The Happiness Advantage

Worth investing 12:29 minutes of your time to watch this video. Whose up for the 21 day challenge?

For those who don't want to watch the video, here's the 'cheat sheet':
Create lasting positive change by incorporating the following into your day:

1. Three gratitudes
2. Journaling, write about one positive experience in the last 24 hours
3. Excercise
4. Meditation
5. Random Acts of kindness

BizConnect: Manners Matter

Here's my latest BizConnect contribution.

‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ are in most people’s vocabulary; yet tend to be the most under used words on a daily basis. Manners, using them are just common decency; not using it may tarnish how you are perceived and ultimately contribute to your reputation (bad or good!).

As an entrepreneur, it is about building relationships; people want to do business with people that they respect and trust. Four basic manners to keep in your artillery:

Say ‘please’: the other day I attended a meeting, the convenor of the meeting was all over the show darting off orders here and delegating there to help get the meeting room set up. During all the requests for assistance something struck me, not once during this time did they say please. Yes, you may say they were under pressure to get everything set up, however too busy to remember to say please? Personally I think they would have had a greater and quicker response rate from everyone if a ‘please’ was thrown into all of their requests.

Be grateful; a ‘thank you’ can mean a lot. Show gratitude when someone has done something for you; they have spent their valuable time doing something for you. I recently received a call from someone thanking me for a connection that I had made for them. This was totally out of the blue; I actually totally forgot that I had made the business introduction for them. For them to pick up the phone and to say thank you, means a lot. Now I know that it was appreciated, and will look for even more opportunities to link that person up with. There is a great quote by Zig Ziglar: 'The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for’.

RSVP for events. We’ve all done it; we’re all guilty of it! We RSVP for an event and totally forget to go; or forget to RSVP and still go; I call this the law of events. After a hiatus, we recently hosted one of our information sessions; I was again reminded of this (frustrating) ‘law’. I am more irked by those that don’t show up than those who do. As a host you invest your time and money into a venue, refreshments and putting a presentation together for a specific group of people. I think what frustrates me the most is often the waste of food when people don’t pitch.

Answering the phone: you recon a basic “hello?” will do, right? Afraid not.  It is incredibly frustrating when you phone someone or a company and you just get a “hello?”. This is especially important as an Entrepreneur; you are depended on those phone calls coming through to you, who knows it could be your next big sale. Make sure that the person that is calling you knows exactly who they are speaking to when you answer. Ideally, say the company’s name then your name; at a minimum, say your name. Make it easy for the person who took time to dial your number to know that they are through to the right company and person.

Manners are not difficult, it is about forming positive daily habits, which, with enough practice will become second nature to you, and contribute towards a positive way of how you are perceived.  

Which manners do you think people miss the mark on the most? 

To continue the reputation management conversation, join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters.

Do you have a reputation management question? Send your query through to Regine on: regine@reputationmatters.co.za

Leadership Magazine: Women in business, authenticity through balance

August 2016 edition: I recently attended an interesting information sharing session about community upliftment programmes and the priority areas different organisations focussed on.  The facilitator of the session mentioned something incredibly important that stuck with me; it’s all good and well that there are so many social projects helping girls and young women, and everyone knows we need these projects. However, the question is what will happen to the boys and young men in the long term if they aren’t also equally prioritised?

The important lesson here is that there needs to be balance in everything. If you are going to be focussing too much on one area, then inevitably another area is going to be neglected. This is also so true for when you invest and build your organisation’s reputation.

With it being Women’s Month, there is a lot of focus on women and their role in the workplace. However, when it comes to building reputations, it is something which both men and women contribute to, positively or negatively.  

It’s important to keep things real in the workplace, regardless of your gender. The truth is, a reputation is built on authenticity.

Stereotyping stereotypes: It’s unfortunate that in this day and age, and depending on the industry, some women do still feel that they need to think and behave in a certain way to move up the corporate ladder. But by doing so, they ignore their true feminine selves and often downplay feminine traits, which also have a key place in the business.

