The Effects of Cyber Bullying

Breakdown:

While bullying has always been a traumatizing event for both children and adults who experience it, interactions used to be limited to those of a physical nature in public or private spaces such as the school yard, office, or in the home. The onset of cyber bullying however has completely changed the playing field regarding how bullies interact with their victims as well as how frequently they can torment them. More importantly, while the use of a computer or cell phone means that no physical altercation can occur between bully and victim, the verbal onslaught that is catapulted behind the veil of a digital screen is no less damaging.

More than 40% of children have experienced some form of cyber bullying with roughly 25% having experienced it multiple times. While nearly two thirds of victims say that the bullying started offline, in nearly every case, the harassment not only progressed to online methods, but they became the focal point of the bullying afterward. The most common medium today for cyber bullying is the cell phone, something roughly 80% of teens carry with them. The bullies favor this method as well because they feel it is easier to get away with the harassment versus tormenting their victims in person.

Sadly, only 10% of children who have been cyber bullied will ever inform a parent, teacher, or other adult who can help. For adults, cyber bullying is escalated to “cyber harassment” and only 30% of victims report incidents after they occur. Those who have been tormented experience low self esteem, become afraid, lose their focus, and are up to nine times more likely to commit suicide. The only resource more precious than our own sanctity is our children’s; and both are threatened by cyber bullying.

Opportunity!

Adults don’t know a lot about communication and children know less. Oh, they know how to send text message and photos to humiliate others but I’m certain they don’t know what’s really going on.

Here’s what’s happening when we communicate;

First of all, communication includes, speaking, writing, texting, video, listening, generating energy, leaving voice mails, self talk etc.

When you deliver a communication to another, they receive that communication through their senses and it literally changes them. Did you get that? If I communicate something to you, you receive it, hear it, read it and in the process, the cells in your body are changed forever.  You are not the same person you were before I sent you my communication. Wow… I’ll bet you never thought about it like that.

Additionally, when you communicate you are generating a new future. That is, you are opening new possibilities or closing possibilities… always. Communication is generative in nature… always. Wow… I’ll bet you never thought about that either.

What’s the cost? What’s the real impact on others?

When you yell at your children for instance by declaring, “You’re stupid! Why do you have to act so stupid?” You are declaring a new future for your child, one that has them being stupid. One that has them not trying new things because they can’t learn! One that has them stop trying in school and in life! One that has them less likely to be close to you. You are driving them away from you. And you are literally changing them physically when you declare things like that.

Trained adults can hear ‘assessments like that’ and recontextualize them, taking into consideration the source of the statement and move on about their business. Trained adults can receive a negative communication and let it roll of their back. This takes years of practice and is tough for a trained adult and is nearly impossible to expect that a child has this skill.

A child who is overwhelmed by a bullying attack, is being changed and damaged.

Schools teach us about nouns and pronouns and adjectives so that we can all communicate, but we are not taught about what’s really going on.

Adults and children need to be immersed in study about the ‘true nature of human communication’ because that’s all we do. We communicate with ourselves and with other people and the majority of people on the planet do not have a ‘clue’ about what’s really happening.

If you would like to start a Language Of Commitment program in your community or company, please contact us, “We Can Help You With That!”

Lifetime Customers - A Strategy

Breakdown:

Companies are always concerned with numbers. Numbers represent sales, tax numbers, bottom lines, employee turnover rates, and every other cog in the machine that makes a business churn. However, it is all too often that company leaders are so focused on “hitting the numbers” that something is lost in translation when it comes to creating lifetime customers. It is impossible to judge the value of each customer over the course of a lifetime based on the first transaction they make with your business. This is why every customer should be treated with the same candor and grace. Despite this, statistics show that the average lifetime for customer relationships is only just over three years.

If you plan for your business to be around forever, three years seems like an awfully short expectation for the completion of most customer relationships. In many cases, members of the sales force and the managers who lead them are only hyper-focused on customers who are making a large purchase. Customers who make one large purchase, while valuable, may or may not return. Meanwhile, there could be a customer making a three dollar purchase today, who might become a lifetime customer tomorrow if treated correctly, thus creating more value for the company in the long run than anyone else making a single large purchase. Failing to place equal value on each person who we engage in business can ultimately affect all those numbers we are so overly focused on more than we know.

Opportunity!

While I agree with the sentiment of my colleague who wrote the ‘breakdown’ portion of this blog posting, I disagree from a strategy point of view. Here’s where I agree, “All customers should be treated with respect and the sales and customer service teams should strive to build a strong and lasting relationship with each client. We agree here. At the same time, not all clients are equal. That is, some have way more of an economic impact on the business and therefore need more attention. In the automotive repair industry for instance, a middle aged new customer with 4 cars and a family is worth more to me than a single 25 year old with one vehicle.

