Issue 5, August 2006
Email Us

Leadership Development Initiative at BPB

BPB is the world's leading supplier of plasterboard and gypsum plasters with operations in over 50 countries. BPB North America recently created a strategic plan to guide the operational focus of the company over the next 5 years. In order to realize its vision "...to be the preferred choice for interior building systems that provide innovative design solutions", BPB North America is focusing on seven key initiatives, one being people development.

Shaun Hopkins Seminars was recommended to BPB North America by Corporate Psychology Resources of Atlanta, Georgia. Corporate Psychology Resources, who has an ongoing relationship with BPB-NA, serves hundreds of clients ranging from small, family-owned businesses to Fortune 500 companies. CPR solutions include selection assessments, executive selection, succession planning, executive coaching and organizational surveys. Through this relationship, Mr. Mike Newton and Mr. Stephen Williams of BPB-NA requested Shaun Hopkins Seminars to help them create a leadership development initiative.

After analyzing the needs of the management group, BPB-NA decided to take a two-stage approach to its management training. The first stage was for all levels of management, from the CEO down, to attend a two-day Situational Leadership workshop. In this way, all levels of management would use a consistent management style.

The course focused on how to adapt your style of management to the needs of each employee.   Shaun, with the help of his colleague, Gino Ferrin crisscrossed the United States and Canada conducting the workshop at various locations, including plasterboard factories. The managers gave very positive reviews of the workshop. The course received comments, such as, "Good practical linkage on real problems", "Excellent course. Had a blast attending", and "I have attended many leadership courses. This one stands out".

Phase two of the leadership development will take place this fall. The same group of managers will attend a follow-up course that will teach them how to coach their employees. The coaching style of management focuses on producing consistent, long-term, excellent performance from employees. The course will focus on how managers can guide their employees to become both self-sufficient and self-directed contributors.  

Company performance indicators have improved over the past year and BPB is well on its way to achieving its vision. Shaun Hopkins Seminars is proud to be associated with BPB and BPB North America.

For more information about the BPB-NA's Leadership Development Initiative, contact information@ShaunHopkinsSeminars.com

What's On

Shaun Hopkins, "The Motivational Manager"

Listen to Business @ Night on CFRA News Radio 580 AM every Tuesday between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm to hear Shaun, "The Motivational Manager" provide a weekly management tip for business leaders. Listen live at http://www.cfra.com/listen/index.asp#

 

Training Solutions 2006 Conference & Expo
Denver, Colorado

Marketing Skills for Trainers: How to Promote Your Training Service
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:45 am

Having difficulty filling your classes? Need to improve the marketing of your training? In this session, you will learn dozens of practical tips on how to promote your training, the four keys to marketing success, and how to create a marketing plan. Learn how to align your training with the priorities of your company, to differentiate your courses from the competition, and how to build lasting relationships with your internal customers. 

Participants will be able to: 

  1. Create alignment between training and the company's mission and goals. 
  2. Select the promotional techniques for their marketing campaigns. 
  3. Write persuasive hooks in their marketing materials
  4. Build positive working relationships with their customers.
  5. Write a marketing plan for their training services.

Training Needs Analysis: Quick, Accurate and Complete
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 12:30 pm

Training needs analysis is the first step to designing and delivering learning that will meet the needs of your target audience. Learn techniques to gather the most accurate information about your audience and to determine if training is the right solution. In this clinic, you will plan and conduct a training needs analysis. Learn to:

 

Book Review

Never Wrestle With A Pig and Ninety Other Ideas to Build Your Business and Career

By: Mark McCormack (ISBN 01410.028 5 )

"Mistakes are not like Doritos", "Know your Super Bowl Sunday" and "Never wrestle with a pig!" Each phrase is a clever metaphor with a meaning that reveals how to be a success in contemporary business. These pearls of wisdom and many more are found in Mark McCormack's Never Wrestle with a Pig and Ninety Other Ideas to Build Your Business and Career.

