ThistleSea becomes an Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC

By Wendy O. Lydon, LPBC

At ThistleSea Business Development, we believe that interpersonal and communication skills are some of the most fundamental building blocks to support the relationships that grow businesses and build strong communities. Understanding human behavior has always been an important part of our coaching relationships. We're very excited to offer our clients new and more in-depth tools for human behavior training and understanding personal and business relationships.

ThistleSea Business Development now has the expanded ability to assist you, your team and your organization to gain a deeper and broader understanding of human behavior and relations. Using a research-validated learning model, each solution provides in-depth information including tips, strategies, and action plans to help you become more effective in the workplace.

We have become an authorized partner of Everything DISC®. Our ThistleSea coaches have been thoroughly trained and certified on these tools, and these new solutions provide rich, versatile learning programs that offer personal insights for individuals at every level of your organization, using a consistent language of DiSC.

Below is a brief overview of the new solutions we can provide to you and your employees:

Everything DiSC Workplace® can be used with everyone in an organization, regardless of title or role, to improve the quality of the workplace. This tool focuses on gaining an understanding of both yours and other’s DISC style and building more effective relationships.

Note: This behavior assessment serves as a replacement for the reports and training we have worked with so many of you and your teams with.

Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict explores workplace conflict. Clearly one of the most stressful, awkward and inevitable experiences in the workplace is inter-personal conflict. Now we have a tool and training focused on workplace conflict using the language of DISC. With all the attention placed on conflict resolution, it's to change our view of conflict and resolve to use it in a positive way in the workplace.

Note: We can certainly work with you and your teams in understanding conflict. Please stay tuned for future workshops and trainings focused just on resolving conflict – which is a perfect education for everyone, regardless of position and area of business or career path.

Everything DiSC® Work of Leaders helps you discover your DiSC leadership style and learn a simple three-step process to help you approach the fundamental work of leaders: crafting a Vision, building Alignment and championing Execution. Work of Leaders connects to real-world demands, generating powerful conversations that provide a clear path of action.

Everything DiSC® Management provides you with an understanding of how to manage more effectively by learning about your own management preferences and priorities, better motivate your staff and yourself and get more comfortable with delegation. We're excited that this tool also helps you gain insight into how to develop your employees – something that is so important to employee engagement and understanding how others might view you and your style.

Everything DiSC® Sales expands communication with your customers and reveals how to match your style to theirs. By helping people discover their unique strengths and limitations, this tool can convince even experienced salespeople that they can become more effective.

Everything DiSC 363® for Leaders combines the best of 360 feedback with the simplicity and power of DiSC, plus three strategies for improving leadership effectiveness. The result is a 360 experience that’s more productive and satisfying.

With these deeper and more powerful tools, ThistleSea can now provide you with a broader understanding of DISC and human behavior.

We have always valued the work of Patrick Lencioni and use many of his books as coaching tools. His book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, has always been one of the most important readings as we work through team building and understanding.

We are also excited to share with you that ThistleSea coaches have been trained and certified to work with organizations and teams through a new program and curriculum, The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™. The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™ Powered by Everything DiSC® helps teams understand how to apply The Five Behaviors™ model of Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, and Results to their work culture. By using Everything DiSC®, a tool that helps build effective team communication and relationships, this program allows participants to learn about their own DiSC style and discover how each style brings value to the team.

We look forward to continuing our work with you, and your teams and colleagues to learn, develop and build personal and professional effectiveness through better communication and relations.

Please reach out to us if you would like to learn more how we can use these tools to help support your continued success. And watch for information for future workshops and trainings!

Agreements: Key to your leadership success

The start of a new year, growth in your business, increasing complexity, new federal tax legislation, increasing competition, the introduction of new products or services… They’re just a few examples of business complexity that require strong leadership to chart a new destination and clarity to define success. 

The answers to, “What direction are you heading?” and “Why are you heading that direction?” require leadership. In almost all cases, you will need to work with others and clearly communicate to inspire them to your vision of success.

What can we do to more quickly build a framework that engages our team members, outsiders, and other stakeholders and propels everyone’s actions to reach our desired level of success? Let’s consider focusing in 2018 on better and stronger agreements. 

Agreements can be oral or written, simple or complex. The understanding on when and how to use an agreement in business is critically important to gaining trust, honoring relationships and putting dignity (“the state of being worthy of honor and respect”) into relationships, to create value and build a more profitable business model. Gaining agreement is not always easy, but it’s essential to any ongoing relationship.

Here are 6 items to help build strong agreements:

1. Dream of the desired state and define why you desire it and what success looks like for you, your department and/or your company.
2. Describe why the desired state is important to you, your team and your company.
3. What must you do to achieve your dream and the success desired?
4. Who is involved and needed to assist you in fulfilling and accomplishing your dream state?
5. What are the specific messages you need to communicate, and what agreements are required to lead others to help you achieve this success?
6. Develop a list of terms (the words and phrases that express the concepts required for a strong agreement). The terms must be clear to all parties involved in the agreement to achieve the desired outcomes. 

