Vision, Mission, and Values Part 3: Creating a Mission Statement
In my last post, I shared a process for creating a vision for your organization. What type of world do you want to create? If everything goes right, the vision will be the final result of all your efforts. I referred to this as the mountain you want to climb. Now that you are clear […]
Vision, Mission, and Values Part 2: Creating a Vision
When you ask yourself, “What mountain do we want to climb?” What you are really asking is, “What big problem would we love to solve?” Or, “What kind of world would we love to live in?” If everything went right over the next 1, 3, 5, or 10 years, what would you have solved through […]
How To Run A Strategy Retreat For Your Organization
It didn’t take long for the celebratory election smiles to fade to confusion and fear as we realized we didn’t know what we would do for the next 12 months. Six people, including myself, were elected into leadership positions in our local National Speaker’s Association chapter. We accepted our new task of running the chapter […]
You Need To Ask To Increase Engagement
Every hand in the room was in the air. I knew the number would be high, but I didn’t expect it to be 100%! At a recent leadership program I ran at Gannon University, I asked the current campus leaders how many are in a leadership position because someone asked them to take on the […]
Dirty Marketing: The Negative Impact of Mixing Marketing with Relationship Building in Business Communities
It felt like he had just dropped a dirty towel into our perfectly purified community, and it didn’t sit right with me or anyone else in the group. As a forum moderator for a community of business owners, I facilitate peer groups for members to learn and grow from each other. For example, one section […]
Three Effective Ways to Increase Productivity and Focus in Meetings
I felt naked without my cell phone next to me during the meeting. As I entered the room for our two-hour meeting, someone greeted me with a briefcase filled with cell phones. I was told that everyone was required to place their cell phone into the briefcase before entering the room. My first reaction was, […]
Who Makes The First Impression in Your Community?
“Mo!!!” Everyone in the room yelled in unison. Of course, everyone knew instantly who I was talking about, but all I said was, “The security guard out front is great!” Mo is the security guard at the main entrance to Seton Hall University. He is the first person that everyone meets and greets as they […]
Engagement Is A Process, Don’t Push It
I never thought knowledge about plastic recycling would be the reason to get more engaged. Those who know me now may find it hard to believe that I hardly participated in any school-sponsored events before college. I was the student who ignored or declined pretty much every extracurricular activity. I thought that was something “those” […]
Celebrating E-Board Members Increases Engagement And Retention
I never thought putting numbers into an excel doc would win me an award, but that’s what happens when you do the job no one else wants. For the past two years, I sat on the executive board of the NYC National Speakers Association. By the time I joined the board, the only position left […]
Growing a Community is Never Passive
What started as the magic ingredient needed to save their community became a logistical nightmare. Through a mutual connection, the head of a large community of e-commerce sellers invited me to lunch. The purpose of the meeting was to see if we could help them buck their negative member retention rates. The organization had steadily […]