Consciousness and Golf or You vs Your Self-Image

Posted June 15th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under Professional Development.

Golf is an ideal environment to examine your self-image in full operational mode. It is a slow game that gives you time between shots to hear the voices in your head. (Don’t worry, it happens to everyone.) It may tell you to use a 7 iron when the “book” play is to use a 5. Or it may say you should lay up short with a 3 wood rather than blasting your driver. The question is, is this inner dialogue supporting or sabotaging your next shot? To a great extent, being successful at golf correlates to managing these thoughts and coaching yourself to success.

It is likely that at work, since speed and urgency dominate, you don’t hear that inner dialogue. It’s still there, you’re just not conscious of it. But just as in golf, success as a leader/manager correlates to understanding and supporting yourself (INCLUDING your inner dialogue). On the golf course, you have the time to hear your inner voice and gear your intellect to success. On the job, it is imperative you do the same and not let your ongoing ego sabotage the results you want.

Awareness is the factor I am advocating here. The golf course, work, life… what I am suggesting is that by gaining a stronger awareness of yourself, you will open possibilities that you could not see before.

How?

You do this by using a structured process that, over time, allows you to better understand yourself. Then you begin the process of self-awareness and acceptance. You also learn how to support yourself wisely. By using this model, life changes and your performance on the job can substantially improve.

How we can help

Check out a program we have worked on for years. It is a systematic, structured approach that, as you practice, will help you gain insight into yourself. This will enable you to build your awareness skills and, most importantly, support yourself and your team well.

If interested, visit 10 Step Leadership Program and ask for a free, one-hour session to explore the possibility of improving your performance and, perhaps as a side benefit, transforming your life too.

P.S. When on the green, a foot from the pin, what club do you use? Obviously the putter is the right tool, the wise choice. When at work as a leader/manager you also need to choose your tools wisely. Do you know how to do that?

P.P.S. See supplemental related articles.

Free Offer:

One free, individual session to discuss your self-image and how it affects where you are, where you want to go and what support you truly need. The first three golfers who call for a phone or face-to-face session get a free invitation to golf with John. Contact Us Today.

Posted June 9th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under DISC.

Many businesses already see the value in assessing their employees’ personalities and behaviors with a DISC profile. But many forgo these assessments and the many benefits they add to their business because they simply don’t understand what a DISC profile is. Let’s take a closer look at what exactly goes into a DISC profile and how the assessment describes an individual’s behavior.

The assessment tool is based on a model created by William Molton Marston, a respected lawyer and psychologist, and it looks at four key factors to help describe an individual’s behavior traits. Marston is also credited with creating the world’s first polygraph lie detector test. The model is used to identify traits such as the following:

• Achiever	• Developer	• Persuader
• Agent	• Inspirational	• Practitioner
• Appraiser	• Investigator	• Promoter
• Counselor	• Objective thinker	• Result-oriented
• Creative	• Perfectionist	• Specialist

Emotions of Normal People

Plato wrote that the first and best victory is to conquer self. But the problem is that your employees can’t hope to conquer themselves without first knowing themselves. By using the DISC assessment tool, leaders will be able to more effectively manage their employees and set goals and challenges that better reflect individual personalities and aptitude. For example, imagine the ineptitude of casting an employee who leans more toward the creative side in a sales position (instead of a persuader/promoter).

The aforementioned traits are largely derived from his book titled Emotions of Normal People, in which he claimed that people express their emotions and feelings through four main behaviors including dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. The following are some common behaviors within these four categories.

Dominance – focuses on results and the bottom line, confident
1. Can see the big picture
2. Usually direct and communicates with candor
3. Relishes challenges
4. Doesn’t beat around the bushes

Influence – persuades others and prefers open communication and strong relationships
1. Has an enthusiastic behavior
2. Typically very optimistic
3. Works well in teams and collaborates effectively
4. Doesn’t want to be ignored

Steadiness – sincere, dependable, and cooperates well with others
1. Dislikes fast deadlines and being rushed
2. Calm mannerisms
3. Relaxed approach to problem solving
4. Supports others and shows humility

Compliance – competent and prefers to be accurate
1. Prefers to be independent
2. Detail oriented
3. Objective reasoning
4. Is afraid of being wrong

Furthermore, a person’s emotional behavior is heavily influenced by two main factors. First of all, people are influenced by their environment and whether or not they view that environment as favorable. Second of all, a person is influenced by their perceived degree of control within that environment.

