Model Agency 411

The world of business startups is rife with option. You can purchase a franchise or start your own business from scratch. This ultimately depends on what you want to put in and what you expect out.

There are many franchises available to buy.Your local town center is probable full of franchises. Franchises are typically founded on a tried and tested business model. A franchise basically gives you everything you need with a well recognized name to draw in customers. There are many different franchises available. Some will give you the business name, equipment and everything you need for start up, others only give you the basics and you still have to buy or lease a location, purchase equipment and the inventory you will need.

The negatives of buying a franchise however are that they are typically inflexible in terms to making it your own, and of course the initial outlay. Visit the Key Mergers website for more information or if you would like to f you would like to buy a business or even to sell one.

Starting from zero and building a you very own company however means that you can grow the business organically over time, you can limit your initial outlay and you can be as creative with the direction of your business as you like. However, your model may not be tried and tested and you will likely have to develop your own support network from the ground up along with your business.

The bottom line is, the factors determining whether to buy a franchise or follow your own path are multi-dimensional There is no one size fits all advise.

As Mark Twain once remarked about the weather, there’s a lot of talk about vision, but very few managers really do anything about it. Visioning is sometimes an innate natural skill just like leadership sometimes is. And the moon sometimes blocks out the sun - but none occur very often. Most people have had to consciously and with great effort continually work to strengthen their visioning. Visionary leaders are seldom born that way (how many of those birth announcements have you seen lately?). Nor are they necessarily charismatic. They have had to work at making visioning habitual.

Here are a few pathways and pitfalls to organizational visioning:

• You and your team need to picture and describe your preferred future as vividly as possible. One approach is to imagine it’s five years from today and you’re being interviewed by Fortune magazine, a leading newspaper, or an industry journalist on the phenomenal success your company or team have had. Describe the results you’ve achieved and perhaps the approach you’ve used. Speak in the present tense as if it’s all happening around you right now.

• Too many managers try to delegate “the vision thing” to a committee. It doesn’t work. If you’re a senior manager, caring for the culture and providing organization focus isn’t just part of your job, it is your job.

• Unless you’re an exceptionally clear and inspiring writer, be very careful about drafting a “vision statement” and using that as your communications centerpiece. Visions are about feelings, beliefs, emotions, and pictures. It’s very hard to bring those across on paper (especially if the statement is developed by a committee). Vision ideas or summaries can, and should, be committed to paper, and widely circulated - but as a “leave behind,” follow-up, or reminder. Visions are the most compelling when they are delivered in person by a leader who’s an effective communicator. Powerful personal communication skills and energizing leadership are inseparable. Learn how to use “impassioned logic” by adding metaphors, stories, models, or examples to help everyone “see the big picture” and rouse their emotions to make it happen.

• Your team or organization needs a shared vision, not something that only a few people own. You need to make everyone a “spiritual stakeholder.” That’s usually a cascading process, but it can start in any part of an organization. Ideally, the senior management team defines the broad parameters of what business you’re in and which direction you’re heading. They can prepare a rough vision for input and refinement or leave things wide open for the rest of the organization to fill in.

• Invoke pride, stretch everyone’s thinking, and stir the will-to-win emotions. Shoot to shake up the industry or change the rules of the game. Become the fastest, strongest, highest quality, most innovative, or best at something.

Vision is the critical focal point and beginning of high performance. But a vision alone won’t make it happen. Unless the hard work of striving, building, and improving follows, even the most vibrant vision will remain only a dream.

I bet you can’t tell me how leadership training and
strategic planning work together to boost business results
and energize performance improvements.

A recent survey of 1000 managers conducted by the UK-based
Chartered Management Institute, revealed that organizations
experienced, “improved business performance when [their
leadership] development [programs were] linked to [their]
business [strategic planning process].”

Why aren’t the energies generated by corporate leaders being
used in developing, managing and adding value to strategic
plans?

Put another way, how can organizational managers train,
advise and encourage their people using the strategic plan
as a guideline for making performance improvements?

Usually we separate planning from training, however, wise
leaders see their plans as a blueprint for enriching,
growing and nurturing the skills, attitudes and maturity of
their people.

Guideline-1 - Enrich Their Experiences!

Inertia is defined as the tendency for things to remain the
same. When we get trapped by the draining energies of
inertia, our efforts begin to fail or our plans become stale
and lifeless pieces of paper.

