Keep Your Career on the Tracks

90% of communication occurs silently.

So many people don't understand this, which is why we often see careers derail like a speeding train, full of passengers, ideas, and dreams. Everything inside is destroyed.

Naturally we don't want that to happen to us. 

What we read, what we watch, the people with whom we associate, the organizations to which we belong, the neighborhood in which we reside, the clothing we wear . . . everything we do and say, in other words, sends a message about who we are.  Outfluence identifies this form of communication as Constant Messaging®.

One aspect of Constant Messaging® involves sensory gateways and how they function in communication.  As individuals approach us at a network gathering we first observe their general appearance, and we make a judgment.  Then as they get closer, we see their facial expressions, and we make a judgment.  The final gateway is the greeting, when we hear and possibly experience their handshake, and we make a judgment.  We often know at the conclusion of the sensory gateway process whether this initial meeting will develop into a relationship.

Other components of Constant Messaging® are active and passive listening, message interpretation including bias in interpretation, feedback, barriers to communication, intentional and unintentional messaging, and more. 

Kay Betz, MBA, is a recognized expert in the subject of Constant Messaging®.  It has been a part of her curriculum as adjunct faculty at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland for the past 20 years.  On September 27th, 2016, Kay will be a Featured Speaker at the Outfluence Fall Workshop Series. 

Her presentation yields necessary communication tools to ensure that your career and your business stay on the tracks to success.

Register today atwww.outfluence.com/fallworkshop.     

(Three mornings - 9/27, 10/12, 10/27 - Westminster Conference Center, Westminster, MD.) 

From Survival to Revival: Second Chances

Imagine you have awakened from a deep sleep that lasted 5 years or more.  Your home is gone because the rent or the mortgage was unpaid.  Your job is gone because your employer couldn't wait for you.  Your career is gone because technology has taken it.  Your family has separated from you.  Your friends have moved on.  You have no one to go to.  You are in the same location as you were when you fell asleep, but the landscape has changed.  You have not changed.  You have not advanced sufficiently in knowledge, skill or experience to compete in the world.  You have nothing.

What do you do?  You are here . . . Now What?  

As I learned over the weekend, men and women exiting from lengthy prison sentences often experience the reality described above.  As a result, 50% or more of former offenders are recidivists: they offend again, and they are returned to that deep sleep.  Of the former offenders who do find employment after release from prison, 80% of them don't last in the job.  Why?  They lack the soft skills.  They don't know how to work with others, they don't respond well to authority, they communicate poorly.  They return to their former life, they commit crime, they return to prison.

It costs you and me, the taxpayers, approximately $35,000 annually to house an inmate.  One inmate.  And there are millions of inmates.  Very few inmates are rehabilitated in prison.  One reason is because the prisons are dominated by gangs that control inmates, and sometimes the prison employees as well.  To be fair, there are programs in the prison system that do attempt to educate the prison population.  There are also programs in the community that support offenders upon their release.  But the programs only scratch the surface of the need.

The disturbing bottom line is that nonviolent offenders are incarcerated with violent offenders and they, too, become violent.  Then they are released back into society and their impact on our neighborhoods is worse than it was before they were incarcerated.  It is an endless cycle of human carnage and community pain.  

Fortunately, in Maryland, there is a light beginning to shine ever so faintly at the end of the tunnel.  A program called Day-Reporting is being developed.  It recently was funded and it has the support of Maryland's Governor Hogan.  Many eyes around the state and beyond are on this program.  Here is my understanding of how it will work:  offenders who are convicted of a nonviolent crime and are sentenced to 18 months or less of incarceration will be sent, or have the option to be sent, to the Day-Reporting program where they will report every day for 12 hours of skills training and education and employment.  The remainder of the day, the offender will be on his own.  He will have to arrange for housing and meals and essentially create a home life.  The time on his own will be challenging because at this point in his life he is starting over with nothing - no money, no experience, few if any friends, very little if any family support.

A program called Gatekeepers is located in Hagerstown, Maryland.  Its Founder and Director, Bill Gaertner, a former offender, recognized the need for someone to be waiting at the prison gate to support men and women after they have paid their debt to society and are searching for a way to transition back into society successfully.  Mr. Gaertner is doing remarkable work and Outfluence is exploring ways to help him. 

Everybody deserves a legitimate second chance.   

---

---

Tendencies are Your Silent Communicators

"William McGirt, you just won the Memorial Tournament, your first win on the PGA Tour.  How did you do it?"

"Well, I've been close several times before.  I recognized that my tendency was to speed up when under pressure.   So this week I focused on slowing things down."

We learn so much from the experiences of others.  If we listen carefully, little nuggets like "tendencies under pressure" resonate loudly.  Tendencies to speed up are the result of lack of confidence, inadequate preparation, insufficient knowledge of a subject, inexperience and other reasons.  But I believe those four are the primary reasons why we tend to speed up when we are under pressure.

I remember early in my public speaking days I tended to speak very quickly.  In my mind I tended to speak quickly because I had so much information to share, I was afraid I couldn't fit it into the time allotted.  Really it was poor preparation. 

Tendencies are great teachers.  One of the things they teach us is that failure is the result of doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.  In my case, after speaking publicly and not feeling good about the result, I spoke to some experts on the topic of public speaking, specifically about my concern, and they coached me to overcome my tendency. 

Sometimes we just need the perspective of an outsider, an uninvolved third party, someone emotionally detached from the situation to look at what we are doing and voice an opinion.  A good business coach will teach the principles of Constant Messaging© and Silent Communication from the perspective of the receiver as well as the sender which may uncover those tendencies before they cause more failure. 

