ecomZera Blog

1. Vision

One of the most important keys to getting great results from your team is the creation of a common vision for all the team members. This is essential to organizational success and team building. You should spend time as a team brainstorming the overall vision for the team- you should know where you want to go and what you are striving to create.

This is also a great time to celebrate the current successes of your company. Is your vision clearly defined? Do all of the team members have the same vision? When everyone shares your vision, you work better together and have better results.

2. Goals

The second key is to develop common goals for the team. You should ensure that your program and project goals are completely understood and that they are supported by all of the members of the team.

The members of the team should understand how their individual efforts are feeding the larger objectives. Do all of the team members know the role they are playing to support the larger goals of the team or organization? Does everyone know what the goals are?

3. Roles and Responsibilities

The third key is to know make sure that everyone knows what their roles and responsibilities are as a member of the team. When those roles are clear, they will help to support and achieve the common goals and vision.

Do the members of the team know what their roles are? What they are responsible for? Are there overlaps between the team members and departments?

4. Support

The fourth key is to make sure that there is adequate support from managers and supervisors. Make sure that they are following up with the staff members and finding out what they need.

They should also check to see how the efforts of team building can be enhanced. The managers are also going to be play a key role in making sure that the learning that is gained from team building is brought back into the office and used.

Are there any systems in place to make sure that members are retaining their learning?

5. Challenge

The fifth key is to make sure that the members of the team are challenged and engaged throughout the process of team building. Think about bringing in someone from the outside to make sure that your efforts are supported.

You should make sure that the team is challenged and that they don't get bored when they are working on the team building exercises.

In order to have the best results from your team, everyone has to be on the same page about goals and the vision. They have to know what is expected of them and what the role is that they all play in the company.

They should be kept challenged and know that they are going to have support from the managers and the other staff.

When you follow these five keys, you are going to find that your team is working more efficiently, and there aren't any questions about who does what in the company. Everyone knows what their goals are and how they should be achieved. Good team results are a team effort.

Source: ezinearticles

Every day things go wrong in the service world and we are faced with the challenge of turning service failures into service recoveries. But what does it really take to restore customer confidence and regain goodwill? I began to explore that question more than 10 years ago and since that time I have studied service failure and service recovery from every possible angle and I have benchmarked best-in-service companies throughout the world. My research has led to me uncovering a series of 7 simple, but remarkably effective strategies that will unequivocally position any organization to keep customers coming back after even the worst has happened. Each of the 7 strategies is scientifically proven and surprisingly easy to execute.

I present to you How to Completely Restore Customer Confidence After Things Go Wrong: The 7 Things You Must Do...

Becoming successful requires much more than just positive thinking or reading the right books. Success is a collection of habits, thought patterns and most importantly beliefs. Here are 7 ways in which you can accelerate your way to building thoughts, beliefs and habits that can support your success.

1. Take the time to journal

Journaling is a great tool not only for discovering your inner self but also for following up with your ideas. I first used this practice during my first year in university where all engineers were required to keep a log of the new things they learn and the ideas they get. I have since discovered that some of the greatest scientists (and even entrepreneurs) have used this idea of journaling their thoughts to accelerate their path to success. Here are some ways you can start:

• Keep a notepad by your desk at all times so you can jot down the cool business idea your read about.
• Set aside about 5 minutes every night before you go to bed to write down what you came up with that day.
• You can also use journaling for stress relief – simply write about the situation that’s bugging you.
• When you write about your goals every night and the steps you took towards them (however small) you become more in-touch or aware of your goals. This helps you come up with new ideas and creative ways to find opportunities.

2. When you read a book, don’t just read – take notes

Books are definitely an excellent source to find out what success takes but a lot of us can relate to getting an exciting idea in a book and then not acting on it.

Worse yet, when you attend personal development or motivational seminars it is easy to get motivated and feel driven while you are there but life kicks in and sucks the motivation out of you.

That is why I find taking notes so helpful, not only does it help you remember every good idea you were presented with, it can also be used later for a source of motivation and drive.

3. Do something new

Doing nothing is the greatest threat to success. Yet, so many of us spend way too much time worrying about the possible outcomes and trying to make up our mind. Success comes from trying a lot of things even if you fail at some.  Believe in yourself and do it, it is much better than sitting on your chair and agonizing.

