Life
Changing Moments
Every one of us will have at least one life-changing
moment; one that will alter how we think and how
we view the world. For my family, our life was
drastically changed on December 3, 1993, when
our 2 year old son James passed away.
That evening I vividly recall saying to my wife:
“We are facing a fork in the road, one way
will lead to bitterness, anger and defeat, and
the other will draw us closer together, help us
be stronger in our faith and ultimately make us
better people.” I’am happy to say
that we took the road that has brought us closer
together as a family. We have two well-adjusted
teenagers and I love my wife just as much as I
did 27 years ago when we first met.
Nine years after James’ death I’m
a different person. I still find funerals, weddings
and baby dedications difficult, but I have a new
perspective of what’s really important:
faith, family and friends. This past fall, after
watching my middle son’s high school football
game, I found myself saying to a group of strangers:
“Cherish the memories as your children are
growing away from you, one day at a time.”
Three years ago, when I was introduced to the
plight of a young boy who was fighting a rare
form of cancer, neuroblastoma, it was easy for
me to get involved.
James
Birrell was an incredible child, a philanthropist
and a philosopher. His story gained international
attention as his father Syd wrote passionate bi-weekly
e-mail updates on James’ condition as a
way of dealing with his grief. In fact, we’ve
been privileged to help raise almost $300,000
in just 11/2 years for The James Birrell Fund
for Neuroblastoma Research at The Hospital for
Sick Children. James had a unique perspective
on life, one that was captured with his saying
“You gotta use every day!”
We assume a lot in life: we’re going to
be in good health and live to a ripe old age,
our children will grow up well-educated and self-sufficient,
and the life we’ve developed for ourselves
will remain constant.
Peter Drucker, a foremost management
thinker and guru believes that now more than ever,
business people need to focus outward and pay
more attention to community building. He believes
that businesses (and professions) must focus on
three areas: 1. Fiscal and strategic management,
2. Human development, and 3. Social development.
Years ago I met James Irwin,
Apollo 15 astronaut, who lived a motto I have
since adopted: Reflect more, Risk more and Do
more for mankind. As a business owner, I see our
company as more than just a place of work with
employees only trying to earn a paycheck. Instead,
we earn our relevance in the industry by trying
to understand what people value, appreciate and
set up as a priority. We work hard to develop
relationships with our team members, our customers
and our community.
Enriching and developing relationships isn’t
easy. That’s why I’m recommending
that you read the book Whale
Done! This book will help you to understand
how to foster meaningful relationships at work,
with family and friends. With the foundations
of our economy and our lives threatened by conflicts
half-way across the world, we all need to re-evaluate
our priorities.
Please, don’t wait until a life-changing
moment forces you to change your perspective.
Ask yourself if you’re just going through
the motions or if you’re using each day
to make a difference. Reflect on what matters
most to you, Risk doing something to change the
world around you, and Do more for your family,
friends and community. When you lay your head
down at night ask yourself if you’ve used
this day to its full potential - if you’ve
helped one more person smile. back
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Greg's
Editorial: For Love or Money?
by Greg Anderson
"In it for the money" . . . "bottom-line
oriented" . . . "task driven" That
was definitely me the summer of '77 when I was
a vacuum cleaner salesperson! And I'm sure you
can think of other choice adjectives to describe
some sales people . . .?! I was really good at
selling, but I quit in mid-august because I was
disgusted with the way I saw my customers: as
a means to an end. I've changed. I've come to
realize that successful sales and business people
focus on understanding the needs of their customers
so well that profit follows without effort. My
primary motivation is not money, it is to encourage
and serve my team/clients.
As a leader, you have the choice of being either
self-centred, and in it for the money, or service-oriented.
Glenn Tobe and Associates conducted a study asking
managers and employees to rank the most important
performance motivators at work. (Check it out
on page 3) The most important motivator for employees
was feeling appreciated, and the second was feeling
that they were being informed about things that
were happening. As a leader and business person
it is important to encourage these feelings in
your team and clients.
Authors of The
Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry
Posner, have co-authored a great book called Encouraging
the Heart. In their research, the authors created
their own Encouragement Index in order to rate
a leader's level of encouraging behavior. They
discovered that when they asked workers if receiving
encouragement helps them to do a better job, 98%
said yes. The results underlined that people are
looking for appreciation and encouragement.
Do appreciation and encouragement belong in the
workplace? Well, not in one that is task-driven,
bottom-line oriented, and has a self-centred leader!
If money is your true motivation for going to
work, you probably have a high staff and patient/client
turnover rate. Your team members put up with you
until they can figure out how to get another job.