I can remember standing in one of my own shops about 15 years ago and a guy walks in and asks for an oil change, so I start a conversation with him. (Note: the guy is dressed in a uniform like he was a factory worker) After a few minutes of ‘chit chat, small talk’ I discover that he’s the HR manager for a company with 300 employees about ½ mile from the store. Now there’s an opportunity!

You want to build good relationships that last a lifetime with ‘everyone’ … agreed! But not all prospects or customers have the same economic potential. If you have an ‘approach’ for developing a client, it will pay off in the long run.

In our communication model, building relationship by asking important questions is the first part of the dance and so you need to be prepared and make the time to get to know the customer. They may work for a company which could become a nice fleet account. They could be a home owner with four cars in the family. Or they could be a one car ‘price shopping bottom feeder’! I hate to characterize a customer like that, but we run into them. All they want is a cheap price and that’s it!. Fortunately in my experience, there are not too many of that variety. At the end of the day, you want to be friends with them all, but not all are the same financially.

Disabilities and Fitness: Turning Adversity into Triumph!

Breakdown:

Approximately 20% of the U.S. population has some sort of disability. While there are many degrees of disabilities both physical and mental, studies show that one major constant is that as a whole, people with disabilities are less fit than the rest of the population. While this may not seem surprising based on the adversities that people with disabilities face on a daily basis, this also does not negate the need to live a healthy lifestyle. The truth is that in many ways, it is almost more important for members of the populace with disabilities to become fit, trim, and healthy, because doing so can help them to compensate for the problems that plague their body or mind, boost their morale, and help them to function in society at a level that would have been unattainable before.

The real question is, with so much to gain, why is it that the majority of disabled people remain unfit and unhealthy?

There are a lot of factors that come into play here. For people with physical disabilities, there will always be some obvious hurdles to overcome. For instance, someone in a wheelchair will need a completely different workout regimen than someone who can walk. Knowing that the road is a harder one can make someone with a disability discouraged from even trying, especially when there is little or no support. Support (or lack thereof) also plays a huge role in preventing people with mental disabilities from making a lifestyle change. No one likes to be ridiculed or have their accomplishments written off and without proper motivation, it becomes almost infinitely difficult to find the inner strength, means, and motivation to carry out a lifestyle change to the fullest extent.

Opportunity!

One of the biggest stumbling blocks people face is not getting started in the first place. And this is never more true than in the domain of fitness and health. People with bad backs, bad knees or severe weight issues, can easily find an excuse to do nothing.

So here are some tips and techniques you can borrow from me to get into a new dance.

First, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to look like in your head. So putting together a ‘vision board’ is a great idea. Start by cutting some photos out of magazines or maybe you have an old photo of you when you weighed a lot less. Anyway, these images need to be front and center in your mind every day.

Next, you must realize that getting into great shape is a ‘life time objective’ and so you need to look at it on a monthly and yearly basis. That is, the goal should be to develop habits that will last a lifetime, not to go to the gym and pound it for a week.

A little bit at a time is the key to success!

Let’s say you want to become a jogger again, but you can only walk about 10 minutes comfortably. Great! Do that and then build on it.

I regularly run 8-10 miles but I didn’t start there, I built up to it over many years. I built up my physical engine.

You can do the same thing!

Here’s how to do it, and this approach will work with any form of exercise. Walk every day for 10 minutes at an easy pace. EVERY DAY! Make it easy on yourself, don’t push it, but make certain that you walk your 10 minutes.

IMPORTANT! Write it down in a log! Don’t forget.

After 30 days, you will be ready to up the ante to 11 minutes at an easy pace.

After 30 days, up the ante again by 10 % and keep this progression going.

At the end of year one you will be walking about 35 minutes EVERY DAY! And more importantly you will be developing rigor in your life and you will be building your physical engine. Two years of this activity and you can see how a lifetime of fitness can be yours. It’s not hard to do.

The key is to do it EVERY DAY rain, snow or shine. You will see the results over time, but you need to be patient.

Dan Molloy, 63, is a member of Team USA Triathlon. He finished in 6th place in the World Triathlon Championships in 2011 in Beijing China. He started the sport of triathlon at the age of 55 and used this very approach to become one of the best in the world in his age group, after losing 30 lbs.

Bad Leadership Can Spread Like A Virus

Breakdown:

There are businesses all across the globe of different shapes and sizes performing vastly different tasks and speeding toward different goals every day. Ask just about any group of employees or credible authority in any industry what the nucleus of success is and they will likely give you the same answer; quality leadership. In a world where the need for good leadership is a business constant, we are often left scratching our heads wondering why there are so many bad leaders controlling small businesses, large corporations, and portions of our own government.