I find women are better at the worrying too much and not doing anything game. In fact, I recently read a study that said women worry 2.5 times as much as men. Use this simple strategy to get rid of that worry:

• Just sit down and make a list of the absolutely worst things that could happen if you do the thing you’ve been thinking about.
• Make another list of the absolutely best things that could happen as a result of doing that particular task.
• Now, what does the in-between scenario look like?
• A lot of times you’ll feel very relieved after doing this exercise. You may realize your worst case scenario wasn’t as bad as you were making it.

4. Assemble a mastermind

Almost all successful people I’ve read about and met have a mastermind – a small group of individuals they can share their ideas with. The mastermind group is not just a cozy group of individuals who offer support, they are the individuals who point out the risks and sometimes take pleasure in disagreeing. Why is this so important? Simply put, it makes us look deeper and make our case stronger.

5. Seek out the toughies!

While most of us try to run away from difficult situations, people who have mastered the art of success seem to seek it. There is a lot to be gained by seeking out the tough situations. If you fail, you will be much closer to your goals.

6. Call up someone you admire and interview them

A lot of people are willing to share their success stories, so if you want to know how it’s done call up someone you admire and ask them.  It is also a good idea to network and try to tap into their network of contacts. You can also search for various meet up groups to see if you can contact these successful individuals. Another way to get in touch with them is to get involved in their favorite charities.

7. Cultivate Success Habits

As we discussed in the beginning of the article, success is a collection of habits. One of the fastest ways to reach your definition of success is to find what habits are needed to get to that definition. Some habits that work for almost all types of success are:

• A positive belief in your ability – developing your self confidence will take you a long way when discouraging things happen.
• Accept failure and take the lessons from it – I have found that failure is something that will show up, it’s just a matter of time. Most people give up when they sense failure but successful people love to look at failure as a stepping stone that takes them one step closer to their goals.
• Be passionate about your goals – I haven’t met a single successful person who does not believe in his/her goals. Passion is what gives you the drive and motivation needed to work late hours and to keep going when things go wrong.

  Source: positivityblog

When trying to grow it´s easy to stumble more than once and scratch your knees on your way to success, happiness, expansion of consciousness and all that good stuff.

There is certainly some pits to watch out for and here´s nine mistakes – in no particular order – that I´d say are very common.

I have certainly made a lot of them. More than once. " class="wp-smiley">

If you can, try be observant of your own behaviour and to learn from my mistakes. While we perhaps learn best from our own mistakes there is no reason for you to at least waste a little less time that I and so many others before me have done.

Now, let´s go.

1. Thinking you already know everything – This one is a big problem and can halt growth for a very long time. It´s the mindset that says: “I know how the world works. I don´t need that snake-oil salesman stuff to improve my life. They have nothing new to offer. Only desperate people need those books to get their life together. It´s just common sense.”

This attitude and close-mindedness will make it very difficult for you to grow. When you start reading about personal development from writers such as Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy or Wayne Dyer you quickly realise that their best advice is not that much common sense at all. In fact, it´s often the opposite to the more commonly accepted “truths” that many of us have heard through school, media and other people throughout our lives.

2. Being confused by the marketing hype – The mindset in the first example isn’t totally of the mark. There are snake-oil salesmen in every line of business. And since most successful personal development authors/speakers really knows how to communicate there is bound to be perhaps a more than average amount of the high-pressure sales stuff you can read about in books like Influence by Robert Cialdini. Stuff like offering a small free gift to the consumer, saying that there are only 500 copies of the product and that the offer will only be available for one week.

But even though some marketing techniques may seem overly optimistic or kinda aggressive doesn´t mean that the products are without value. Don´t confuse the sales techniques with the products.

I say, start with trusted names or products that have received great reviews. Do a bit of your own research via google and browse the reviews on amazon before you buy. See what other people think. If you´d like, take a look at this list of my favourite personal development products so far.

3. Not taking action – Thinking that reading a book or blog will automatically transform you and your life. But knowledge without action on your part is not that very transforming. And only you can change yourself. Others can only give a bit of advice, support and motivation. But in the end, you have to take the steps in real life.