This worthwhile read is a narrative of business lessons developed by McCormack in response to the increasingly fast-paced business of the new millennium. These business truths, based on common sense, are clearly shared with the reader using entertaining real-world examples. Each lesson uses an unusual title and intriguing analogy to portray a valuable message. McCormack gives focus to how a professional can keep pace and prosper in today's ever-changing world.   

Never Wrestle with a Pig is a metaphor used in McCormack's time management lesson. The lesson's core message is that arguing or wrestling, with an associate who loves to argue, namely a pig, wastes time. The result: both you and the argument-loving associate are placed in a bad light and only the pig enjoys himself. This small, yet true, lesson buried midway through the book was successfully employed as the title in a brilliant marketing move.    

Never Wrestle with a Pig contains 91 short lessons which have been proven to enhance professional performances in a new business world where the need for speed often over-rides common sense. This book's lessons range in topic from office politics to setting achievable goals, from networking to hiring and firing. It emphasizes the importance of communication and relationships in the e-mail age.

The lessons are applicable to those just beginning their career, to managers and CEOs and to those trying to infuse their career with new life. Never Wrestle with a Pig was entertaining and informative. It outlined insightful lessons which can easily be applied by any professional looking to adapt and thrive in today's world of business.

© All articles copyright Shaun Hopkins Seminars 2006

Best Practice

How to Handle Customer Complaints

While complaints from internal and external customers are inevitable, our goal should be to both solve the problem and have our customer feel good about the way the issue was handled. In other words, we have taken care of both the business needs and the emotional needs of the customer. Follow these 10 steps on how to handle customer complaints to increase customer retention and satisfaction.

  1. Don't take the problem personally

  2. Acknowledge that the customer has a valid concern

  3. Empathize with the customer's feelings about the situation

  4. Ask lots of questions to gather data

  5. Paraphrase your understanding of the issue

  6. Suggest a solution

  7. Agree on the next steps

  8. Thank the customer

  9. Follow-up to ensure that the problem gets fixed

  10. Celebrate!


Visit our website at www.ShaunHopkinsSeminars.com or call us at (613) 823-0602

Local Wisdom

I've been researching the topic of time management lately and I have come across some astounding statistics. Did you know that some studies have found that the average employee wastes two hours per day on activities such as, non-work related surfing the internet, socializing with co-workers and conducting personal business? Now, HR departments and managers have long known that you never will get a full 7.5 hours of work time from an employee. As a result, compensation plans reflect one hour of wasted time, in addition to the normal lunch hour and breaks.

But two hours? That is a little more than we bargained for. From the training perspective, I would like to think that many employees just don't have the skills to control their time effectively. In fact, I believe that many of the non-work related activities at the office are because employees are not skilled at basic time management techniques. For all of you managers out there, teach your direct reports to do three things: complete a time log, prioritize their work and implement some basic time management techniques.

The first thing to do is have your direct reports keep a detailed time log for three days. The employees will come to one of two conclusions. Either they will see where they are wasting time on a daily basis and begin to adjust their work style, or they will adjust their work style automatically because you are monitoring their time. In either case, you get a positive result.

Second, have your direct reports complete both a weekly and daily to-do list. Once the list is completed, have them prioritize their tasks. Use the T.I.M.E. acronym. T stands for the top-priority, important and urgent tasks. I is for the investment tasks, such as, planning, training and chaos prevention tasks. M is for the maintenance tasks, the everyday routine items that need to be completed, and E is for extra tasks, those are the items you might get around to if time permits. Now, your employees have a prioritized list of when and what to work on.

Third, encourage your employees to use some basic time management techniques. These include such things as, only checking and returning e-mails at pre-set times during the day, turning off the e-mail notification sound on their computers, tackling the difficult tasks first, instead of working on smaller, easier to complete tasks, and once you start something, finish it.

Let's work on cutting down the daily two hours of wasted time. It translates into an unproductive 12 weeks of work time per year. Imagine how much more we could get done and how much more successful we can all be.