly and indirectlyby helping firms with harassment policies and with “softskills”such as management conflict.Born in Long Branch, Deitch attended the Sorbonne in Paris andDouglassCollege prior to earning a master’s degree in education masters fromRutgers University. Her client roster includes Princeton University,Johnson & Johnson, American Cyanamid, and the State of New Jersey.(See www.AngelaDeitchConsulting.org.)The business owner negotiating with suppliers or the sales rep outin the field will seldom find herself under EEOC protection. Anemployedindividual has an implied agreement with her employer that the EEOCupholds. In return for specified remuneration, the employee agreesto produce a stipulated amount of work in a pleasant, or at leasttolerably productive, atmosphere. You can’t lock an accountant ina dark closet and legally demand he meet his quota and you can’texpecta programmer to produce if half her work hours are spent fending offardent seduction attempts. On the other hand, the EEOC deems thatthe inter-business negotiator always has a choice. If you don’t likethe folks from another firm, you don’t have to deal with them.This leaves the independent business person where she has always been— out on her own, depending on her own wits. Deitch says the primedefense for any harassment or abuse, short of a physical attack, isto treat harassment like any other business challenge. After all,brushing aside the hoopla, that’s what it is. She suggests that womento be aware, prepare, and then calculate their options.Awareness. Outright insulting appellations or bluntrefusalto deal with you because you are female are obvious discriminations.Yet good business antenna will observe more subtle discrimination.How does your male client arrange the seating? Does your supplieruse a different tone of voice with you than he does with malecustomers?Does he talk down to you? Is he excessively complimentary?Certainly not all of the above behavior is harassment, or evennecessarilybased on your gender. But the perceptive negotiator who can discernsuch patterns and analyze the motivations behind them can gain adefiniteadvantage.Preparation. Count on it, insists Deitch, discriminationin some form will happen. So be forearmed. Probably the best weaponin gently putting aside discriminatory remarks or harassing movesis to pre-script your response. One of Deitch’s favorites has workedwonders. If the client calls you sweetie, try responding “Youknow, James, I really enjoy working with you, but it does rankle mea bit when you call me that, so I’d consider it a favor if youwouldn’tdo it anymore.” No fuss. Just one businessperson asking a simplecourtesy of another. Truly, James would have to be a lout to ignoresuch a simple request.A little in-company role-playing, notes Deitch, provides the bestmethod to develop such scripts. Have one of the gentlemen in yourfirm sit down, pat your hand and make a few borderline comments whileseveral of your co-workers watch. (While this can be fun, it shouldprobably not be done at Happy Hour.) Then develop several scriptedresponses and let your witnesses judge the effect before selectingone. This will also help you to become desensitized and to greet suchremarks with more confidence than fluster.Realize, too, that some offensive-sounding remarks may be meant asgenuine compliments. Deitch asks women to remember also that allsexistcomments arise from the same motivation. “Ask yourself,” sheadvises, “is this man acting as part of an older generation whennorms were different? Such understanding can counter problems.”Calculating options. Unfortunately, the most typical andleast effective reaction following a harassing remark is stunnedsilence,which heightens embarrassment on all sides. Deitch states that thewell-prepared business woman can shift to several more productiveoptions depending on the situation.Direct confrontation can be the answer, but it may be wise not tooverdo it. Police are trained to respond to an assault with only theminimum amount of force necessary to counter the attack. This minimumresponse rule applies to business as well. Foot-stomping outrage inresponse to a casual comment could inflict more harm on you than onyour insensitive client.The incredibly talented Mae West made millions for Hollywood studios,yet her raging at one producer “Ya damn Dutchman, why don’t yougo stick your finger in a dike,” and other such confrontationalcomments, kept her teetering on the edge of dismissal, despite herpopularity. Before you let a remark fly, be sure you are doing itto parry a problem, not to gain personal satisfaction.Withdrawal. Merely turning inward and saying nothing hasits place too. Says Deitch: “Not every comment requires aresponse.”A blandly dismissive remark works well too. Try a somewhat bored gazeand a “Yes..well,” and then move on to another subject.”Whatever option you select,” advises Deitch, “it mustbe chosen with political savvy. Literally, what is the financialliabilityof insisting that you be treated in a professional way?”America’s workforce is now nearly evenly divided. Half male, halffemale. The fantasy that one gender can run it all is not only wrong,but dangerous. As always, we need each other. For business to prosper,both Mars and Venus will have to learn a courtesy and respect thatgoes beyond the fear of legal penalty. “We need a pleasant andproductive workplace,” says Deitch. “The two are inseparable.”