Monthly Archives: April 2013

Hearing What’s Not Being Said

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhance your ability to anticipate. Reading time: 1:56.

        You’re hungry. You wander into an unfamiliar restaurant.  You order.

MASH-tv-show-15

The M*A*S*H* television program in the 1970’s evinced many leadership principles including the power in anticipating customer needs.

            But when the waiter serves your entree you almost need a magnifying glass to find your food on the plate.

           The beef is sliced so fine that you can read the dish pattern through it. Talk about melting in your mouth! This meat is so thin it seems to evaporate off your fork before it crosses your lips.

         The waiter notices and in the process exercises a key leadership skill: hearing what’s not being said.

         Maybe it was the way he saw your puppy dog eyes that seemed to drool all over the plate when you kept looking for more meat on the plate.

         Maybe it was the way he could almost feel your fork scraping the plate trying to get every morsel.

         Maybe it was the way he seemingly heard your stomach growling. Continue reading →

Overcoming the Deafening Sounds of Silence

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to think more clearly under pressure. Reading time: 3:22.

         The pioneers, circling their horse-drawn wagon trains after riding all day, would beat on pots and pans at night to keep away much more than the wolves.

         In the eerie silence, they also had to fight off even more voracious and nefarious wolves.  In their minds.

          wagontrainThese wolves of the mind, crying in the desolate darkness, gnawed at the hearts and souls of the pioneers with psychological spears more than merely sharp teeth.

         These wolves of the mind, moaning and groaning in the vast hinterland,  tore at the guts of the pioneers to stomach the overwhelming odds of settling the West.

        These wolves of the mind,  howling in the isolated blackness and blankness of the night, slashed and scratched at the hopes of the pioneers with a frightening, debilitating vengeance that philosopher Blaise Pascal called a devastating “nothingness.” Pascal observed:

 “All the unhappiness of men arises
from one single fact
that they cannot stay quietly
in their own chamber.

 ‘Nothing is so insufferable
to man as to be
completely at rest
without passions, without business,
without diversions, without study.
He then feels his nothingness, his weakness and his emptiness.”
      Continue reading →

Sharing a Bottle of Wine from the Podium

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to deliver the text of a speech more personally . Reading time: 1:48.

          You have a major speech to deliver. Your script is ready. But you’re not.

         wineYou hardly have time to read over your speech let alone rehearse it. And the last time you had to resort to reading your speech the old-fashioned way your monotone put half of the audience to sleep.

        To make matters worse, you know only too well that staring at TelePrompTer makes you look as robotic as you sound.

        But wait. There’s a better way to make sure your script isn’t showing.

        Hike up your script. Shorten it. Tighten it. Gather it. Beware of letting your script slip out beyond your control.

      Think of your speech not as words on paper but as so many thoughts bottled up within you over a long time, so many thoughts fermenting in the juices of your life’s experiences.

        Then share your bottle of thoughts from the podium with your audience.  Pour your thoughts out so poignantly and personally to your audience.  Embrace your script as you would a bottle of fine wine.  And read the text of your speech the way you would read a wine label:

       AT A GLANCE.

       Continue reading →

Set the Mood First Then Make Your Move

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhance your persuasive skills. Reading time: 2:44.

        Lovers know it. Would-be leaders forget it. And too many wanna-bees ignore it.

        vegetablesIt is foreplay of the business kind.

       It is the kind of leadership behavior that establishes a mood, ignites a dynamic and mutually satisfies any negotiation: from gaining buy-in for a merger to reprimanding a staffer to pitching a new account to buying fruits and vegetables.

        Yes. Even buying fruits and vegetables.

        Walk into any grocery store and you’ll immediately get a leadership lesson up front and center.

       The produce section—always positioned close to the entrance- is bathed in lights glistening in an array of orange, green and red colors. Spot lights beam everywhere like a Broadway production, shining on the oranges and grapefruits, cucumbers and tomatoes so intently you almost expect them to break out into a song and dance.

Luring You In

            The lights lure you in closer and closer. Almost seductively. You feel the smooth skin of a cucumber. You smell the enticing aroma of a banana. You feel the round, breast-like shape of an orange. The lights draw you in closer and closer and closer — until you can’t resist any longer. Your hands seemed to be automatically squeezing. Your mouth involuntarily sucking. Your hands automatically caressing  the fruits and vegetables. Then you find yourself giving those fruits and vegetables a ride in your grocery cart and finally home in your vehicle.   Continue reading →

Keeping Your Powder Dry: Up Close & Personal

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhanced your listening skills. Reading time: 2:54.

 

            A Eye_iris  “Don’t speak until you can see the whites in their eyes.”

             That could be the business leader’s equivalent of Colonel William Prescott’ s orders at the Battle of Bunker Hill : Don’t shoot until you see the whites in their eyes.”

          Indeed holding your tongue while getting physically closer to your complaining customers, to your competitive colleagues, to your demanding superiors, to your frustrated employees and/or to your dissatisfied stockholders etc. is critical.

        Don’t speak until you can first get close enough to listen to them clearly with a heightened awareness that makes your eyes — and their eyes– glisten.

         The closer you are, the more your ears — and their ears —will listen to each other; the more your eyes– and their eyes– will glisten with each other. Continue reading →