If you hope to break out of inertia’s grip and your feelings
of frustration or futility, you must turn your plans into
opportunities to develop and train your people to become
leaders.

Show your people why the plan has been created the way it
is. Tell them that the plan is a general indicator for
direction and level of achievement - let them know that they
will be responsible for making it successful.

Once your people begin implementing the plan, you can assess
their ability to meet the challenges of its activities and
objectives.

By supervising their performance on a biweekly basis, you
could help them develop plans for self-directed and
instructor-led learning exercises.

Self-directed learning could include reading, keeping a
journal and taking low cost self-paced courses.

Instructor-led training might take the form of courses at
your local or community college, web-based seminars, email
courses or training conducted by in-house personnel.

Enrich their experiences by increasing their confidence and
positive self-image!

Guideline-2 - Grow Their Domain!

We can use the planning process itself as an opportunity to
generate energy and distribute those energies throughout the
organization.

Those energies produced during the planning process should
be identified, evaluated, captured and directed towards the
refinement and execution of the plan.

When we speak of energy we mean a factor, force or influence
which may be classified or fitted into one of the following
categories or domains:

=> Creative - the acts of perceiving something new or of
looking at something in different or radically new ways;

=> Innovative - the acts of trying out something new or in
doing something in different ways;

=> Entrepreneurial - the acts of approaching or offering an
idea or object in new or different ways

=> Social - acts involving teamwork, collaborative efforts,
forming or arranging networks, partner ships/alliances;

=> Systems-related - where a system’s design, analysis,
operation or support process facilitates advancement, etc.;

=> Educational - the acts of training, development, self-
directed learning, and leveraging human capital assets.

In a nutshell, you can transform your strategic planning
process and its improvement or implementation into a series
of leadership skills training and development exercises for
any of the above categories.

If you first grow the domains of your people you can hold
them accountable for refining and supervising the plan!

Guideline-3 - Nurture Their Maturity!

Leadership development is an essential ingredient in
nurturing or realizing a state of maturity and credibility.

You can never reach that stage of development without having
the ability to:

=> Take responsibility for your actions,

=> Commit to staying the course through good times and bad;

=> Accept the authority of others without rancor or back-
biting [when they act honestly, ethically and responsibly];

=> Admit a need for help, support or guidance;

=> Act in congruence with your values, ethics and morals.

Use the objectives of your strategic plans as your guideline
and blueprint for coaching, counseling, mentoring and
consulting your people.

Provide your people with a safety net by giving them
authority to implement the plan but be sure to nurture them
towards developing into mature, seasoned leaders.

————————————————————

Over 90% of those executives surveyed by the Institute saw
the connection between strategic performance improvements
and their leadership development efforts - you can too!

Those managers agree that the “skills acquired at work are
held in higher esteem than natural [leadership] talent” -
they overwhelmingly believe “that on-the-job experience is
more valuable than natural [leadership] ability”.

Using your strategic plans as the blueprint for your
leadership development efforts is a wise course of action
that’s sure to deliver real performance improvements.

“Everything depends upon execution; having just a vision is
no solution.” - Stephen Sondheim, composer

Your plan expresses your vision, your leadership training
program energizes the execution of your plans.

Remember, enrich people, grow their domains and nurture them
into maturity - do those things and you’ll have a successful
strategic plan.

Copyright © 2005, Mustard Seed Investments Inc.,
All rights reserved.

————————————————————

About the Author:

Bill Thomas teaches leadership techniques using strategic,
innovative, evolutionary-focused concepts - his 2-Volume,
how-to Manual, “Strategic Organizational Leadership: Create
& Deliver Fail-Proof, Breakthrough Plans”, uses an
energizing process of group development to produce value
empowered results! “See it, Plan it, Lead it, Improve it!”

http://www.leadership-toolkit.com/planning.html

————————————————————

“….. there is no final goal. There is always further to go. It is a voyage of unending discovery, and as in all such voyages, what is gathered by the wayside is often as valuable as what is found at the destination.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

The game of life and success is the game of illusions! Why do I make such a comment after explaining about how to achieve your goals? It’s an illusion because once you reach the goal you don’t stop taking the action. A lot of people, when they are setting their goals to reach somewhere, they think that reaching it is the end. This, as I stated is an illusion.