— Bart JacksonTop Of PageTest Your Emotional Smarts — Linda Hausdorff“Life is more stressful. There’s moreof it.” This assessment of the working life as experienced earlyin the new century comes from Linda Hausdorff, a woman who hasbeen working in the mental health field for three decades.Hausdorff speaks on “Reducing Workplace Stress” on Thursday,March 13, at 8 a.m. at a meeting of the Employers Association of NewJersey at the Hartman Lounge, Fairleigh Dickinson University. Cost:$75. Call 973-239-8600.A graduate of Beverly Hills High School and Yeshiva University (Classof 1970), Hausdorff, whose training is in social work, is withPerformixBehavioral Works, which operates three mental health centers. “Wedo training and assessments, and organization diagnosis,” shesays. In other words, the group works at identifying stressors inthe workplace and at helping employees adapt. Through theadministrationof EQ — emotional quotient — testing, the organization caneven identify individuals whose personalities make them a good matchfor the stress inherent in a particular job.”You don’t have emotional smarts, you’re going to fail at yourjob,” she states. While employers have long been interested inassessing intelligence, many are now coming to recognize thatemotionalstrengths can be just as important. The ability to handleconfrontationwith grace, to accept criticism, to establish boundaries, to juggleloyalty to direct reports and responsibility to upper management,all of these attributes — and so many more — are crucial tothe smooth functioning of a team.Today, though, even individuals with ideal emotional balance arefindingit hard to keep stress from bogging them down. A big reason, saysHausdorff, is downsizing coupled with the weak economy that is causingmuch of it. More needs to be done to please shareholders, yet thereare fewer people left to do it all.Add family pressures, terror warnings, and a winter that won’t quit,and the result can be the kind of overload that would stress thosewith EQs in the stratosphere. “There’s a constant onslaught,”observes Hausdorff.What to do? She says there’s nothing like gaining control. Take thereins by telling whoever is currently making demands that you willbe happy to oblige — just not right now. Offer to call back infive minutes, for example. This provides an opportunity to walk aroundand think of a response. “Give yourself breathing room,” shesuggests. Things are bound to get better. In the meantime, saysHausdorff,”there ought to be anti-depressants in the water.”Top Of PageMelding Multimedia Elements: Tracy BudgeLost in LaMancha, a new documentary, tells the storyof an attempt to film the story of Don Quixote in an unusually aridpart of Spain. Intended as a look at film maker Terry Gilliam at work,it quickly becomes a chronicle of disasters. Monsoon rain, hail, duststorms, the roar of F-16s flying maneuvers overhead, flash floods,and the star’s undiagnosed illness conspire to sink the $32 millionproject only 10 days into filming. In reviewing Lost in La Mancha,film writer Roger Ebert reminisces about the many factors that canderail a movie. He recalls, for example, waiting in the Ukraine with20,000 extras, all dressed as members of Napoleon’s Old Guard, asthe lens needed to film them made its torturous way through customs.Corporate multimedia projects rarely include such drama, but theirsuccess depends on the harmonious blending of just as many somewhatunpredictable factors. Maybe more. For while a marketing, training,or E-learning project involves myriad creative elements, it also callsfor substantial technical expertise in constantly evolving formats.In other words, any number of things can go wrong, causing everythingfrom cost overruns to boos in the boardroom.Tracy Budge, director of project management at Newton GravityShift in Pennington, has been “wrangling” multimedia projectsfor over five years. She says that corralling the elements of acomplicatedonline sales presentation or orientation film works best when allhands are in synch. She speaks on “Managing Web and MultimediaProjects” at a meeting of the Princeton Media CommunicationsAssociationon Wednesday, March 19, at 6:30 p.m. at the Sarnoff Corporation. Otherspeakers are Mark Feffer of Tramp Steamer Media and WendyCollins of Films for the Humanities and Sciences. Cost: $15. Call609-818-0025.After graduating from Rowan University (Class of 1995), Budge wentto work for Paramount in New York City as a researcher and then forSaban Entertainment, where she arranged for domestic distributionrights for the Power Rangers and for other superheroes. After twoyears in the big city, she was ready for new challenges in the ‘burbs.While she was in college she had worked for RAC Productions, a companythat became Gravity Shift and then merged with Newton Interactiveto become Newton Gravity Shift. Looking for information about thelay of the multimedia landscape in central New Jersey, she contactedowners Pete Sandford and Bob Christensen. She thought she would sitdown with them an informal chat, but soon realized that the meeting”was really an interview.”Starting out in video and film production for corporate clients, thecompany was evolving into an integrated communications and technologycompany