There is nothing in the world that helps an executive stand out as much as great manners.  You stand apart when you know what to do and how to treat others in every business situation.  There are many elements to executive presence, including communication skill, presentation style, body language, appearance and wardrobe.  However, many well dressed, articulate, smart executives don’t know, or don’t care enough to learn the rules of manners and etiquette.

I just read that Reader’s Digest tested levels of politeness in 36 cities around the world. In each city, undercover reporters from local Reader’s Digest editions performed three tests 20 times each. Cities earned a point each time one of its residents (1) helped a stranger pick up his or her dropped papers; (2) thanked someone making a small purchase; and (3) held doors open to the people following them into a building.

New York scored highest with 80%, followed by Zurich with 78% and Toronto with 70%. The cities with the lowest scores on these three tests? Mumbai (32%), Bucharest (35%), and Kuala Lumpur (37%).

Now I’m not sure how scientific this study is, or whether they just caught some of these cities on a collectively bad day, but the larger point is - as a professional or executive, your score should be 100% on these behaviors.  This came out in the Harvard Business publication daily stat report.  click here to read about the study

You never know who is watching.  And you never know what might trip you up.  Companies usually invite top job candidates to one or several dinners and social activities.  The purpose is not only to get to know you in a social setting; it is also to test your know-do you know how to handle yourself?

In these situations, nothing is overlooked.  If you don’t thank the person who took your coat, or brought your drink; if you fail to handle introductions or wait until everyone is served to eat, if you don’t know how to carry on a great conversation, it will be duly noted.  Given two capable candidates, the one who handles himself or herself superbly gets the nod. 

There is a fun quiz on manners (actuallly several etiquette topics) at manners international’s web site.  Click here to take a quiz.

I can also recommend Judity Bowman, Protocol Consultants, who has decades of experience working with business executives on etiquette: click here to read about Judith Bowman.   

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If you had already completed your budget planning for 2009 around October 1st, you are probably bemoaning the fact that you’ve had to throw out your budget and start over.  When the  stock market started plummeting and economists began their doomsday predictions of a prolonged recession, the orders came down to cut back.  So you know you can’t go into the board of directors or the senior management team with the original presentation on your budget for next year. 

At the same time, you’ve put a lot of thought and careful planning into the budget for next year.  You know the rationale still exists for many of their projects.  In fact, some of these projects seem absolutely critical, given the challenges ahead.   

 The question is how should you adapt your presentation when the financial landscape shifts?  Should you throw it out and start over again?  The answer is yes, and no.  Of course you have to demonstrate that you’ve tightened your belt, eliminated excess, done without, and become more efficient.    However,  your budget should have been clearly linked to important strategic initiatives that lead to revenues and profits.  If it was, make your case.  Do your homework and have the courage to present your projects and advocate for them in the best interests of the company.  Cut back in some areas and then take a stand where it will make a difference.

If you’ve prepared a plan that focuses on the company’s most important objectives, it should be easy to present a clear and compelling case.  You need to tie the investment directly to growth, profitability, productivity, efficiency, competitive advantage, and new opportunity.  If you do this then it should be easy to demonstrate measurable ROI.

 When we help our executive clients prepare presentations, we always start by thinking about the end “user.”  That is, who is listening to your presentation?  What would persuade them?  What are their concerns?  Forget about the beautiful slides, graphs and charts.  Put it all aside and write down the top five questions on the minds of your audience.   Then be sure you have great answers. 

For example, when you walk in the door to make your presentation, they might be thinking:

·         What do you want to do and why?

·         Can we get by without it?

·         How does it help us right now?

·         What’s it going to cost?

·         How can we do it cheaper, better, faster?

If you don’t answer those questions right up front, you will lose them.  Get right to it.

So my advice is, before you blow up your presentation, see what you have that works.  Then, write down the top of mind questions.   Answer them with compelling facts.

FI you don’t do this,  you’re doomed to fail.  If you do, you may walk out with exactly the budget you hoped for, or something close.  As the song goes, you don’t always get what you want.  But if you try sometimes, you get what you need.

For more tips on how to prepare important presentations, click here

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There’s a lot of conversation out there about how we’ve lost confidence.  Investors, consumers, business leaders — what we’re lacking is confidence.

It’s worth asking what is confidence?  And how can you convey genuine confidence in your communications with clients, customesr and employees?

Confidence isn’t false bravado –it’s not the same as hubris or arrogance. Confidence is defined this way: as a state of being certain that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective given the circumstances.   