Without strong agreement, we operate from a position of unconscious and often conflicting set of assumptions. In that position, relationships are fragile at best and most of the time the relationships are far less successful than desired. 

When should you worry that your agreements might be weak? Consider these 3 warning signs:

1. Employees or stakeholders refuse to share ideas, or their ideas are not acknowledged.
2. Solutions to issues and problems are incomplete and not resolved, causing frustration and confusion.
3. Complex challenges are not dealt with efficiently or in a manner quickly enough to make a real difference. 

When the people involved in the company struggle to see eye to eye on an issue, their implicit vague agreement causes a misalignment. Misalignment creates greater risk and destroys value. 

Most importantly, without clear agreements, our decision-making is clouded, and we fail to honor our own values. Leaders struggle to make timely and appropriate decisions, ultimately operating at a level far less than their potential. 

The same applies to employees. In the absence of strong agreements, we set them up for poor performance and failure. Questions left unanswered in the culture include: “How do we interact to achieve the desired results?” “What are the unwritten rules of the game?” “What level of autonomy and resource do I use to make an impact?” 

Clarity for both the supervisor and employee on responsibilities, accountabilities, duties and performance levels through strong agreement relieves the pressure and tension allowing for personal expression, business growth and the ability for the team to create value for the customer.

The use of agreements (both formal and informal) guides companies to make good decisions, and supports organizational capacity-building and maturity. 

If you would like to learn more about building strong and better agreements with your employees and stakeholders, contact a ThistleSea Team member. We would be glad to help you and your organization.
 

Leading yourself first

It's not an accident that "leadership" is our Abundance newsletter topic more often than any other. But we don't often discuss that "leading yourself first" can make the difference between a life of abundance... and not. In fact, we estimate that 95% of our clients list personal goals - ways they'd like to lead themselves better - when they're considering the futures of their businesses.

From eating more healthily to spending quality time with loved ones, it seems that leading yourself first isn't part of business school curricula or a requirement of funding pitches. It's multi-faceted, and some things are likely to come more easily to you than others. We divide it into a few arenas, and for the sake of brevity, we'll list just a few items under each:

Oh, man. Go to sleep.

Your bedrock tools

1. Define your values
2. Recognize and reduce your negative self-talk
3. Prepare a personal mission statement

Your physical self

1. Get plenty of rest
2. Exercise regularly
3. Get regular check-ups

Your personal finances

1. Put insurance policies in place
2. Complete estate planning
3. Create plan for retirement (financial and otherwise)

Your mind

1. Prioritize your activities to maximize your time
2. Spend quality time with loved ones
3. Spend time on a hobby

As with any changes, it's best not to do too much at once. If you've been working hard to lead yourself and you're not gaining traction, try to do a little less. And contact us for assistance.

5 Areas to Improve Your Profit Margins

It's important to remember that "profit" is just a result of a well-executed plan involving many actions in your business to gain more resources than you have invested.

Most business owners and executives with profit/loss responsibilities have the desire to improve their profit margins. Some have mastered the process and others struggle to know what to do. While there are many things to consider, here are five areas to review and consider to take action.

1. Listen to your customers.
2. Look to create value.
3. Do the math.
4. Perform expert technical work.
5. Lead your team.

(1) Listen to your customers.

Your customers are talking. Are you listening?

While it may sound like simple advice, business today changes rapidly. Keeping the pulse of your customers, with their use of faster communication, is harder than it used to be. Process changes that impact how business is conducted are critically important to your profit margins. We recommend surveying your customers frequently to ensure you understand their perspectives and make adjustments to improve your performance in their eyes.

It's surprising how many leaders somehow forget this important step.

(2) Look to create value.

Increasing your value in the eyes of your customer may involve how you deliver and serve them, beyond the technical aspects of your produce or service.

Is there something you can do to help them be more successful that's in your wheelhouse? Would it create additional revenue for them? And would it increase YOUR value, your sales revenue or the volume of business you do with them? Is it a new product/service you could offer to gain more revenue?

(3) Do the math.

If you haven't done the math...

Are you developing realistic forecasts of your revenue, expenses and cash flow? This is the first step to understanding your current state, which can then be followed by "what if?" models. When you've gathered your numbers, you can ask questions like:

• What if we offered more products or services?
• What if we expanded our coverage?
• What if we dropped a service or product line?
• What if we focused differently?
• What if we enhanced our sales department?

Asking questions and modeling the "what ifs," prior to a strong execution of the model, can have a tremendous impact on your profit margins.

(4) Perform expert technical work.