and, though it did not yet have a project manager, its ownerssaw the need for one. “I was a good fit,” says Budge. It isher job to ride herd on projects from proposal through post mortemto ensure that the client’s vision is being translated into asuccessfulmultimedia production on time and within budget.An example of a corporate multimedia is a just-completed salestrainingproject. The client, a pharmaceutical company, needed a trainingprogramfor its sales force, and it needed it quickly. The company wasintroducinga new application for an existing product. “The first folks neededto be trained as soon as possible,” Budge recounts. To accomplishthis task, Newton broke up the instruction, delivering the first fewlessons as a browser-based CD ROM program and the last few as anonlineprogram. The entire project was then wrapped up into one comprehensiveCD for use by subsequent groups of salespeople.Like most E-learning projects, this one was flexible, allowing usersto go through lessons on the Internet or on CD ROM, a popular optionfor airport-bound salespeople. It was also typical in the cooperationand communication it required. Budge explains how the process works.Vision. Each project begins with a client’s need, perhapsto get the word out on a new product or to teach his employees howto cope in an emergency. A multimedia developer comes up with aproposalto meet this need.”Involve the team right from the start, beginning with theproposal,”says Budge. The creative and technical people on staff providevaluableinsight and can help refine the developer’s approach to a particularproject.Questions. After a need has been expressed, and as aproposalis being developed, both sides need to ask lots of questions. “Anystonewalling should be seen as a red flag,” says Budge. It isthe developer’s job to ask as many questions as it takes to clarifya client’s vision, budget, and timeline, and it is the developer’sjob to listen carefully to every client question.Questions begin at the start of a project, and should continue throughright to the end. No query should be stifled for fear that it willappear too basic. “Don’t be afraid of how a question will comeacross,” says Budge. It is the unasked question that can sinka project.Contact points. The developer needs to establish a pointperson for each project, and so does the client. There will be a lotof back and forth, and it needs to go through one person who has adeep knowledge of progress — and concerns — to date.Often, the client’s contact person is not the project’s sponsor. Forexample, Budge explains, a healthcare division of a pharmaceuticalmight have obtained internal funding for courseware. The point person,however, may be from the company’s information management department.While details of the courseware’s development will go through him,it is vital that the healthcare division is keep abreast of importantmilestones and is satisfied that the project is progressing accordingto its vision.Be realistic. To some degree, a multimedia projectinvolvestrade-offs. Perhaps new footage of a school’s campus for a recruitmentCD could be sacrificed to save money. Or maybe the footage is vital,but the voiceover by the actor with the famously rich baritone couldbe replaced by a voiceover reading from an assistant dean with acomfortinglypaternal tone.Number of web pages, complexity of script, slickness of interface,it all costs money. But few things, Budge stresses, cost more thanchange. A client who goes to a trade show when his project is almostfinished, falls in love with a new technology, and insists on itsinclusion, is going to blow his budget. Changes can be made, saysBudge, but not without cost.”I like to use a supermarket metaphor,” she says. Shelvespresent nearly unlimited choice. Shoppers choose what they need —and want — progress to the check-out. Those who stick with theirlists face no surprises at the cash register, but those who toss inunplanned purchases on the way to the front of the store have no suchassurances.Feedforward. “You have to anticipate what will happennext,” says Budge. She says she prefers “feedforward”to feedback. She likes to be constantly looking around the corner.While Gilliam, La Mancha’s director, might not have been able toanticipateuncharacteristic, rapidly changing weather conditions, research mighthave turned up the fighter jet maneuvers and the star’s healthproblems.Focus groups. “I’m a strong believer in focusgroups,”says Budge. She includes prototypes in her project schedules, andsays it is important of end-users to work with them. She has seencases where a question from a person trying to work through a programhas led to important refinements. A prototype, representingsubstantiallyless work than a full project, can reveal weaknesses at a stage wherethey are easily — and inexpensively — remedied.”Focus groups are getting a lot of buy-in from clients,” saysBudge. “They choose two or three people to be a part of theprocessat critical stages.”There are basic principles and practices used in developingthe look and feel of a program, but, she says, “you neverknow.”Terry Gilliam learned this lesson in a desert in Spain. Multimediadevelopers, and their clients, don’t want to confront it after monthsof work on a project.Top Of PageFine Tuning The Corporate Babel: Mel SilbermanToo much data — not enough