The assessment tool helps uncover and identify combinations of these traits to describe a complex behavior. By understanding behavior types, strengths, and weaknesses, an organization will be able to increase teamwork, productivity, and internal processes.

Seeking Assistance

It’s one thing to identify and admire brilliantly designed business cultures, but an entirely different matter to create one. For help developing your business culture, contact John M. Ruh and Associates.

Posted June 6th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under DISC.

By: John Ruh

1Vision-Graphic
A research white paper done by Bill J. Bonnstetter, Dave Bonnstetter and Ron Bonnstetter, PhD examines 10 different countries and their DISC profile makeup. They sampled between 1,000 and 74,000 people per country and charted the percentages of the disc profile population statistics that fall into the D, I, S, or C profile categories. This disc profile report can show you how the United States DISC profiles have changed over the last 20 years.

DISC Stats 2017 DISC statistics were derived by using a massive database composed of hundreds of thousands of human behavioral reports representing over 90 countries. To better understand the process used, and the uniqueness identified from this data, the survey producer started with 322,446 people. The data from each country was scrutinized from a random sample of between 1,000 and 74,000. Each person made 96 decisions while completing a behavioral assessment based on the DISC behavioral model (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance). In 24 questions where they ranked their decisions from 1 to 4, with 1 being “most like me” and 4 being “least like me.” This resulted in over 31 million decisions made by people in the U.S.

DISC Profiles at Your Company

Has your staff completed their DISC profiles? We can chart out the breakdown of D, I, S, and C disc profile statistics and behavioral differences within your company. We use this data to discuss your leadership style and how your behavior impacts/improves teamwork, productivity, and decreases conflict. Let us know by checking the “Yes I’d like to know more about a free Disc profile in the form below. Or Contact Darlene Ruh for more information at 773-775-6636 or email Darlene@johnruh.com.

Fill out the fields below and we will send you the whitepaper that examines behavioral assessments of 10 different countries.

DISC is A behavioral tool that helps people recognize their own behavioral strengths and weaknesses along with those of others. It is particularly effective at helping you better understand and communicate with people whose style you find difficult. It can be used in managing, marketing, coaching, team building, sales and recruiting.

Posted April 26th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under Leadership.

Customers Are Your Only Source of Job Security

From New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World

By Price Pritchett

Your security and that of your company depends on how valuable you are to your company’s customers. The better you serve them, the better you protect your career.

This heightens the importance of knowing precisely who these people are. You need an in-depth feel for your targeted market. What do your customers do, and how do you fit into the picture? What are their needs? What does it take to please them? How can you contribute to their success?

Sharpen your insights into your personal “marketplace,” and you’ll see exactly what you should do to make yourself indispensable.

Keep in mind that there are both internal and external customers. You may deal directly with each type, but let’s focus on whom you’re supposed to serve inside the organization. It may be some other department, several people in your own functional area, or just your direct supervisor. Maybe you’ve always thought of them as coworkers, or as people you work with rather than for. But make no mistake — these are your clients and customers.

Too often we don’t stop and think about the full implications of this. We more or less take our jobs for granted, and that’s a risky way to run a career.

Unless you take pains to provide the best possible service, and do so in a competitive market place (i.e., salary), you’ll find it hard to keep customers. They’ll replace you with a better service provider. In essence, somebody else will “steal your business.”

The more you allow your service to go soft, the greater the odds you could end up in some downsizing statistics. Or, the organization might simply decide to outsource your work, to farm it out to some other firm that specializes in doing what you do. More than likely, you’re actually in competition with external providers who offer the same service, whether you realize it or not. Question is, who will provide the best bargain, you or somebody else?

You must get close — intimately close — to your customers. Seek regular, direct contact with them. Build a strong relationship. Deliver the highest quality service possible. Anticipate their needs, and develop a reputation for responsiveness.

In the final analysis, customers are your only source of job security.

