Message of the Day - Do You know the RIGHT question?

Good Morning,

I remember the time I brought my Mom to Best Buy for her to purchase a new
laptop. We entered the store and I brought her to the laptop section and
there they stood some thirty or so different models to choose from. Mom
scanned each one and walked around the show room until she honed in on a
particular model which she felt would be good for her.

At that time a young, 19 something, associate came up to Mom and I. He may
have thought our question may be something like 'I like this laptop, what
can it do?' As such he said 'So you like this model, well it has." And he
launched into a laundry list of features which this model had. He did not
notice the vacant stare coming from Mom.

About fifteen seconds into the features list, I put up my hand and said "You
don't understand. She likes the keyboard".

The associate stopped dead in his tracks with this seemingly inane comment.
He thought real hard of what to say next, you could see it in his face, and
meanwhile my Mom looked on waiting as well as she did not want to upset the
young man. He may have thought that our question was what features the
laptop had, and that was not our question. He may then have thought our
question was what new enhancements this laptop had.

After a few moments of thinking, the associate started listed another list
of features the laptop had.

I raised my hand again to stop him and repeated what I said the first time.
"She likes the keyboard, nothing else matters".

Looking defeated or just confused, the associate started to look away when I
told him that Mom will buy this one. His momentary confusion ended as he
realized he had done his job, although he probably had no idea how he had.

Had he started off with the right question, "What do you like about his
model" Mom would have told him that the keyboard was just the right size for
her hands and the keys were big enough for her see and that was all she was
really looking for in a laptop. She used the computer for online scrabble,
email and youtube. Pretty much any model would accommodate those uses.

The associate, like many of us, assumed a different question. He assumed
that we wanted to hear about the laptop and all of its features, without
finding out if that was the case. He did not realize that I am a Help Desk
veteran because he did not ask the right question.

Asking the right question can cut to the chase on most situations and save
us all time and in the case of the Best Buy laptop, some awkward moments and
embarrassment.

So how do we know we are not asking the right question?

Usually it will be just after seeing the eyes of who we are speaking with
glaze over, or sudden long pauses in conversation.

When you realize that there is silence, that is a good time to ask a new
question to help us focus in better on what we really need to do and why.

After we bought the laptop, I had to explain to Mom what all of the features
the nice young man spoke about. She wanted to me remove the webcam, so no
one could look at her when she was using the laptop. I told her it was built
in and she almost had me return the computer. I then told her we can simply
not turn the camera on, and that would do the same thing. After that we were
golden!

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
<http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/496058/4755629/http://www.berenberg.net/>

<http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/496058/4755629/http://www.amazon.com/gp/pro
duct/images/1607914581/sr=8-1/qid=1239154898/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155
&s=books&qid=1239154898&sr=8-1>

http://learnandgrowdaily.com
<http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/496058/4755629/http://learnandgrowdaily.com
/> <---Cick here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"
http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
<http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/496058/4755629/http://sanfordberenberg.blog
spot.com/>
502-533-9336

Message of the Day - Passing the Torch

Good Morning,

I have become a huge fan of new social networking sites, like Linked In and Facebook. These are the two that I use most often. On these sites I have been able to get connected with hundreds of people I have not seen in months, years and even decades.

This past week I was reconnected with a Scoutmaster who I had the pleasure of going to summer camp with several times when I was a teenager. When I added him as a friend I wondered if he would remember me. He did, and we shared some information of what has been going on in our lives over the last three decades. He is retired now, yet still helps with Scouting. I thanked him for taking the time to lead our troop at summer camp all those years ago.

His message holds so much meaning to me that I just had to share it with you:

"You asked more questions than all the others combined. You weren't satisfied with knowing how to use a compass. You wanted to know why it worked a certain way. You had a very inquisitive mind. Often you weren't happy when I didn't have the answer. I guess you were and maybe still are, a TECHNOCRAT. As a management person and someone who has become more involved with mentoring, it is your turn to have all the answers. When you are with the kids, challenge their inquisitive minds as you did with me...

Thank you for your kind words. I always tried to make summer camp a great learning experience not in just the merit badges and rank achievement but in life skills. I tried to teach responsibility and self-reliance and in the middle of all of it, it had to be fun for you as well as me....or it wouldn't have been worth it. Judging from your success, you got the message and are successful in what you do. Now it is your turn to do the same for the generation that follows you. I've done my job."