A business mentor once told me that when negotiating the wise negotiator will make a statement and then sit silently.  The weak adversary will tend to feel the need to fill the air with words.  Chances are he or she will reveal something in that moment that the savvy negotiator can use strategically later.  Maybe what is revealed is simply the tendency to react too quickly. 

So much happens in silent moments. 

---

---

How did our Program for High Schools Begin?

You Are Here ...Now What?, Outfluence's premiere program for high school students, has been part of the Anne Arundel County school system for five years. In this video, our co-founder, Kay Betz, sits down with Ms. Linda Lamon, South River High School's Signature Program Facilitator, to discuss the history and philosophy behind the program.

---

Perspective From Higher Ground: Business and Problem Solving

I remember as a kid always talking to ankles and knees when an adult approached to greet me.  And then there was that awkward look up to try to see his or her face.  As an adult I'm sensitive to that moment, so I bend down to get at eye level with a youngster. 

Recently I visited the Gettysburg Battlefields and I felt a little bit of that looking at the ankles feeling as I looked at the base of large trees that surround portions of the grounds. 

As we got to Cemetery Hill, we found ourselves atop the tree line, overlooking the battlefield, and what happened there became very clear.

As I reflected on the moment later, it got me thinking about how some of us conduct business today.  You know ... a few years ago the "big thing" movement  in business was to think outside the box.  The battle cry was if you want to advance in your career, don't do what you've always done.  That will just get you what it's always gotten you.  You must think outside the boxif you want to move your business forward.  So, business men and women began to look increasingly to technology for creativity in leadership and for new ideas in communication and in management.  And now as we move to higher ground and we review where thinking outside the box has led us, we find that what's happening outside the box isn't all good, and in some significant areas.

For example, communication has grown exponentially digitally.  Voice mail, email, text messaging, video conferencing, while great tools, have left younger entrants into the business world lacking in face-to-face communication skills.  Leadership sometimes delivers bad news digitally, coldly, mercilessly to save difficult face-to-face moments.  Teamwork is conducted in less than a civil manner often initiated by carelessly crafted e-mails.  Here are some other thoughts about outside-the-box thinking. 

A website called Lateral Action states,"The research evidence suggests that thinking outside the box fails to produce the expected creative solution. And far from being a hindrance, past experience and training can actually be the key to creative problem-solving."

So, before you think outside the box to create new solutions to age-old problems in business, take a look from a higher perspective.   Like experience maybe?  Training is a good idea, too.  It just so happens that Outfluence is conducting a 3-part series this Fall in Westminster, Maryland that will address this question:  What did we leave behind when we began thinking outside the box?  Visit Outfluence.com in a few weeks when we will begin publishing information about the series.  It begins in September.

View fullsize

This event occurred in the Fall of 2016.

---

Will Robots Need the Soft Skills, Too?

I read an article this morning about robotics.  It is estimated that 30% of the workforce in Europe will be replaced in the next 20 years.  The United States will face the charge of the robotics brigade, too.  A number of restaurants are already considering the move to robotic servers.  Even lawyers are not immune to robotics entering their world.  This article will tell you more.  You can also find it here,  http://bit.ly/1YZ3zUa.

If and when this move to robotics occurs in what I call the regular workplace, in other words the middle class, opportunities for humans may become limited, and those opportunities that are available will demand ever-increasing amounts of skills.  No longer will humans be able to climb the ladder from entry level positions to higher-paying positions over a number of years.  In the future humans will need to advance their skills and look sideways for advancement.  This will require excellent communication skills and inspired performance every day. 

I listened to the McDonald's robot accepting a service order from a customer.  The robot was polite and helpful, and even had a smile on its face.  The robot's designers seem to have built into the robot soft skills very often found lacking in their human counterparts.  I must say I was pretty impressed by what I was seeing from this early version.  What could possibly be next?

My grandchildren, your grandchildren, and possibly some of your children will be facing robotic competitors in their workplace.  Some humans are already sharing the workplace with robots.  The jobs the robots take will likely be gone from human attainment forever.  So where does that leave us?  It leaves us with a highly technical, very competitive workforce.  Skills such as effective communication of all kinds - oral, silent, written, body language - and inspired performance that gains an advantage for its practitioner - as well as the Outfluence form of teamwork called The Silent Storm will be sought after by employers.  The unprepared, uncaring, disinterested employees of today will not, are not now, being tolerated.  The move is afoot to change.  

Many park benches, seaside lounges and oceanfront arcades will be filled with unemployed citizens who ignored the call to action this article is calling for.  It's time to train yourself and your young family members communication and performance skills that will be needed to compete in the years ahead.  Outfluence is offering community-based small group training to help you prepare for the changes that are arriving as you read this article.  Contact us attraining@outfluence.com for additional information.

10 Old Ideas, For a New Generation

 

Stay close to your family. Silent communication principles of Outfluence can help to translate family dynamics before emotions get in the way. Silence is not just nothingness. There is meaning in silence. Stay close to family situations by learning to read silence.

Read often.  Reading=knowledge=perspective=understanding=opportunity.

Make a friend. Smile, extend your hand, say hello.

Dream and pursue. Positive aspirations underwritten by strong belief and supported by hard work will bring dreams to fruition.

Respect your country. Perfection doesn’t live here but you and I do. Love, fight for, and respect your country and its citizens. Put your country and your neighbors first.

Build your foundation. Outfluence principles enable you to develop the intellectual, physical, and emotional strength to create a vision for your life and then build that life for you and for those you love. Stabilize your life by building a strong foundation.

Mentor someone. Use your life experiences to ignite another person’s passions.

Be a positive force. You reap what you sow.

Inspire your performance. “Be so good that they can’t ignore you.” - Steve Martin

Have faith. Believe that Outfluence behaviors and principles will energize your life and the lives of those around you.

---