This chapter was written by Price Pritchett in New Work Habits For A Radically Changing World. It isn’t often I am as impacted by an author as I was by this book. I suggest you order a copy (1-800-992-5922, www.pritchettnet.com) and circulate this article to your staff. Call me if serving your internal and external customers is a belief you want reinforced at your firm. We have a simple yet effective process to use to ensure this belief is understood, accepted and acted upon.

Posted April 13th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under Business Culture.

Joe Madden on Culture

By: John Ruh

Joe Madden (the 54th manager of the Chicago Cubs), wrote over 30 years ago about the power of the right culture. His leadership is about compassion, creativity and a positive, “we can, we will” attitude. He has a vision (embrace the target is the phrase he uses) and a context that says we can and will get there. He is not afraid of going outside the nine dots. He strongly encourages people to experiment and not be afraid of making mistakes. He also claims to be an expert at the art of doing nothing. “I really enjoy that,” he said. “I didn’t have enough chance to do nothing last offseason. I want more of an opportunity to do nothing, and I mean that in a positive way. When you get this downtime, to be able to do nothing well, that’s my goal.” (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/ct-joe-maddon-cubs–spt-0331-20160330-column.html)

Some Quotes from Joe Maddon

“The players don’t have to be the first ones there or the last ones to leave. That has nothing to do with winning. Zero.”
“Don’t ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure.”
“Attitude is a decision.”
“Rules can’t take the place of character.”
“I don’t want my players afraid of making mistakes.”
“Everybody is so different. So the issue is where they all get to know one another.”
“If I’m honest with you, you might not like me for a day or two. But if I lid to you, you’re going to hate me forever.”
“When we have our organizational meetings, we don’t just talk about numbers, we talk about agenda. About each player we ask – what is his agenda – is it himself or the team?”
“You have to have a little bit of crazy to be successful,” Maddon said. “I want crazy in the clubhouse every day. You need to be crazy to be great. I love crazy. I tell my players that all the time.”

Suggested Next Step

Create a powerful vision and context for yourself, your department, your company.

Our Support

We will do a one-time, free session with you. We can show a powerful DVD on The Power of Vision, do a session on: Context, Commitment and Responsibility or do a workshop on: No Space/No Time = No Innovation.

Posted April 7th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under Chicago Business Consultant.

Most often in life, the hardest part of any challenge is just getting started. The age old adage says that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but before you embark on your journey towards improving your business, you’d better make sure you are headed in the right direction. And everyone seems to be constantly asking themselves the same question. How on earth does a leader improve their business? It’s such an open ended question that many are left chasing one idea after another, only hoping that something will work. Instead of sinking in a quagmire of indecision because you have too many options, consider the following proven ways to start improving your business for the rest of this year.

Creating a Plan for the Future

If your company lacks a business plan, one of the first things you can do to improve your business is to chart out a path for the future. Central to the idea of business planning is goal setting, and not having plans and goals for the future is an invitation for the competition to mop the floor with your business. This is a good place for most businesses to start, and it is absolutely essential to analyze the previous year’s business plan to see what worked and what didn’t. By focusing on areas that bore the most fruit and pruning away endeavors that were futile, your business will already have a head start for the coming year.

Finding the Pain Points

You can’t ever hope to solve a problem unless you can identify it in the first place. Part of what separates good organizations from great organizations isn’t only knowing where their strengths lie, but also their weaknesses. One of the simplest and most effective ways of identifying internal pain points is to open up a channel of communication between leadership personnel and employees through employee surveys. Often times leaders miss pain points that can be identified with employee surveys because they aren’t present in the trenches in their day-to-day work life.

Improve Leadership Skills

Leaders are central to the success or failure of any business, and leaders of your organization need to make sure they are doing everything in their power to constantly improve. Even if your leaders are confident and competent, there is always room for improvement. Just about every business stands to gain value from business leadership plans, training, and development, but too many forgo the opportunity because they’re too busy. However, leadership personnel who aren’t reaching their potential can negatively affect your bottom line.

Seeking Assistance

Taking action to improve your business is no easy task. All too often, the largest hurdle is knowing where to start. Instead of meandering through the next quarter without a clearly defined plan for improvement, contact John M. Ruh and Associates. Specialized consultation is only a phone call away, and we want to help your business reach its goals.