I have been handed the torch by my Scoutmaster, a person who took interest in helping me learn and grow. Now I look to fulfilling my duty to help the next generations to come.

Can you think back to people who helped you during your earlier years? People who helped you become who you are? People who cared enough to invest time and energy in you?

You are most likely better off because of these people, with the gifts of knowledge and time they gave you. Now's the time to take the torch and pay those kind deeds forward.

Find people you can help. Find organizations which help kids, if you are in Louisville, there is The Stewards Staff and others. Around the country there are groups like Team Focus and Big Brothers and Big Sisters. And like my experience there is the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.

In the decades to come, there will be those who we invested time an energy into who will be looking back to us, and we can pass them the torch along to them.

It is a beautiful thing.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net 

http://learnandgrowdaily.com <-- Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

Message of the Day - Did Budget Cuts Kill Your Training Plans? Here is another solution

Good Morning,

 

If your company was/is impacted by the rough economy have been experiences for this last year (which I am reading has started to improve), then your training budgets have probably been one of the casualties of the recession.

 

How can a company provide training to its staff when there are little to no training dollars in the budget? Flying out to training sessions in other cities cost travel, hotel and training costs. Local training sessions are less expensive, but they do not always have the subject matter you need for your team. Doing nothing, well that will just stifle the grow of your team, and you need them to do more with less.

 

Is there another way to having training for our teams without the high costs associated with them?

 

Yes, there are several. The first is to join professional networking groups and share the cost of training by bringing in a professional speaker.

 

Another way is to simply read and share a book.

 

Books can cost anywhere from nothing (you already have the book) upwards of $100 or more. Most books are in the $12 - $35 range in most bookstores. Older books will generally be less. You can pick the topic of the training and find the right book or books to help give the core information for the training. I am not suggesting that you simply hand your staff a book and ask them to read it (We all know how that goes).

 

What I am suggesting is to get multiple copies of the same book, on a subject you want your team to learn, and ask each of them to read and then discuss the book at a weekly meeting. You will still need to set ground rules and training goals, but you can have a good series of training sessions using books as a source.

 

For example, if your company is going through a lot of change and your teams are suffering or worse, fighting the change, then give them the assignment to read "Who Moved My Cheese" by Spencer Johnson (http://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Amazing/dp/0399144463) and discuss it over the course of three weeks. Use the discussion points and questions in the current meetings as a focus for the following meeting. The interaction between the team, based on the book, and facilitated by you will have some amazing effects as team members share ideas and learn from each other.

 

Then follow up with "Our Iceberg is Melting" by John P. Kotter  and Holger Rathgeber (http://www.amazon.com/Our-Iceberg-Melting-Succeeding-Conditions/dp/031236198X).  Where your team members discuss the nature of change and how to not only understand it, but support it and even plan it. You can even make crafting a plan using the lessons learned in the book as part of your training.

 

Using a book as a foundation for the training you get the same core information you would get in many training sessions, and you also get the team interaction, which is actually much more important.

 

The best part is that the training would be at the cost of several books and some meeting time. You can also set up your training multiple times a year with minimal hits to your budget.

 

While full interactive training with a professional presenter is invaluable, having to tighten the budget does not preclude having training of some sore for your companies.

 

And if the company cannot go for this much, then you can at least continue to read and learn and grow daily.

 

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net  

http://learnandgrowdaily.com <-- Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

Message of the Day - Defanging The Frightening Nature Change

Good Morning,

We all know life is full of changes:

• Technology Changes
• Rules Change
• Work Changes
• People Change
• Economies Change
• Change changes
  

For the folks who are innately afraid of change, I imagine it is a pretty scary world out there. Seldom in all history has there been a time where what we do, how we do it and with what tools we do it with may be obsolete within 25 years. Seems like a long time, 25 years. 25 years ago things were a bit different (1984):

• No WiFi
• No World Wide Web
• No Cell phones (smaller than footballs)
• No PDFs (from Adobe anyway)
  
• No Flat Screen TV's, much less computer monitors (plenty of green CRTs though)
  
• No Online anything except proprietary and closed networks (BitNet, DunsNet, Military, etc)
• 20 Meg Hard Drives (if you were lucky enough to have a hard drive)
• Commodore 64 was still king!
  