And you're probably too egotistical to figure
this out. Money is not going to make anyone happy
if they are suffering in a high stress environment.
If on the other hand, serving your clients and
team member's needs is your true motivation for
going to work, you are well on your way to being
in touch with the real secret to your success
- your team members. You are probably a lot more
concerned about having the right team, having
a lot of fun, and really making a difference in
your client's life.
Not long ago, with a little trepidation, I took
Kouzes' and Posner's Encouragement Index test.
I discovered that I usually look for things to
improve rather than celebrate and recognize achievement
in others. Does that sound like you? I realized
that if I see my job simply as a business person,
I'm not going to win. Instead, I need to understand
why my team members come to work and what my customers
need from me. I need to learn more about who they
are and make a connection. Hey, after all these
years I'm still capable of change!
This process of change and developing a strategy
to have a happy centered business is articulated
well in a fantastic book by Dr. Paddi Lund called,
Building the Happiness Centred Business. After
10 years of practicing dentistry, Dr. Lund discovered
that even though he was financially independent,
he was feeling stressed and unhappy. So he decided
to change his ways and rediscover his priorities.
The result? He decided to create an environment
where he could focus not only on making money,
but also happiness.
We can make the same choice. We can be driven
by money, or focus on serving people so that they
feel good about themselves and us. I think The
Beatles had it right: "Can’t buy me
love." At the end of the day, I believe we
are all looking for love and trust. Encouraging
and appreciating people, enjoying each other's
company and contributing to something worthwhile
may sound like a dream, but it can be reality
if we will work for both love and money.
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A
New Brand World
As Bob Dylan would say, “the times, they
are a-changin’” and frankly, I think
I’ve lost my “normal” barometer.
The Brady Bunch is now The Osbournes. A $3.99
pair of white sneakers at Sandy’s Shoe Store
is now a $100 pair of cross-trainers, running
or basketball shoes in unlimited styles and colours.
Family values are modeled after The Simpson’s
and cola companies fight for placement in schools.
We live in a branded world just take one
look at your coffee mug, car symbol or clothing
label. Tom Peters, one of North America’s
leading business educators, says that we ourselves
are Brands. “It’s time for me - and
you - to take a lesson from the big brands, a
lesson that’s true for anyone who’s
interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper
in the new world of work.” *
Author and former executive of Starbucks and
Nike, Scott Bedbury, also knows a lot about brands
in today’s marketplace. He states in his
book A New Brand
World: “We are awash as never before
with products, services and brands, all aiming
to set themselves apart from the pack, to be distinct,
and most of all to be loved and desired. In the
meantime, the grand solution to the problem of
undifferentiated products and services has been
broadly judged to involve something “more”
than spending truckloads of cash on marketing
the way it once was… The consensus is that
for better or worse, all the money in the world
can’t buy you love or trust. You have to
earn trust and love by how you behave over time.”
Starbucks spends next to nothing on traditional
marketing, yet training and presentation keep
the company a cut above the industry standard
the employees know how to behave. Bedbury
insists, “if you understand your brand
its values, its mission, its reason for being
and integrate it consistently into everything
you do, your entire organization will know how
to behave in virtually any and all situations.
Behaviour and quality, over time, build trust.”
Brands are as much about eliciting a feeling
brought forth from an experience as they are about
huge ad campaigns. In reality, your patients/clients
are sponges for all of the experiences you create
for them in your office. They absorb all of these
experiences and form an opinion of your brand.
The number one reason that people change dental
offices is that they’ve had a bad experience.
The fact is you cannot NOT have an experience.
It’s vital to deliver a positive and consistent
experience through your services, team and core
values+ in order to build meaningful and sustainable
relationships with your clients.
Are you looking to better define your experience
(and therefore your brand)? Try these simple exercises:
1. Ask yourself how you want your clients to
feel when they leave your practice: “I want
my clients to feel __________, ____________ &
___________.”
2. Call your office and evaluate the live greeting
or answering service. How does it make you feel?
3. Sit in your waiting area and examine the lighting,
furniture and selection of reading materials.
What underlying messages are your patients/clients
receiving? Again, how does it make you feel?
4. Re-evaluate how you and your team greet your
clients: Are you wearing a mask? Do you smile
and greet them warmly or are you hurried?
By discovering the messages you’re sending
your patients/clients, you are able to modify
your behaviour in order to create a more positive
dental experience. You don’t need to be
Nike or Starbucks to build a strong brand. As
Carol Moore, IBM Executive, says, “the brand
must be the experience and the experience must
be the brand.”
To experience the change:
Call: 1-705 - 872 - 2906
Or
Email:canyouimagine@axiomnews.ca
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