Posted March 9th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under Business Leadership.

We’ve all heard it a thousand times: planning is key to success. The same holds true for leaders in your organization, and given that leaders’ influence scales to affect large numbers of subordinates, it only makes sense that the lack of a leadership plan could be harming the efficiency and effectiveness of your organization, wasting time and valuable resources to take you further from your goals. But what exactly is a business leadership plan, and why do businesses in Chicago need them so desperately?

A business leadership plan is essentially the sum of all your endeavors to sharpen the leaders of your organization to improve their performance. Some of the most crucial components of a viable plan include helping leaders understand their own behavioral strengths and weaknesses, improving communication between leaders and subordinates, and fostering a support system that improves efficiency by increasing self-management instead of reliance on micromanagement. Let’s take a closer look at different leadership development tools and programs and how they can benefit the leaders of your organization.

The DISC Tool

People are like snowflakes in the sense that no two are exactly the same. While there are many common personality traits among individuals, leaders can’t hope to effectively manage teams and resources without understanding what makes them tick. There is no single way of attacking every challenge, and understanding people’s social, emotional and personality differences will help create more effective leadership. However, understand that the DISC assessment is not a measure of a person’s intelligence, education, or values. It is simply an objective way to determine styles of behavior. Once an individual understands their strengths and weaknesses, they can improve their leadership.

The Ruh Advanced Leadership Model

All too often, people fail to learn from their mistakes because they don’t have an accurate understanding of their core competencies and flaws. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results with each repetition. Fortunately, the Ruh Advanced Leadership Model will help leaders understand their skills, traits, and other aspects of their core being with clarity, to avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Once an individual understands their limitations and areas where they excel, only then can a personalized plan be crafted to take advantage of personal strengths and minimize issues caused by personal weaknesses.

The Wheel Planning and Continuous Improvement Program

Once key leaders understand how they can improve, it becomes possible to create a business plan that aligns the company’s goals with smaller, bite-sized departmental goals. No leader or employee will ever be 100% perfect, making constant improvement a necessity. Leaders will never be able to effectively manage employees unless they have a communication channel to gather feedback to understand how their employees are performing. Your leaders and employees need to be in a state of continuous improvement to keep up with the competition, and to make sure that you are moving closer towards your business goals instead of straying down the path of failure.

Seeking Assistance

If you need assistance developing a business leadership plan, contact John M. Ruh and Associates. We have helped countless clients in the past improve the effectiveness of their leadership, and we can help you, too.

Posted March 7th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under Business Culture.

What is Corporate Culture?

What is corporate culture?

There is no one answer. If you get 50 business people in a room and ask them that question, you will get 50 different answers. That is the heart of the problem of talking about company culture. It’s clear as mud.

You’ve said you don’t think any company should use the term culture. Why?

People hearing this term put their own spin on the meaning of it and often it’s not what the speaker had in mind. This often ends with people thinking they’re in agreement when they’re not. It’s confusing!

What would you call it instead?

I believe you should speak in terms of the vision, goals, mission and values. Your company has, and the corresponding behavior you expect. Your modus operandi. Call it “Your way of doing business.” Your “game plan.”

How do you figure out what “Your Way of Doing Business” is?

You need to take time to thoroughly understand what’s important to your business and where you want to go. You also need someone who comprehends vision and values and knows how to put Your Way of Doing Business into a written format that all your employees can understand.

Why do it?

As a leader it is your job to clarify what is important (how your game is played). How can people complete in any game if they don’t understand the rules, the outcome and what is important to you as the coach?

How do you make employees aware of this?

Once you define your way of doing business, you can put it into a formal document we call your game plan for both new and existing employees. Then it becomes an ongoing issue of training employees on the concept.

How do you find people who fit in to “Your Way of Doing Business”?

By interviewing people based first and foremost on vision and values alignment. If their vision, goals and values and don’t align with yours, their other qualifications don’t matter. They won’t fit into your company.

How do you do that?

That’s a whole other topic. For information on finding people who fit in to “Your Way of Doing Business”, contact us and we will refer a recruiting specialist.