Have a look at Don´t get stuck in reading for more thoughts on the common affliction of getting stuck in reading a whole lot of personal development books without putting much of the advice into action.

If you have problems taking action, it´s often due to fear. Try the first and the second suggestion in this article on overcoming fear. It helped me to get going.

4. Giving up – At the first or third failure thinking “It´s no meaning. I am who I am and that can´t change. I just have to get used to that thought.” Don´t give up. One or five or 20 failures ain´t that big of a deal in the long run. You have to fail to get good at something and to grow.

5. Worrying about/listening to what others think – You might fear that people will react in badly to your change.

And they might actually do that.

Perhaps they do not want you to change because then they fear drifting apart and losing you forever.

Or they might not want to see you improve as that will make them feel like they are standing still in life. Or give you unhelpful heap of negative thoughts on personal development and that it´s all just common sense, a waste of time and that in real life it doesn´t work like in the books.

If you get stuck here it´s probably because you need validation from others. Take a look at Why you should not compare yourself to others for some thoughts and practical tips for overcoming or at least reducing this very common problem.

6. Dabbling with it – Dabbling with your personal development and personal growth material on and off. Not committing to studying/action and developing it consistently as a part of your life.

Perhaps you feel it´s just too hard. Or just not worth it. And therefore not commit to it.

Is it hard? Yes, sometimes. But I find that growing is overall a lot more positive than negative. And I think that from an outsider´s perspective – as someone who hasn´t immersed his/herself yet - it often looks as if there is a lot more struggle, time and money invested than when you look at from the inside perspective. Hard work isn´t that hard when you feel you are growing and like what you are doing.

Is it worth it? Well, it’s certainly better than the alternative. Just running or drooning around day after day filled with anxiety, stress and a low sense of self expressed in all kinds of direct or indirect ways ain´t no fun.

Keys to success with anything in life are consistency and patience. Commit to your personal growth.

7. Having unreasonable expectations – This stems from a lack of information. Sometimes both in quality and quantity. When you get you first start you may think that just reading one book will solve all your problems. Not having a reasonable picture of what you can expect will make you feel disappointed and like a failure for no good reason. This can quickly lead to giving up.

To get good results, you need to know things like: you will be enthusiastic in the beginning – as with anything new and exciting - but that enthusiasm will probably dissipate.

That´s normal. And when you are prepared for it, when you get to know your emotional weather more closely, it’s gets easier and easier to control. You know that there will be rain. But it won´t last forever, even if it might feel so.

One motivating method I use to get out of that low emotional state is to develop an on-going habit of consuming development material, whether it is in the form of a books, blogs, audiotapes or dvds. I´m building my own small library and filling it with solid and practical advice on personal growth.

Revisiting to a tape by Brian Tracy not only gets me motivated again but often presents me with ways to solve the problem at hand too. This habit - combined with action - will over time bring clarity to what you want, which methods that work best for you and the possibilities and limitations in your own personal growth.

8. Failing to/not wanting to (at least start to) understand yourself – To change yourself you have to learn about the processes inside yourself. How your emotions work. How you ego works. How you past experiences and habits can affect you. And what you can do about all of that. How you can help yourself. Even when parts of you are working against what you really want.

So I say, don´t stick to one guru and to one line of thought. Read/listen to books from a lot of highly regarded authors to broaden your knowledge and number of possible solutions to your problems.

Try to be more conscious. Be aware of what processes are taking place inside you when you become angry, depressed, jealous or envious. Try not to react in the knee-jerk manner you may often do.

Instead, in the moment, apply what you have learned about handling this issue. If you fail to do so – which everyone does a lot, so beat yourself up about it – take some time later to analyse why you felt/did that negative thing. And what you can do about it when it arises the next time.

If you don´t get a handle on how humans work then it will be hard to help yourself (and others). You´ll be coming up with ineffective solutions, become discouraged and possibly, finally stop trying to grow.

9. Not taking responsibility for yourself – This is absolutely essential. Don´t blame anyone else. It’s up to you to change.

Source: positivityblog

We all know that your brain is like a muscle – the more you use it, the better condition it remains in. And this is especially true of memory – the mental ability to retrieve information that you have learnt or experienced.