Perhaps more catastrophic than the immediate effects of bad executive leadership is the trickle effect that spreads through middle management all the way down to the lowest employees on the totem pole. Essentially, organizational leaders set the tone for the company culture (for better or worse), and when these leaders do not listen to their employees, actively communicate, facilitate teamwork, and lead by deed and example, everyone else working for the company loses their morale, becomes disengaged with their work, and fails to come together in order to meet common goals. This in turn leads to lost sales opportunities and previous or potential customers who instead choose the competition.

Opportunity!

Set clear standards for what effective leadership is and ‘live the dream’ from top to bottom inside the organization. Provide coaching where needed.

Everything that happens and is happening in any organization is a result of either the conscious creation or the tacit endorsement of those activities and/or behaviors by the company’s leadership.  Is the present and future of your organization happening by default or by design?

While a small number of people are “born” charismatic and empowering, leadership skills – commitment, clarity, passion and vision - are linguistic competencies that are learnable!  

Here’s what effective leaders need to know how to do;

• Provide direction and vision for their organization and strategies to accomplish it;
• Ability to create a context or a narrative about the present and future that enrolls, motivates and inspires the hearts and minds of employees;
• Make requests, promises and offers that promote clarity, alignment, coordination, partnership and collaboration;
• Track and follow up on the network of commitments that is the heart of any business;
• Give and receive feedback to/from employees as to organizational and personnel breakdowns, successes, innovations and opportunities to foster learning and continuous improvement;
• Create a working environment that promotes positive mood and morale

For an organization to move towards its vision with the alignment of its employees, the leaders of that organization need to be competent in the Language of Commitment and all the moves that are the ongoing source of effectiveness and extraordinary results in business, and in life.  

Effective Training will produce Measurable Results

• Results are designed to show up within the organization in the following ways;
• Interoffice requests for service and support will become more clear
• Follow-up on requests and promises will become more regular – will become standard operating procedure
• ASAP will no longer be an acceptable answer for when something will be done.
• Managers will speak more clearly about their goals and objectives.
• Managers will be able to declare a future for themselves and their teams.
• Managers will be trained to schedule and facilitate weekly store meetings in an efficient, effective and empowering manner.
• Sustainability for existing agreed upon projects will show up as more consistent results.

Ask us about Molloy’s Leadership Training programs.

Our claim is that Leadership Skills are linguistic and can be taught and learned.

Office Gossip in the Age of Technology - They Must Be Stupid!

Breakdown:

While office gossip is traditionally associated with the stereotypical water cooler, today, less than 1% of office gossip takes place there. In fact, about a third of modern office gossip takes place in the break room, another third at desks or workstations, and the final third through technology such as work or personal email, instant messaging, texting, and social media posts. More often than not, companies that employ workers who gossip more tend to have lower morale. More importantly, more than 90% of employees who participate in office gossip tout that there is an overwhelming communication breakdown from the management team, causing office chit chat to be the only way to spread any kind of information at all.

Office gossip can be hurtful, personally and professionally damaging, and time consuming. Most offices with a gossip problem report that each employee spends nearly 3 hours each week spreading rumors rather than working. While it is important for workers to have a healthy outlet for their frustrations, creating or joining a rumor mill is merely a way to sidestep good healthy office communication, a problem that almost always stems from a lack of coherency at the top of the food-chain.

Opportunity!

Our extensive research, over the past thirteen years, show us that more than 99% of those in the workplace have never been trained on what it means to communicate effectively. This also means that most do not have an understanding or have never been taught that communication is ‘generative’ in nature. That is, whenever a person communicates, either with themself or with others, they are generating a ‘future’ for themself and the other employees. People in authority and people with power in the form of ‘street cred’ can, through the act of declaring, change the future in a profound way for other employees and for themselves. Being ‘blind’ to the way that the act of ‘declaring an assessment’ produces a mood and generates the future doesn’t give you a pass. It only means that you may have many employees literally ‘killing your company’ from the inside.

Example: you hire a new employee and two long term employees with ‘street cred’ are having a discussion that others are privy to, about how ‘stupid’ the new hire is.

This does two things; First, whenever we make assessments about others, those assessments say more about us, then they do about the target of the assessment. Secondly, assessments in the form of declaration, literally alter the future possibilities for all involved. For instance, after the declaration, “He’s really pretty stupid!” has been spoken, what are the odds that this new hire will be included in mission critical project in the future? Not likely. What he may need is some training and coaching on how to do things around the new company. The negative assessment also says a lot about the hiring practices of the company and in the same breath all the other employees.

People making those kinds of statements about others don’t think about all the ramifications of their utterances. They must be stupid!

The Molloy Language Of Commitment™ program educates people with respect to the power and generative nature of communication. It is also designed so that ‘leadership teams’ can adopt simple yet powerful ‘Standards For Effective Communication’ inside their companies. Molloy addresses the issue of sarcasm and gossip during the training process.