Many businesses don't realize that the ability to tell a story can help improve your collaborative decisi  on making and problem solving effectively. Any task or initiative that involves more than one person is going to include different perspectives and interpretations of the situation. For example, in a stalemate, facts and analysis often will cause a situation to spiral deeper into disagreement; where as a story can collectively raise perspective and lead to a resolution. Overpass the Impasse With the right delivery and good timing, a story can help rescue a group from a stalemate and spark introspection, self-awareness and behavior changes. CEOs back off ultimatums, truck drivers lean forward and nurses unfold their arms. A direct approach will not work as well as telling a story. Tools for crunching numbers and generalizing facts have improved business immeasurably. Unfortunately, the tools for generating and shifting perspective are way behind. Business success is a function of both facts and feelings, the latter is subjective - a function of interrupted experience and individual perspective. Do you remember using or hearing about the buzzword, "paradigm shift" in the 90s? The idea is there, but the tools to communicate it are lousy. Good ideas can be reduced to laminated cards, hypocritical meetings and endless word crafting. Objective tools reduce subjective truths into meaningless dribble. Some people do it right, but current cynicism in the workplace is often a result of lousy implementation of subjective ideals - promises that weren't delivered. Therefore, you need to be able to back away from resistance and shift into perspective mode to see the bigger picture. Saving face is a very important aspect of shifting perspective into introspection. All of these factors (resistance, perspective, introspection and the aforementioned saving face) are highly subjective. Objective Versus Subjective There are few managers who couldn't improve their leadership with better listening skills. Yet objective, skills-based, active-listening courses only seem to teach people how to nod, paraphrase and hold eye contact - how to fake listening. The story has the power to fill in between the lines, breathe feelings of human experience into outcomes, strategic plans and objective goals. People can then see, hear and feel enough for it to be real. Once a goal feels real in their imagination, people are much more likely to do what it takes to make it real in the physical world. They not only understand the what, they have a feeling for the how and why. Documentation of a best practice in linear form is dry and abstract. Story is reconstituted reality that awakens all the senses and conjures enough emotional glue for an idea to stick. Just as a small-scale model brings a blueprint to life, a story brings a list of year-end goals to life. A narration of events will always make up the story that simulates a visual, sensory and emotional experience, which feels significant for both the listener and teller. If experience is the best teacher, the story is second best. You have to be able to think backward then forward again through a subjective human experience in a way that prompts new conclusions. Until humans are created with flip-flop heads into which you can feed your desired deductions, the practice of story-telling is the fastest way to prompt people to rethink current practices. It will lead them to reach their own conclusions about how and why they should pursue new initiatives and strategies. Both Objective and Subjective Make Up Business Many mergers fail not because the numbers weren't there but because the cultures didn't and wouldn't merge. There's no such thing as a right answer if no one accepts it. We intuitively know subjective truths have a profound impact on our success. What we don't seem to know is what to do about it. One reason is that our business-school training has elevated objective truths over subjective truths for so long that we tend to label real work as time spent making the right decision and less on subjective issues. The story has the capacity to access and influence the opinion of the person. It can help you stay connected at a human level - even when you are on opposite sides of the facts. It is not only the tool to use to address subjective issues. Donuts, beer and pizza are all very effective subjective tools. Cartoons, jokes and social time give you access to one of the most powerful tools: laughter, the solvent of negative emotions. As the ambiguity of business and life continues to become more apparent, we will find that our ability to understand subjectivity and to alter subjective feelings will become more important. The bottom line: whoever tells the best story wins. |
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Raising Effectiveness Using Emotional Intelligence Identifying the Attributes that are Right for Your Business |
Many business leaders have found intriguing the basic idea that success is strongly influenced by personal qualities such as perseverance, self-control and working well with others. They point to sales people who have an uncanny ability to sense what is most important to the client, customer service employees who excel in helping angry patrons calm down and be more reasonable. Conversely, they point to brilliant executives who do everything well except get along with people, and to managers who are technically brilliant but cannot handle stress. Studies have confirmed that soft skills are critical for a vital economy. For instance, the influential report on Achieving Necessary Skills by the United States Secretary of Labor's Commission argued that a high-performance workplace requires workers who have a solid foundation in literacy and computation. They also need personal qualities such as responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, integrity and honesty. Emotional intelligence is the basis for these competencies. But what exactly is "emotional intelligence?" What is the link between that and organizational effectiveness? Is it possible for adults to become more socially and emotionally competent? And finally, what is the best way to help individuals achieve this?