There is this terrible catch 22 situation: women who display typical male traits (like assertiveness, independence and competitiveness) are considered bossy, cold and aggressive, while their male counterparts are respected for these traits (which, interestingly, are also generally accepted leadership traits).

Conversely, women who display typical female traits like compassion, inclusiveness and warmth, are often overlooked as leaders, while men in business who are warm and empathetic are lauded for these characteristics.

It reminds me of an interesting experiment that was conducted by Stanford Graduate Business School professor Frank Flynn, who tested perceptions of gender with his class. He adapted a case study about an entrepreneur named Heidi Roizen. Half his class was given the original case study, while the case study given to the other half was simply tweaked so that the name of the subject was Howard Roizen. Professor Flynn asked his students to rate their impressions of Heidi/Howard, with fascinating results. Howard was generally very well perceived by the students, while Heidi was considered aggressive, selfish and unlikeable; many students said they wouldn’t hire her or work for her.

Everyone has something to bring to the table:  For me, the case study above raises the question of female authenticity in the workplace; how do we remain true to ourselves as women, while at the same time being persuasive and powerful leaders? I do realise that the best way to succeed is not to try and do it on your own, or try to be someone that you are not; it’s about working together as a team and leveraging off each other’s strengths. Regardless of your gender, race or creed; you will have core skills, behaviours and attributes that make you unique, and that will complement the skills, behaviours and attributes of your colleagues. It’s all about seeing how best to make it work together.

Embrace your own strengths: As women, we need to embrace our own strengths and recognise that the different genders bring very different attributes, both positive and negative, to the workplace. These differences need to be honoured and leveraged for the overall success of the business. We should not try to emulate what we are not.

Ultimately it’s all about balance: As mentioned earlier, when it comes to building a reputation, it’s all about balance. Too much focus on one area will cause you to neglect another key area, which will impact the overall perception and resultant reputation of your business. Strong teams know how to utilise their members’ strongest and best qualities to the benefit of the entire team. Reputation is built on a solid foundation and this can only be achieved if all the building blocks are in place and everyone works together in harmony.

To continue the reputation management conversation, join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters.

Leadership lessons from a dancing guy

A great illustration of leadership and the importance of that first follower. 

Disappointed. Not defeated.

Yes, I am rather disappointed that I did not win the Businesswomen's Association's Regional Business Achiever Award. It would have been really wonderful to be recognised for all the hard work that we do. Having developed a unique reputation measurement tool, managing a high performing team, writing a book, hosting an international reputation conference, and running my first marathon while juggling all of this was clearly not enough, or what the judges were looking for. Be that as it may, it is what it is.

I do still feel like a winner and here's my winning speech:

Thank you to my Mom for all her support and guidance; my mom visited me for the first time in many years, this in itself is a huge win for me. Thank you to my rock and partner Mark for all of his support. (A side note, Mark does not do social gatherings, so he even donned a suit for the occasion, which meant a huge amount; another win!). To my amazing team, thank you! Without them, we couldn't do what we do. (Having my Cape Town team with me, and the Johannesburg team sharing their support throughout the day really meant a lot; their hard work and dedication makes everything that we do possible. I really wanted to win it for them more than anything else. The beautiful huge bunch of flowers in my office from them really touched me, and puts a smile on my face every time I see and smell it). A big thank you to our wonderful clients, thank you for entrusting your reputations with us. Thank you to Margaret Hirsch for nominating me. Thank you to the BWA for creating the platform to recognise dynamic, successful businesswomen. Thank you to all the sponsors for the amazing prizes! Through the process, I have met the most incredible people.

One of the key lessons I learnt, is that our unique selling proposition (USP), isn't quite what it should be, seeing that our offering was referred to as 'PR' when our service was explained as part of a promotion that the BWA are running. Also, if I am 100% honest, I don't think the video quite captured what we do as succinctly as it could have. It's back to the drawing board for me to get our messages refined.

So, even though I did not win, I walked away incredibly enriched and grateful for the whole experience.