Arrogance is having unmerited confidence–believing something or someone is capable or correct when they are not. Overconfidence is excessive belief, in someone or something, succeeding, without any regard for failure.  

Confidence in a course of action, based on the best information you have at the moment, and a will enable you to act. As you act with confidence and things happen you increase confidence as you discover there is a reasonable degree of certainty that the next step you take will also make a positive impact.

Before you pick up the phone or contact anyone during adverse times, you should do a confidence check up.  Most of us are confident a lot of the time, but adversity can shake your confidence.

Tomorrow (Thursday October 23rd) at 4 pm Eastern time, I will provide a 10-Point Confidence Check Up.  www.bates-communications.com/teleseminars

We’ll also have an excerpt from the Teleseminar, including the full confidence check up, in our upcoming November Newsletter, the Voice of Leadership.  Sign up here to receive our newsletter. http://http//visitor.constantcontact.com/optin.jsp?v=001hZW3PxlWKk03-5z1X2bewE2j_hO0-8wl9tGfNZ4cENUx7hPGLQ2xVQ%3D%3D

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Yesterday I met an executive in a large financial services company and over coffee, we talked about how things are going. I asked him, “How are people here handling the stress?”  

He wasn’t worried about himself or the management.  It was the people in the call center.  They are struggling to manage a deluge of customer questions and complaints.   They’ve been overwhelmed by inquiries from angry, fearful,  resentful, frightened and depressed customers who are truly panicked about what’s happening to their 401 K and other investments. 

The executive has decided to bring in counselors to help call center employees handle the tension and respond appropriately.   A majority of these employees have never been through a downturn and have no idea how to field these types of calls.   

The crisis in the markets and the steady stream of bad news has the effect of making us want to just hunker down and ride it out. If your clients and prospects are calling to postpone or cancel orders or engagements, you sure don’t feel like picking up the phone and calling anyone.  One of the most important things we can do for our clients right now is to simply be there for them. 

Yet reaching out to people in times of stress is really the key to building long lasting relationships.

What’s the best thing you can do right now to be there for your clients? On October 24th I’ll be giving a one hour teleseminar 4-5 pm Eastern Time, on ”The Power of Adversity, Opportunities to Connect with Clients in Challenging TImes.”   Sign up for the teleseminar here.

This is a one hour teleseminar program to discuss strategies for connecting with your clients and communicating with prospects during this economic turmoil.  As your customers and prospects brace for the impact of a downturn and wonder what is going to happen, how can you reach out and create value in the relationship.  Doing this effectively can be one of the keys to recession-proofing your own business.

The primary focus of this hour is how to execute your plan in the right frame of mind, say the right thing to clients and prospects, and provide real value so you become the obvious choice to help them survive and thrive in difficult times.

Obviously you can’t just hide out, watch TV news, get angry at Wall Street or Washington.  Watching TV news right now puts you in the wrong state of mind.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t stay informed, but you can get stuck there.  What’s needed right now for your business is positive action.  

Ask yourself:

·      Do we know what we should be saying to customers right now?

·      Are we prepared to intelligently discuss their situation and offer solutions?

·      What will help us position our company’s products and services as high value?

·      Are we operating our own business out of fear?  If so, how do we overcome it? 

·      How can we act with confidence and and communicate decisively with our marketplace?

And join us at 4 pm October 24th.  If you can’t make it, we’re making the audio downloadable, or you can order the CD.

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In times like these, this country more than ever needs visionary, courageous CEOs who can keep people focused on the future and give them reason to have faith in their companies.  Yes, it’s been an enormously challenging few weeks, but folks, this is the United States of America.  We survived the Great Depression, fought and liberated countries through two World Wars, and built the greatest economy on the face of the earth.  We just need leaders and all Americans to recognize this for what it is, a crisis of confidence.

One of the reasons I am writing my new book, Motivate Like a CEO (McGraw Hill, January 2009) is because now more than ever, we need leaders to step up and be leaders.  They need to keep people focused on the vision and strategy and and motivate and inspire them to keep moving toward their gaols. 

During this time of economic uncertainty when many people are growing fearful, anxious and depressed, CEOs and leaders need to be a beacon of hope in their companies.  Now is not the time to hide in long meetings with each other.   Leaders need to get out, show their faces, talk to people and reassure investors, the public, even the media.  Leaders need to keep people focused on the future and what they can do right now to keep the economy moving. 