Call or email your questions/thoughts and let’s discuss this subject.

John M. Ruh and Associates partners with growth oriented leaders at creating the support they truly need so their vision, goals, mission and values are alive and well.

Posted March 4th, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under Accepting and Supporting Yourself Right, Understanding.

A Special Event for ADVANCED LEADERS

You’re Skilled at Your Craft … Now is the Time to Become a More Skilled Leader

Using this model and your natural leadership style, you can develop into the leader you want to be.

Who:

Designed for Advanced Leaders who are committed to developing themselves and others and who understand that leadership is about partnering, supporting and empowering others, not just individual performance.

What

You’ll

Learn:

Learn the essence of The Power of the Right Self Image and Psycho-Cybernetics, written by the internationally renowned author Maxwell Maltz.
Start identifying your existing self-beliefs and how they are helping or hurting you.
Learn to create context and beliefs that support your vision rather than sabotage it.
Discover a model for mastering your craft, as well as a proven process for understanding, accepting and supporting yourself.

Private

Session:

A 2.5 hour session at your office or a hotel, at a time you choose.
For John Ruh’s existing monthly clients, an investment of $600 + food and any applicable hotel costs.
All others $1,200 + food and any applicable hotel costs.

Facilitators

Tracy Laverty

Tracy Laverty (Laverty Consulting) is an experienced business coach, corporate trainer and facilitator. She works with business leaders to be leaders whom people want to work with and to follow; communicate from an authentic and centered place; develop a path for what is next in their growth and professional goals; and create a balance between their personal and professional goals.

John Ruh

John Ruh is a serial entrepreneur who has made a lifelong study of business culture ad its impact on people and organizations. He has started, grown and sold three companies and is the founder of John M. Ruh and Associates, which partners with leaders to create the support they truly need so their vision, mission and values are alive and well.

John M. Ruh

john@johnruh.com

773.775.6636

John M. Ruh and Associates partners with growth oriented leaders to create the support they truly need so their vision, goals, mission and values are alive and well.

Give us a call and learn more today!

Posted March 1st, 2016 by John Ruh & filed under IS PERFECTIONISM A FATAL DISEASE?.

IS PERFECTIONISM A FATAL DISEASE?

By John Ruh

A true story:

I was a young entrepreneur and had just sold my first business when I met a woman named Carole DeBerre (she helped transform my life). She once told me, “Perfectionism is a fatal disease.” Given that I was a highly driven entrepreneur committed to perfectionism, I thought SHE was crazy. Fast forward several months: after working with Carole, joining my first real peer group and forming some clarity on the distinction between excellence and perfection, I suddenly understood what she meant! This knowledge helped me tremendously in starting, growing, managing and selling my subsequent businesses. I am indebted to her.

What is the point of this story? Actually there are: 3 POINTS

Excellence is different from PERFECTIONISM.

They may look similar but no one ever achieves perfection. As a perfectionist you are always incomplete or the job is “not good enough.” (Sound familiar?)

It is demoralizing to others if you only acknowledge that which is missing.

This is something a perfectionist does often. And, in failing to recognize what has been accomplished, you run the risk of creating an environment which only talks about what needs to be done. For most security and quality people this creates an atmosphere that actually demotivates them. All human beings need recognition for their efforts and achievements.

MOST people are motivated more by how they feel than by what they know.

You want to make sure the people you impact “feel” like they are winners and NOT like they are incomplete all the time. You don’t have to lower your standards to do that. You just need a better paradigm that includes an on-going individual, departmental and company review system that acknowledges efforts and accomplishments.

An introductory free offer

If you want a one-time, free (60-75 minute) session for you and your team on a new model that will show you the right habits to empower yourself and others, please call 773-775-6636 or email us directly at john@johnruh.com.

773-775-6636

What Makes Up a DISC Profile

Global DISC Behavioral Profiles – Research and Statistics

DISC Profiles at Your Company

Customers Are Your Only Source of Job Security

Joe Madden on Culture

How to Improve Your Chicago Business

What is a Business Leadership Plan?

Q & A on Corporate Culture

Understanding, Accepting and Supporting Yourself Right

Is Perfectionism A Fatal Disease?