Really be good at your technical work! All the forecasting and planning will only do so much to deliver increased profit. You must deliver on your promise to your customers technically as well.

Invest in your team and continually help them enhance their skills in delivery for your customers. Are you getting great testimonials and referrals? If not, your work needs to be analyzed for needed improvements to ensure you're all working together to deliver great results.

(5) Lead your team.

It's good to share your vision and inspire your team members to follow your lead. Part of the vision is the desired levels of revenue and performance required by your customers.

Don't hesitate to try new ways to enhance your company's offerings, measure your results and adjust.

If you'd like to learn and discuss more about ways to improve your profit margin, just contact us.

ThistleSea Announces Two New Leadership Coaching programs

For those desiring to be more powerful, effective leaders

Executive Leadership Coaching Program

This advanced program is designed to strengthen the competencies of business owners and executives, set a baseline for both individuals and organizational current leadership, review benchmarks for the current state and help establish goals and priorities for future leadership development and coaching. 

This program will help you self-discover, reflect upon and identify the strength of your leadership competencies and skills in ten core areas. These core areas are a unique compilation of knowledge and insights gleaned from top leaders, executives, educators and mentors from around the world. 

The 10 core areas include: 

1. Self-Awareness
2. Communication Skills and Conflict Management
3. Self-Discipline, Focus and Decision Making
4. Relationship-Building and Social Intelligence
5. Executing for Results
6. Persuasion and Influence
7. Teamwork and Innovation
8. Shaping Culture and Organizational Change
9. Thinking Strategically and at a Higher Level
10. Positive Psychology

Emerging Leadership Coaching Program

Some employees who are great at their technical work may be emerging as potential leaders for the future. As the company grows and retirement of the baby boomer generation accelerates, what are you doing to avoid the high cost of turnover? Are you training your high potential employees to successfully take on new roles in supervision and leadership positions? 

The Emerging Leadership Coaching Program is designed for the high potential employees who are part of a company’s transition plans to move into supervision, management and executive leadership roles in the future and for those leaders who want to refresh their own leadership skills. 

This program focuses on strengthening leadership through application of best practices in the following 15 areas:

1. Business Systems
2. Choice Management
3. Coaching
4. Communications
5. Customer Experience
6. Financial Management
7. Gross Profit
8. Human Resources
9. Leadership
10. Management
11. Marketing
12. Motivation
13. Personal Effectiveness
14. Sales
15. Strategic Planning

Both programs are designed to provide you with the tools for a leadership journey that will inspire and excite, strengthen the business, and apply leadership best practices. Organizations can use these programs in a group, one-on-one, or customized for their specific needs. 
 

To learn more, contact one of our ThistleSea business coaches at 724-935-1930 or info@thistlesea.com. 
 

Am I leading or managing my business? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

John and Wendy discuss the difference between leadership and management.

RESULTS: Kim Kramer, Senior Vice President

Kim Kramer speaks about her work and results by working with ThistleSea.

Kim Kramer Testimonial

Client Testimonial: Kim Kramer, Senior Vice President and Financial Consultant

(click on link to view video testimonial)

John D. Laslavic, LPBC, Receives 2013 PBCA’S Founders / Legend Award

john-laslavic

ThistleSea’s President Honored By North America’s Premier Professional  Business Coaches. The Professional Business Coaches Alliance (PBCA) recognized John D. Laslavic, LPBC, President, ThistleSea Business Development, Wexford, PA,  for his dedicated work and efforts in developing and improving the business coaching profession and his leadership in the growth of the Professional Business Coaches Alliance.

At its 2013 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, Mr. Laslavic was presented with the First Founders/ Legend Award by PBCA’s founder Mr. John Deagan, LPBC, of Canton, OH and Mr. Jon Denny, LPBC, PBCA’s Owner & President, of Syracuse, NY.

This distinguished award recognized Mr. Laslavic for his support and significant contributions to the PBCA.  Mr. Laslavic has been associated with the PBCA organization since its early inception in 2005.  He has served multiple years on the Executive Leadership Team, has served as the organization’s first Director of Strategic Alliances, worked as a JumpStart Coach who mentored business coaches whom desired training and those developing their business coaching practices after receiving their PBCA organization Business Coaching designations.

He was instrumental in developing and earning the PBCA Black Belt designation, which is the highest designation recognized by his peers,  demonstrating superior business coaching, knowledge and service to his community and the over 100 Professional Business Coaches in the United States and Canada.

Mr. Laslavic also founded ThistleSea Business Development in 2005.  Currently, this growing firm has 3 Licensed Professional Business coaches.  He is actively involved and serves the membership of The Chamber of Commerce, Inc, Wexford, PA, as the Vice Chair, Board of Directors and the Chairman, Personnel Committee and volunteers his time assisting men and women in their job transitions through Priority Two.