truth. Too much talk— not enough said. Since the fall of Babel, people have strainedto communicate. Most of the time most of us come close, but just don’tquite get our ideas understood. Perhaps this is not because the restof the world are unlistening idiots, but rather because our ideastumble out too quickly after being cobbled together on the fly.Psychologist Mel Silberman, founder of Active Training, withoffices at 303 Sayre Drive, speaks on “Boosting InterpersonalIntelligence in Your Organization” on Wednesday, March 19, at8 a.m. at the Princeton Hyatt. Cost: $40. Call 609-883-6327. Themeetingis sponsored by the American Society for Training and Development(ASTD).”A good meeting ideally should run like a well-oiled machine,”says Silberman, “not like the rumbling of seven separate egosin one noisy tin can.” For over three decades, he has been helpingbusinesses to oil the cogs and get a smooth flow of ideas onto thebelt and into the final decision. Born in Orange, New Jersey,Silbermanearned his undergraduate degree from Brandeis and Ph.D. from theUniversityof Chicago.After running a private practice for many years, he founded thebusinessconsulting firm of Active Training in Philadelphia, and in l990, movedthe firm to Princeton. He has written several books with co-authorFreda Hansburg. They include People-Smart, Active Training,and 101 Ways to Make Your Meeting Active. In addition, Silberman hasfor 35 years maintained academic ties with Temple University as aprofessor in its program for Adult and Organizational Development.Silberman points out several very common sense concepts of conversingthat most of us seldom use. He also brings to light the many blundersso often hidden from a speaker, but so obvious to his audience.Keep on hammering. There’s at least one person in everymeeting who rides the same horse all through the discussion. Silbermanclaims it’s all right to ride one horse, just make sure you changesaddles. “If you are encountering reluctance,” he suggests,”shift gears and explore your listeners’ objections.” Findingand analyzing your team members’ concerns should help hone your ownidea. This is, after all, why teams are gathered. Additionally,understandingand addressing these individual objections will give your own ideasweight. The listeners will likely think, “well, he’s perceivingme and my ideas; I will at least consider to his.”Keep holding the floor. The renowned speaker andpoliticianSenator Hubert Humphrey was frequently criticized for talking andtalking until he had something to say. Silberman refers to this commonblunder as “talking to think” rather than thinking beforeyou talk. While talking out loud can prove a very effective way ofsolving a problem, it is also guaranteed to drive your co-workersunderground and banish your solution from their numbed thoughts.Basically, diatribes delivered in meetings fail. No matter how lyricalyour lofty verbiage, people need to be brought into your speech ifyou expect them to listen to it. Frequently this may involve nothingmore that brief and frequent checks with your audience, such as `Howdoes that sound to you so far?’ Then, of course, the hard part —you have to listen to their responses to that question, andincorporatethem in the next segment of your speech. “We need to use `welanguage’in our meetings,” notes Silberman, “and to present ideasthroughconversation. Unless teams dialogue, they die.”Ownership of ideas. Silberman has just hauled up fiveaudience members onstage during one of his talks. How many, he asks,are the possible number of relationships among these five people?Answer: 120. Every individual holds a unique relationship with eachother person in this group. Galileo was right. The universe does notrevolve around you. Silberman describes a team as a thicket ofintermeshinginteractions.Unfortunately, most people enter a group with an I-versus-themattitudeand see the meeting as a battlefield where their ideas must triumph.Silberman does not ask you to abandon your much-belabored brainchild,merely that you give up advertised credit for it. It is indeeddifficult,but cutting your idea loose and letting it join the flow of the team’soptions will not only get the job done more rapidly, but with a betterfeeling. Tangentially, for those members of the group who aretypicallypushed to the background, you can spark encouragement by recognizingtheir contribution and initially referring to it as “Sally’sidea.”One-on-one. Much of the Silberman’s advice on meetingsapplies just as well to person-to-person situations. When you needto instruct a co-worker, for example, Silberman suggests that youstop and plan your words in advance. Brain overload from adisorganizedpresentation is a common blunder. “Be brain-friendly in yourcommunications,”says Silberman. Initially, present an overview, and then break itdown into bullet-point details, each digestible as a single concept.Tell your listener at the start that this is how you will fill himin on this new item. Try something like “Let me give you the bigpicture and then break it down into details.”With individuals, as with a group, you must pause, and patiently waitfor questions or additional ideas. Again, the goal is a conversation,not a lecture. Value his time, value his thoughts.— Bart JacksonPrevious StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