Types of Memory

Memory can be short-term, usually used to store information temporarily for a few minutes (eg. when you dial a phone number) and this type of temporary memory is useful in helping you carry out daily tasks without the risk of overloading your brain, as you would if you had to retain every number you have ever called, every meal you have ever ordered in a restaurant, etc…However, if a piece of information is important enough, it can be transferred to long-term memory where you will make a conscious or unconscious effort to retain it. This includes personal information about your family and friends, knowledge needed in your studies or your job and emotional impressions that are meaningful, such as childhood experiences or a book you particularly enjoyed. Long-term memory can be further divided into episodic and semantic memories, which require a conscious effort to recall (eg. experiences you’ve had on holiday or facts about things or people, such as someone’s hair colour) – and procedural memory which cover all the skills and routines you have learnt and which don’t require conscious recall (eg, tying your shoelaces).

How Memory is Laid Down

Memory is laid down in 3 stages: first, there is acquisition, during which new information enters your brain, is encoded by neuron pathways and stored in the appropriate area. Next comes consolidation when the information is encoded into long-term memory; and finally there is retrieval when your brain activates the same pattern of neurons used to store a certain piece of information. Obviously, the more often you activate this pattern and retrieve this information, the easier it is to access it – just like the more often you go to a place, the more familiar you are with the route and how to drive there.

Strategies to Improve Memory

Unless your brain is diseased or suffering from an injury or disorder, it is possible to improve your memory through exercising your brain. This can be as simple as breaking your normal routine, which forces your brain to use new pathways (eg, brush your teeth with a different hand) to learning a whole new subject or skill. In everyday life, there are some simple ways to improve your memory:

• Concentrate and pay attention - It sounds obvious but if you focus attention on something, you are much more likely to encode it properly and retain it. This is one reason why teachers are always telling students to pay attention!
• Follow your own learning style – everyone learns in a different way and what works for someone else might not work for you. Find out how you best record information – for example, some people are visual learners and retain information best through reading words or watching images – whereas others are auditory learners and perform best when they learn information through listening.
• Engage your senses – regardless of what type of learner you are, the more senses you use during the learning process, the better you will retain the information. Don’t just read it – read it aloud so you can hear it; if possible – taste it, smell it, feel the texture…
• Use association – relating new information to old information you already know is a very useful way to learn, as you are building on previous knowledge.
• Be organised – the act of organising often helps to imprint things in the brain, as you will have to think about the information to arrange it into categories and work out its relationship to other things.
• Focus on understanding – something that many students overlook, when it comes to complex topics, it is far better to be able to understand and interpret the material than to simply memorise isolated details. Aim to be able to explain the complex topic to a lay person in your own words.
• Revise and review – you will retain information far more effectively if you review it periodically over a period of time, rather than trying to cram it all the day before. By going over material again and again, you will “over-learn” the information so that it becomes second nature.
• Write it down – for many people, writing information down again is a very useful way to imprinting it permanently in your brain as the process requires mental retrieval and organisation.
• Keep a positive attitude – if you believe in yourself and tell yourself that you can learn and remember, you will perform much better than if you keep believing that you have a bad memory and poor recall. Positive mental feedback creates an expectation of success that is self-fulfilling.
  Source: aboutintelligence

Choosing the right career path is one of the most defining decisions we can make in life. Our job not only says a lot about what kind of person we are, but will influence what type of car we drive, what kind of house we live in, the people we associate with, and more. But above all these things, is the fact that we spend most of our waking moments at work!. Which means that if our job does not fulfill us or does not allow us to pursue our life goals, than it is not the career we should spend the rest of our life doing.

Unfortunately most people go to work everyday and put in a mediocre performance, day after day because their heart is just not in their job. They're not interested in learning more about the field that they work in, they don't get excited about new developments, and they just do what is absolutely necessary to keep their job. Most people live for the weekend and are robots during the week. That's 5 days of being a robot and 2 days of doing what you want to do. Why not pursue a passion for 5 days, while adding value to the lives of others, and leave 2 days for recreation and relaxation?