25 years before that (1959)

• No personal computers (Certainly nothing you would want to put on your lap)
• No Digital, and possibly limited transistor technology
• No cordless anything electronic (I may be wrong on this one)
• No Visa or MasterCard, but Amex cards were a full 1 year old!!
• No VCR, much less DVD, CDs, or cassettes. And get this, no 8 Track Tapes either (they were 6 years away from entering the scene), but you could get Reel to Reel tapes!

25 years before that (1934)

• There is TV, but I am certain you would not like to watch the Sunday games on it (http://www.tvhistory.tv/pre-1935.htm).
• You get the point.
  

It is almost frightening to think what life would be like without all that we have grown accustomed to in our lives. Going back to 1934 would be very difficult for some. This same fear also faces us with the increasing speed of change coming at us in the days ahead!

With speed of change increasing, it gets harder to plan for the future.

So what can we do?

One bit of advice comes from some 1,800 years ago from our friend Marcus Aurelius who says:

"Consider whence each thing is come, and of what it consists, and into what it changes, and what kind of thing it will be when it has changed, and then it will sustain no harm."

The Roman Emperor is suggesting that we embrace change by understanding change better. That by looking deep into that which is changing and seeing what it was prior to the change and what it is changing into, we can better understand what it means and how to better prepare for and embrace it.

Part of this embracing change is also not holding onto what we will lose (what is changing), rather what we will gain. Often we see change and fail to look deeper than the superficial change and nothing more. Kind of like judging a book by its cover, but instead of a book, it is change.

Seeing deeper into something that is changing will help us understand it better and take the fangs out of the change. We may not like what is changing, and how it means to our lives, but at least we understand it better and can plan for how to face it.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net   

http://learnandgrowdaily.com ß Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

 

Message of the Day - There is a limit of how much we can juggle

Good Morning,

I was not able to get to my car for a few moments yesterday afternoon. I knew that I parked on the 4th floor, so when I climbed the stairs in the parking garage I was a bit shocked to see no car. Looking around, I noticed the sign for the 5th floor. Realizing I overshot my floor I turned around and ran down a flight of stairs, and as I walked out to where my car was, nothing...again.

Looking around again I noticed a sign saying 3rd floor. I overshot it again. Stopping for a moment and regaining my thoughts I tried to understand what had just happened. I was pretty sure it was not a tesseract (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/wrinkle/section5.rhtml). I was also pretty sure my blood sugar was not completely out of whack.

Taking it slowly, going back up one flight of stairs, I made it out to the fourth floor and to my car. I felt a bit surprised that I could not find an entire floor in the parking garage.

Why did I miss it. It could be that I am just a goof and my mind was deep in thought with upcoming events and activities or I was trying to not be run over by the lady coming down the stairs as I headed up, and the other person who was coming up as I went down.

By being engrossed in something other than what I was doing, I completely missed the reality that was around me. I am reminded of stories of Albert Einstein who, when teaching at Princeton University, was so absent minded that there were signs posted 'Beware of Professor'. He had once left his house without pants, and other interesting oddities.

With everything going on in my life I seemed to have reached a point where I am mentally overwhelmed. Where I would think of one or two things in my travels, my mind is racing between dozens. I have had to consciously step back from several activities in my life until the recent chaos settles down to the normal dull roar.

I guess there is limit to how much we can handle and juggle at any one time. As we learn and grow, that amount increases, but there is always a limit.

Although, it would have been cool if it really were a tesseract in the parking garage!

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net   

http://learnandgrowdaily.com ß Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

 

 

 

Sanford Berenberg
sanford@berenberg.net
www.berenberg.net

Message of the Day: Going Above and Beyond or Into Orbit?

Good Morning,

Earlier this week my wife Karen and I watched a documentary on a man named Chiune Sugihara. He worked for the Japanese government during the early days of World War II, and was stationed in the Japanese embassy in Kaunas, Lithuania. During this time, he performed an amazing feat of human kindness.

Many Jews had fled Poland and other nations ahead of the Nazi advance into Soviet controlled Lithuania. The Jews needed a miracle to get out of Lithuania before it was too late, but the Soviets did not make it easy. For these refugees to leave they needed a destination visa, a country willing to accept them, a transit visa, a country that would allow them to travel through, and an exit visa for the country they wanted to leave.