When the person goes to the gym with the goal of a beautiful physique, it is a noble goal to strive for. However, it doesn’t end there. What happens when the person reaches it? Does that mean the end of the action? No! The person now has to maintain that body that they have taken so long to reach. Due to the disciplines and practices that they have undertaken in order to reach this point, it is now ingrained in them to take the action. The person cannot envision a day when they stop taking this action entirely. This habit was formed by consistency.

In the same way, a person who wants to be successful does not end the quest once he/she reaches that level of success. It’s now time to maintain that success by continuing to take action as well as to make more of their potential. A person who has reached the initial level of success that they have strived for has also developed so many disciplines that have become habits that it’s now easier for them to reach higher goals. If you have learned how to develop new habits at one time, it becomes a lot easier to develop another one.

In this aspect, the gym teaches you that reaching your goal is not the end, rather it’s the beginning. You never knew you could reach this goal, and now you are here! Imagine how much more you can do that you never thought possible. I don’t think anyone has ever seen this truth! Reaching your goal is not the end. It is only the beginning. The beginning of exploring your full potential is realized when you achieve what you once thought to be impossible! Now you can realize more and more of your potential.

Realizing your goals is the beginning step of setting even higher goals for yourself! The journey never ends! It goes on until you realize that your potential is so great that even if you live to be a million years you can never exhaust it! In the amount of time that you now have, see how much of that you can tap! Don’t end with the achievement of your initial goals! Strive for more, do more, and live a complete life! Challenge yourself! I dare you!

Sukhbir Singh is the Founder of LifeApps! Personal Development International Co., Ltd based in Bangkok, Thailand. The article above is excerpted from his book Success Lessons from the Gym. If you are interested in obtaining the entire book in electronic format, you are requested to send an email to info@lifeapps.com

Derbyshire, with its scenic beauty and perfect backdrop for exciting outdoor activities looks like the best place for planning your corporate events. With more and more emphasis being laid on relaxation and team spirit amid work environment, Chillisauce takes you to the ideal place to rediscover the importance of teamwork through outdoor corporate team building activities across the green plains of Derbyshire.

GSP Treasure Hunt Expedition in Derbyshire

Get ready for the hunt of the season. If you have an energetic and adventurous corporate team with a limited budget, then GSP treasure hunt in Derbyshire is just the right thing for you. The corporate teams are given a briefing session and the instructions are handed over to them. The whole game if filled with mysterious twists and turns. The corporate teams have to select their own treasure hunt route by using the global positioning systems. All the corporate team members put their brains together in finding and analyzing the clues from different places to locate the treasure. The more clues they gather, the more points they score. Don’t worry, you won’t get lost. There is an instructor who constantly follows the corporate teams for security without showing himself. Moreover, the corporate teams carry with them a radio to pass on information between the team members. It’s exciting, fun and filled with surprising evidence at every turn you take.

Influence of Treasure Hunt on Team Building

It’s only when all the brains of the corporate team works together that you find the treasure. Treasure hunt in Derbyshire, which can last for half a day or one full day according to the nature of the hunt, teaches you to be patient, analytical, zealous and most importantly it reveals the values of team spirit. It is one of those corporate activities that cannot be performed alone. You need to work as a team where all the corporate team members share equal importance. Corporate events organized by Chillisauce wins you not only the treasure you are hunting for, but also the biggest treasure of all - a perfect understanding and unity in work amongst the members of the corporate team.

http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/derbyshire/treasure-hunts/

http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/

The ability to build effective teams is a must for any organization who wants to succeed in the millennium. This article offers ten examples of highly creative excursions which can provide insight into developing the leadership qualities essential for success in challenging times.

1. A Day Trip to the Sharper Image

The Sharper Image is a specialty retailer that is nationally and internationally renowned as a leading source of new, innovative, high-quality products that make life better and more enjoyable. Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Richard Thalheimer started this business 25 years ago with one goal in mind: to have fun!

The Sharper Image is a company that thrives on special conveniences and innovative products that sit on the cutting edge of technology. This day trip is fantastic for stimulating creativity and becoming a forward thinker!

2. A Day Trip to the Gettysburg Battlefield

A visit to this historical Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, can be an empowering lesson in leadership. This day trip can be devoted to walking the historic site while evaluating the leadership decisions and structures that General Robert E. Lee struggled with over 140 years ago. Prior to this day trip, I recommend that those attending the trip read the book, “Leadership Lessons from the Civil War” by Tom Wheeler. It is an extraordinary book that takes a close look at the parallels between business and military strategy.