Life is just too short and fleeting to be spending so many precious hours each day doing something that makes us unhappy. It is impossible to do a job that we do not like and to feel fulfilled as a person, because our jobs take up such a large amount of our time. Our job is a big part of who we are.

We have to get clear about what it is that gives us fulfillment in life, what fascinates us, or what we are passionate about. Once our interests are defined, we have to think about what career paths are available in that area. Sometimes there will be clear paths to take, like when our passion is designing websites, the job options could be to become a web designer, web programmer, or similar positions. But other interests may need more creative ways of thinking, like if you are passionate about collecting rare coins, your path may not be so clear. You may have to look into several sources of income; Owning a coin dealership, writing a guide to collecting rare coins, having a website built, and/or selling coins online.

Because of the responsibilities of modern life and the necessity of money to support our lifestyle and family, we can't just quit our job and immediately pursue our passion. It may take months or years of planning while we continue to work in our 9 to 5 job and bring in a regular wage. The important thing is that we are moving towards the goal of doing what inspires us in life. Without the clear focus and continual small steps towards achieving our dream job, we would just be kidding ourselves.

We may have to take evening or weekend classes, attend seminars, read books, or associate with people in your area of interest. If it's a product that you plan to sell, perhaps you could start selling it from home, at weekend markets, or setting up a website to sell it from.

When we're moving towards our dream job and have a clear path before us it makes our 9 to 5 job less of a problem. Rather than going to work each day and hating the things we do, we can appreciate the job for being a step towards doing what really inspires us. It is putting food on the table, paying the rent, and funding the way towards the right career path.

Source: woopidoo.

Find Out How You Really Spend Your Time

How long do you spend each day on unimportant things; Things that don't really contribute to your success at work? Do you KNOW how much time you've spent reading junk mail, talking to colleagues, making coffee and eating lunch? And how often have you thought, "I could achieve so much more if I just had another half hour each day."

And are you aware of when in the day you check your e-mail, write important articles or do your long-term planning?

Most people find they function at different levels of effectiveness at different times of day as their energy levels fluctuate. Your effectiveness may vary depending on the amount of sugar in your blood, the length of time since you last took a break, routine distractions, stress, discomfort, or a range of other factors.

Activity logs help you to analyze how you actually spend your time. The first time you use an activity log you may be shocked to see the amount of time that you waste! Memory is a very poor guide when it comes to this, as it can be too easy to forget time spent on non-core tasks.

How to Use the Tool

Keeping an Activity Log for several days helps you to understand how you spend your time, and when you perform at your best. Without modifying your behavior any further than you have to, note down the things you do as you do them on this template. Every time you change activities, whether opening mail, working, making coffee, gossiping with colleagues or whatever, note down the time of the change.

As well as recording activities, note how you feel, whether alert, flat, tired, energetic, etc. Do this periodically throughout the day. You may decide to integrate your activity log with a stress diary.

Learning from Your Log

Once you have logged your time for a few days, analyze your daily activity log. You may be alarmed to see the amount of time you spend doing low value jobs!

You may also see that you are energetic in some parts of the day, and flat in other parts. A lot of this can depend on the rest breaks you take, the times and amounts you eat, and quality of your nutrition. The activity log gives you some basis for experimenting with these variables.

Your analysis should help you to free up extra time in your day by applying one of the following actions to most activities:

• Eliminate jobs that your employer shouldn't be paying you to do. These may include tasks that someone else in the organization should be doing, possibly at a lower pay rate, or personal activities such as sending non-work e-mails.

• Schedule your most challenging tasks for the times of day when your energy is highest. That way your work will be better and it should take you less time.

• Try to minimize the number of times a day you switch between types of task. For example, read and reply to e-mails in blocks once in the morning and once in the afternoon only.

• Reduce the amount of time spent on legitimate personal activities such as making coffee (take turns in your team to do this - it saves time and strengthens team spirit).

Key points:

Activity logs are useful tools for auditing the way that you use your time. They can also help you to track changes in your energy, alertness and effectiveness throughout the day.

By analyzing your activity log you will be able to identify and eliminate time-wasting or low-yield jobs. You will also know the times of day at which you are most effective, so that you can carry out your most important tasks during these times.

Source: mindtools