A few CEOs are giving the title a bad name right now, those who caused this crisis should give back their ill-gotten earnings and spend some timein jail if they’ve committed crimes.   

At the same time, we have many great CEOs and leaders in this company who can help lead us out of this mess.  Now is not the time to stop doing business, but to move forward together as one nation, believing in each other and keeping the engines of commerce moving.  This will take courage on the part of every leader.

I was reading an interview with Warren Buffet a few weeks ago on CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/id/27116449 just as the credit crisis began to unfold.  Buffet takes the long view on the market:

“You know, five years from now, ten years from now, we’ll look back on this period and we’ll see that you could have made some extraordinary (stock market) buys. That doesn’t mean it won’t get more extraordinary a week or a month from now. I have no idea what the stock market is going to do next month or six months from now. I do know that the American economy, over a period of time, will do very well, and people who own a piece of it will do well.”

Now is the time when we all must believe in ourselves.  We are a great country, American business is innovative and resilient, and our economy, the strongest in the world.  

Tyler Mathisen of CNBC’s “The Call”  says they are receiving on their late morning program lots of questions about where all the leaders have gone: http://www.cnbc.com/id/27120332/site/14081545

Mathisen says, “When they have tried to speak up and lead, why haven’t they been heard? Maybe it’s because we’re all too rattled to listen. Maybe it’s because no single soul, in business or government, has the clarity of understanding to express fully what we face. Maybe it’s because none of our leaders, in public or private sectors, has the stature, the standing, the voice, the rhetorical power to break through the din.  Maybe it’s because the lawyers or the PR guys have gotten to them and said, “Go on CNBC? Now? Are you nuts?” Or maybe it’s because we’re four weeks from a Presidential election, with a lame duck president and two candidates who, like all candidates, would really rather score political points than speak clearly and sometimes uncomfortably to the people they say they want to lead.

“Whatever the reason, Mathisen says it’s time for America’s leading CEOs — the Fortune 500 guys — to blow past their lawyers and handlers and get their messages to shareholders, customers, employees and the broader public.

“I know they’re worried about Sarbanes Oxley. I know they’re afraid of saying something that could come back to haunt them. And I know that quite a few of them have spoken out, many on our air, and we are grateful to them. Warren Buffett, Wilbur Ross and Mike Jackson of AutoNation come to mind. But more of them need to. Many more.”

CNBC and other networks are trying to get CEOs to step up to the microphone and provide public leadership - but many are indeed avoiding the spotlight.   Companies like Fidelity, Vanguard, T Rowe Price and others  could also help calm fears in the market if they were more visible.

I can understand why CEOs don’t want to be in the hot seat publicly now, but the country needs leaders in every sector, not just financial services, to speak up and reassure the nation.  I hope they are at least meeting with their own employees letting them know we can survive and thrive if we work together.  That is real leadership — and that is what will keep this country from suffering a long, deep, painful recession.  We simply have to reject fear, and start believing in ourselves.

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“A hero can give his life all in one day or he can give it one day at a time.”

       Deena Burnett wife of Tom Burnett, Flight 93 hero and alumnus of Pepperdine University

Last week our team visited Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA http://www.pepperdine.edu/ to prepare the leadershp team of a Fortune 100 company for presentations to their CEO.  After the session, I took a walk outside the Graziadio School of Business and Management, http://bschool.pepperdine.edu/ and discovered a beautiful little memorial park perched at the top of the foothill.  This peaceful oasis offered a magnificent vista of the Pacific where you could rest on a shady bench, put your feet into a water pool, or walk around and read some leaders’ quotes post the 9/11 disaster. 

I had certainly heard of Tom Burnett, a Pepperdine alumnus and one of the heroes of 9/11. But after reading what his wife Deena said about heroes, I was curious to learn more, so I went on the Burnett Family Foundation web site.  There, I found a transcript of their cell phone conversations up until a few minutes before the plane crashed into the ground. 

This writing may seem like a departure from what I usually talk about, but it really is about heroes and leadership.  I started thinking about what Deena Burnett said.  How can each of us strive to be every day heroes?

As you read this transcript of their calls, perhaps you’ll be struck again as I was about how these brave citizens became heroes.  They took action in the face of impossible odds because it was the right and only thing to do. 

If each of us were to keep in mind every day this lesson in leadership, the world would be a better place indeed.  Imagine if as leaders we decide to act, even when the odds are against us, because it is right.  This would move our country and our world closer to a model of leadership that we sorely need today. 