3. A Day Trip to ING Direct

With locations in New York City, NY, and Philadelphia, PA, ING Direct takes the “dull” out of banking. The facade is made of glass. On the inside are café tables and biscotti, Internet stations and mochas, and clients hanging out just for the fun of it. This innovative company invests the majority of its time, energy, and money in technology, marketing, and in making people feel proud about saving their money…and to make them feel that saving is a cool and hip thing to do. The website itself (www.ingdirect.com) is a wild and fun excursion, breaking away from the traditional and stepping way out on the edge. This day trip can create a lightning bolt effect for motivating your company to move to new levels of creativity and innovation.

4. Carnegie Hall and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was conceived by cellist Julian Fifer and a group of fellow musicians in the 1970s. The Orpheus process is highly unique, for this is an orchestra with no conductor. In the absence of a conductor, the individual musicians of Orpheus must rely on one another for innovation and team building. The self-governing and leadership abilities have not only made Orpheus a group of highly gifted musicians, but has built a world which teaches those who observe them to understand that a CEO never has or should have all of the answers. Central to the collaborative process of Orpheus is the sharing and rotating of leadership roles. This unique approach unleashes the talent, vision, creativity, and the leadership of each and every member of the group. Observe this group carefully, and ask your team “What is it about this group that is so compelling? How can we use their system for our success?”

5. A Week-End at Universal Studios (Orlando, FL; Hollywood, CA; Japan and Spain)

Are you having fun? I mean: “Are you really having fun?” If you are or are not, consider a journey through a week-end filled with fun, adventure, wonder, and wild times. Spend a few great days being a kid again with E.T. (the Extra-Terrestrial,) Men in Black, Jaws, Barney, and Nickelodeon. Why? In times when innovation is so crucial to success, we must challenge our teams to do the things we think we cannot do, are off-beat, or are seemingly crazy and wild to the rest of the world. Outdoor challenges involving fun, laughter, and raw adventure can spark problem solving and teamwork and can be a fantastic approach for reducing stress and incorporating fun and laughter into the corporate setting.

6. A Day Trip to NASA: The Kennedy Space Center

Want a little inspiration and motivation for building effective teams? By visiting the Kennedy Space Center, your team can witness how history and the future, nature and technology, young and old meet for an unforgettable and highly creative journey through space and time. The Kennedy Space Center tells a compelling story of how the United States built a space program that launched men to the moon and have orbited satellites that have improved our life on earth.

7. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, has brought together thousands of works of art that display a full and extraordinary range of creativity which can enhance your team building efforts. See and hear a story of human deceit from “The Kitano Tnjin Engi Emaki,” a thirteenth century picture scroll. Open a discussion around the historic moment when General George Washington led the American revolutionary troops across the Delaware in “George Washington Crossing the Deleware.” Explore Korea’s distinctive cultural identity and the ways in which the arts of Korea have been affected by trade and diplomacy, by war and peace, and by religion and philosophy. This day trip is one that is filled with curiosity, creativity, and of seeing the perspective of people and cultures from around the world.

8. A Day Trip to Nordstrom

Outstanding customer service and Nordstrom go hand in hand. Their innovative approach has allowed them to find out exactly what the customer needs and wants and then gives it with grace and style. A family-owned business, Nordstrom considers their customers a part of their extended family, and the corporate culture supports and encourages salespeople to engage in intimate business dialogue and relationships with key vendors in each department. A visit to Nordstrom will teach you how to better respond to customer’s needs so that they will come back to you again and again and will teach you the lessons of : valuing outstanding customer service, bonding with each and every customer, and giving people on the frontline the freedom to make decisions.

9. A Four-Day Hike on the Appalachian Trail

From Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail wanders the ridges and valleys of the Appalachian range for more than 2,168 miles. Those who have traveled this trek return feeling much more light- hearted, saying that they no longer sweat the small stuff in life. One of the biggest benefits of walking the Appalachian trail is that you and your team will learn adaptability, and you will begin to appreciate the people and things in life that you often take for granted. Many people report that even one week of hiking is a life changing experience. They realize that a fast pace of living and that money, prestige, and power are only surface deep…that the true beauty of life lies in the secrets of nature.