Defining the Term and Its Importance Emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately identify and understand one's own emotional reactions and those of others. It includes the ability to regulate one's emotions and to use them to make good decisions and act effectively. EI provides the bedrock for many competencies that are critical for effective performance in the workplace such as one's effectiveness in influencing others through the ability to connect on an emotional level. To effectively influence others, we also need to be able to manage our own emotions and have empathy for others. Best Course to Improvement To be effective, you need to begin with the realization that emotional learning differs from the cognitive and technical kind in some important ways. Emotional capacities like self-confidence and empathy differ from cognitive abilities because they draw on different brain areas. Purely cognitive abilities are based in the neo-cortex. But with social and emotional competencies, additional brain areas are involved, mainly the circuitry that runs from the emotional centers to the prefrontal lobes. Effective learning for emotional competence has to retune these circuits. Unfortunately, these particular neural circuits are especially difficult to modify. Emotional incompetence often results from habits learned early in life. These automatic habits are set in place as a normal part of living as experience shapes the brain. As people acquire their habitual repertoire of though, feeling and action, the neural connections that support these are strengthened, becoming dominant pathways for nerve impulses. When these habits have been so heavily learned, the underlying neural circuitry becomes the brain's default option at any moment - what a person does automatically and spontaneously often with little awareness. Because the neural circuits that need to be modified extend deep into the nonverbal parts of the brain, the learning ultimately must be experimental. Learning to control one's temper, for instance, is like learning to ride a bicycle. It is only by getting on a bike and riding it, falling over and trying again repeatedly that one ultimately maters the skill - practice, in short. Elements to Developing Because emotional learning differs from cognitive learning in a number of ways, training and development efforts need to incorporate a number of elements such as: Practice There needs to be much more opportunity for practice than what one normally sees in the typical work-based program. Not only does there need to be many opportunities in the training but you need to be able to practice with new ways of thinking and acting in other settings such as on the job, at home and with friends over a course of several months. Ongoing Encouragement Even with practice during the training phase, old neural pathways can reestablish themselves quickly unless learners are repeatedly encouraged and reinforced to use the new skills on the job. You need to provide periodic reinforcers and reminders to help participants maintain the fragile new patterns of behavior that they have so recently learned. Management Backing A learner's supervisors play an essential role in providing the support necessary for a successful change. Reinforcement by one's supervisor can be especially powerful in helping new emotional competencies to take root. Special Training Required Because the competencies involved in social and emotional learning are so central to our personal identities, special care and sensitivity is required in the way that training is presented. The personal nature of what is involved in this kind of learning also makes it critical that there be a trusting and supportive relationship between the learners and trainers. |
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Full Service Pool Company in Broward County, Florida Sold For $1.16M
The VR Business Brokers Office in Coral Springs, FL, a leader in the sale of privately held companies, recently facilitated the sale of a full service pool company in Broward, Co. Florida. The business is an established retail and wholesale Pool Supply Store and Service with twenty years background at the same location and a solid, loyal customer base. The company is comprised of four profitable divisions including construction and renovation, retail, repairs, and pool maintenance VR Business Brokers of Coral Springs, Florida facilitated the transaction, from initial business valuation to marketing the opportunity and providing support through the closing process. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. | | |
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VR Continues to Match Qualified Buyers with Businesses for Sale
In today's business climate, our clients demand quality and professionalism. We applaud our VR business intermediaries for a job well done!! Here is a small sample of transactions that have closed across the VR network recently: Moving Company $230,000.00 Austin, TX Day Spa $350,000.00 Pasadena, CA
Bakery & Café $225,000.00 Greenville, SC
Wholesale Veterinarian Pharmaceutical Co. $210,000.00 Boca Raton, FL
Architectural Stone & Foam Co. $149,000.00 Naples, FL
Automotive Repair Services Co. $185,000.00 Edmonton, Canada |
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Distributor of Industrial Equipment for Sale in South Texas $1,750,000 This business is the premier distributor of industrial and commercial equipment in South Texas. Their primary distribution outlets are dealers and wholesalers with very unique, custom products thatare unlike any in the market. They have developed and earned a well deserved reputation in the area for delivering quality products at the best price while giving excellent customer service. The business' product line includes products from Europe, Asia, and North America. Also, the business has distributive rights for both North America and Mexico for a line of high demand commercial equipment. The company is very well run with consistent results in both revenue and SDE. |
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|  Here is just a small sample of the many businesses that VR has for sale. Yogurtland Franchise $700,000.00 Artesia, CA Cosmetics Manufacturer $350,000.00 Artesia, CA Electrical Contracting Business $1,200,000.00 Edmonton, Canada RV Dealership $475,000.00 Waukesha, WI Assisted Living Facility $2,000,000.00 Waukesha, WI HVAC Contractor $800,000.00 New Haven, CT Catering / Food Trucks Company $5,000,000.00 San Antonio, TX Established Successful Yacht Brokerage $299,000.00 Wesley Chapel, FL Tree Farm & Landscape Business $7,000,000.00 Fort Lauderdale, FL Retail Mattress Store - Two Locations $450,000.00 Naples, FL Furniture Repair & Restoration Business $160,000.00 Pasadena, CA Trucking Delivery Business $749,000.00 San Francisco, CA Sports Bar & Restaurant $260,000.00 Milford, CT Customized Closet Company $245,000.00 Charleston, SC |
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Join VR Now | The time has never been better to become a part of the VR team. Small businesses make up over 56% of the annual U.S. GDP and every year a large amount of them change hands. VR is the industry leader in facilitating such transactions. 
For more information on how to join VR! |
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