A few ingenious Dutch Jewish refugees figured out that they could get approval to go to Curacao, a Dutch colony. This was a destination that did not require a passport (which few of the refugees had). The Jews received approval to go to Curacao from the Dutch embassy. Step one done, next they needed a transit visa. At this same time, the Soviet Union told all embassies to close their doors and leave. The only two embassies that remained open were the Dutch and Japanese.

Sugihara saw the growing atrocities against the Jews in Europe. Meanwhile, he also saw the Jew's chance for survival diminishing daily. He asked Japan to authorize giving these Jews transit visas. The Japanese government denied the request, multiple times. Against his country's orders, Sugihara granted visas to over 6,000 Jewish refuges, giving them a chance at escape.

It started with one person and grew into thousands; the refugees came to the Japanese embassy in Lithuania for a transit visa. Chiune Sugihara knew what would most likely happen to these people if he did not help them. He also knew what would happen to him and his family if he did. His decision showed he cared more about saving others than his own future. Sugihara started hand-writing hundreds of transit visa's a day. He approved all visas shown to him. He even approved those that were not complete.

He continued writing visas for several weeks as he knew time was short. When his office was to shut down, he asked for an extension to keep the embassy open a little while longer. With the extension granted, he kept filling the visas out until his office was ultimately forced closed. Sugihara did not stop there. When his family arrived at the train station to leave Lithuania, he filled out more visas while waiting for the train to arrive. He even filled out visas when he was in the train, through an open window, before it departed and one or two more for those who could keep up with the train as it left. As he left, he would not know if his work had saved anyone.

For his actions, he was later reprimanded and ultimately dismissed. Afterwards, he lived a rough life where he was forced to scrape by to provide for his family for many years. All the while, he never spoke of the event. Due to other situations, he changed his name to help improve his chances of helping his family. It was not until 25 years later that Sugihara found out if any of the Jews he helped made it. Today, there are somewhere over 40,000 people alive today directly because of this man disobeying orders.

Sugihara helped save the lives of others with no expectations. He received nothing in return. There has been some growing recognition of his work over the last 20 years, but I am certain it was not why he did it.

Forty-five years after he signed the visas, Chiune was asked why he did it. He liked to give two reasons: "They were human beings and they needed help," he said. "I'm glad I found the strength to make the decision to give it to them." Sugihara was a religious man and believed in a universal God of all people. He was fond of saying, "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't I would be disobeying God."  (http://www.rongreene.com/Sug.html)

When we think about going above and beyond to help others, we sometimes wonder how far is too far. We sometimes wonder if what we do matters. This should not hold us back from giving the help others need if we can, especially when we are someone's last chance.

When helping others, ask yourself:

Have I done enough to help others in need?  Can I do more?

I think we know the answer...we can often do more, and it does make a difference!

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net   

http://learnandgrowdaily.com ß Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

Message of the Day - I am not going to melt!

Good Morning,

Yesterday,  Feedblitz fixed my messages so that you can now respond directly to me again. Thank you for your patience!

A few weeks ago while I was doing my Sunday morning parking lot greeting it had started to rain. I was prepared with an umbrella and walked around the parking lot greeting folks and offering to walk them in under my umbrella if they wanted. One lady looked at me and smiled and said as she declined my offer: "I'm not going to melt" Then she walked off to her destination.

That caught my attention. Here was someone who was going to face a bit of discomfort, walking in the rain, and have to sit around in somewhat wet clothes and did so gladly. She realized that the worst that would happen to her was getting wet, that she was not like the Wicked Witch of the West from the movie 'The Wizard of Oz' who when doused with warm water started melting and died.

How often in life do we shy away from taking actions or doing things which our fear of discomfort is so strong that we do fear we will melt?

Nike brand athletic shoes has the motto: "Just Do It".

When we acknowledge what we don't want to do and just do it, we often get more accomplished in life. Better yet, we achieve more when we roll up our sleeves and go to work.

Statistics also support the value of not worrying about 'getting wet'. Most successful people are not those who are the smartest or the most trained, or the most educated. Rather the most successful people in life are those who just rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Not matter what you have to face or what challenges before you, maybe take another look to see if the risk you face is no more than just getting a little wet or if you will melt.

If you won't melt, then why not roll up your sleeves and get to work?

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net   

http://learnandgrowdaily.com ß Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

Sanford Berenberg
sanford@berenberg.net
www.berenberg.net