10. A Day of Brainstorming

A Super S.W.O.T. Session with a communications company is a great way to offer your company a highly creative day of brainstorming. This session should be a fast-paced, deeply probing session highly designed for your organization’s best thinkers. Using easels, drawing pads, and other audio visuals, a great facilitator will keep the ideas flowing by asking you first to boil down your mission statement to ten words or less. From here, they focus on your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. These critical factors are listed, considered, and ranked to show you the three most significant factors in each S.W.O.T. category. The results are always revealing and often quite surprising. A session can require as little as three hourson up to a full day.

About The Author

Bea Fields, Southern Pines, NC, USA

bea@fivestarleader.com

http://www.fivestarleader.com

Bea Fields is an Executive Coach and a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach. She is also a Consultant, Trainer, Public Speaker and author of the Five Star Leader e-course. Her area of expertise is that of Leadership Development and Marketing for Executives, Managers, Small Business Owners, and Political Leaders.

Negotiating outcomes are the types of results that can happen at the end of a negotiation. All negotiations end up with one out of four possible outcomes: one party wins and the other loses, both parties lose, they get stuck in a stalemate, or both end up winning. Obviously, the goal in a cooperative negotiation is for both parties to walk away with their needs being satisfied. Familiarize yourself with the four different negotiating outcomes and make it your goal to aim for a mutually-beneficial outcome.

Lose-Lose

In this type of outcome, ego’s come into play which thwart the negotiating process. Both sides dig into their positions and are unwilling to compromise with each other. In the end, both parties end up losing in the deal. Resentment exists between both parties as a result of the outcome and it is unlikely that they will ever negotiate with each other again.

Example

A labor union refuses a contract offer and goes on strike until demands are met. The company refuses to give into to this bullying-type technique and digs into their position of not budging. In the end, the strikers go back to work without a raise and with lost income and the company loses a large amount of sales revenue, and the consumer loses because the company must raise prices to pay for its losses.

Win-Lose

In this type of outcome, one side wins and the other side loses. There is no compromise with a win-lose outcome. It’s a one-side takes all battle with one side getting all their needs satisfied and the other side getting nothing. While the side that wins may be very happy about the outcome; the losing side has a high level of resentment over the deal because they did not have any of their needs met. This usually results in a end to any future negotiations and a termination of the relationship.

Examples

A street brawl is the ultimate in win-lose negotiations. One side wins by use of physical violence and the losing side has no choice but to submit to defeat.

A civil court battle is win-lose. A judge or jury decides winner and loser based on available evidence. One side wins punitive or compensatory damages and the other side loses that money.

Stalemate

In this type of outcome, neither side wins or loses and after a long negotiating session, both sides are at the exact same place that they started off at. This is a result of not being able to deal with interests and only positions. Stalemates happen when both sides aggressively defend their positions and neither side is able to make the other side budge.

Example

You go to buy a car and the salesman quotes you a price that is too high. You are unwilling to budge on your price and the salesman is unwilling to budge on his quote. You then walk out of the dealership and go find another one to deal with and the salesman moves on to the next customer.

Win-Win

This is the type outcome that you strive to achieve when you Street Negotiate. In this type of outcome, both sides walk away with their interests and needs being met. Both sides leave the negotiating table satisfied because they came out of the negotiation with more than they had started with. Relationships are preserved because both parties cooperated with each other in determining a fair solution to the problem. This outcome also bolsters trust for future negotiations between the two parties because they have established a positive relationship.

Example

A hostage taker agrees with the police negotiator to surrender and release his hostages. In return, the negotiator agrees that the SWAT team won’t bust through the doors and kill the hostage taker. In this example, the hostage taker gets his needs of survival taken care of and the negotiator gets his needs of ending a potentially deadly confrontation without any bloodshed satisfied.

Key Points

The four possible outcomes to a negotiation are: lose-lose, win-lose, stalemate, and win-win.

Set your goals on having a win-win outcome in all of your negotiations. A win-win outcome is where both negotiating parties walk away with having both of their needs met.

About The Author

Tristan Loo is an experienced negotiator and an expert in conflict resolution. He uses his law enforcement experience to train others in the prinicples of defusing conflict and reaching agreements. Visit his website at http://www.streetnegotiation.com