Transcript of Tom’s last calls to Deena

6:27 a.m.( pacific time) First cell phone call from Tom to Deena

• Deena: Hello
• Tom: Deena
• Deena: Tom, are you O.K.?
• Tom: No, I’m not. I’m on an airplane that has been hijacked.
• Deena: hijacked?
• Tom: Yes, They just knifed a guy.
• Deena: A passenger?
• Tom: Yes.
• Deena: Where are you? Are you in the air?
• Tom: Yes, yes, just listen. Our airplane has been hijacked. It’s United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco. We are in the air. The hijackers have already knifed a guy, one of them has a gun, they are telling us there is a bomb on board, please call the authorities. He hung up.

6:31 Deena calls 911

6:34 The phone rang in on call waiting, Tom’s second cell phone call.

• Deena: Hello
• Tom: They’re in the cockpit. The guy they knifed is dead.
• Deena: He’s dead?
• Tom: Yes. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t get a pulse.
• Deena: Tom, they are hijacking planes all up and down the east coast. They are taking them and hitting designated targets. They’ve already hit both towers of the World Trade Center.
• Tom: They’re talking about crashing this plane. (a pause) Oh my God. It’s a suicide mission…(he then tells people sitting around him)
• Deena: Who are you talking to?
• Tom: My seatmate. Do you know which airline is involved?
• Deena: No, they don’t know if they’re commercial airlines or not. The newsreporters are speculating cargo planes, private planes and commercial. No one knows.
• Tom: How many planes are there?
• Deena: They’re not sure, at least three. Maybe more.
• Tom: O.K….O.K….Do you know who is involved?
• Deena: No.
• Tom: We’re turning back toward New York. We’re going back to the World Trade Center. No, wait, we’re turning back the other way. We’re going south.
• Deena: What do you see?
• Tom: Just a minute, I’m looking. I don’t see anything, we’re over a rural area. It’s just fields. I’ve gotta go.
• He hung up.

6:45 a.m. Third cell phone call from Tom to Deena

• Tom: Deena
• Deena: Tom, you’re O.K. (I thought at this point he had just survived the Pentagon plane crash).
• Tom: No, I’m not.
• Deena: They just hit the Pentagon.
• Tom: (tells people sitting around him “They just hit the Pentagon.”)
• Tom: O.K….O.K. What else can you tell me?
• Deena: They think five airplanes have been hijacked. One is still on the ground. They believe all of them are commercial planes. I haven’t heard them say which airline, but all of them have originated on the east coast.
• Tom: Do you know who is involved?
• Deena: No
• Tom: What is the probability of their having a bomb on board? I don’t think they have one. I think they’re just telling us that for crowd control.
• Deena: A plane can survive a bomb if it’s in the right place.
• Tom: Did you call the authorities?
• Deena: Yes, they didn’t know anything about your plane.
• Tom: They’re talking about crashing this plane into the ground. We have to do something. I’m putting a plan together.
• Deena: Who’s helping you?
• Tom: Different people. Several people. There’s a group of us. Don’t worry. I’ll call you back.

6:54 a.m. Fourth cell phone call to Tom to Deena

• Deena: Tom?
• Tom: Hi. Anything new?
• Deena: No
• Tom: Where are the kids?
• Deena: They’re fine. They’re sitting at the table having breakfast. They’re asking to talk to you.
• Tom: Tell them I’ll talk to them later
• Deena: I called your parents. They know your plane has been hijacked.
• Tom: Oh…you shouldn’t have worried them. How are they doing?
• Deena: They’re O.K.. Mary and Martha are with them.
• Tom: Good. (a long quiet pause) We’re waiting until we’re over a rural area. We’re going to take back the airplane.
• Deena: No! Sit down, be still, be quiet, and don’t draw attention to yourself! (The exact words taught to me by Delta Airlines Flight Attendant Training).
• Tom: Deena! If they’re going to crash this plane into the ground, we’re going to have do something!
• Deena: What about the authorities?
• Tom: We can’t wait for the authorities. I don’t know what they could do anyway.
• It’s up to us. I think we can do it.
• Deena: What do you want me to do?
• Tom: Pray, Deena, just pray.
• Deena: (after a long pause) I love you.
• Tom: Don’t worry, we’re going to do something.
• He hung up

In celebration of Tom Burnett’s life, the family set up a foundation to educate young people about how to be good citizens and leaders of tomorrow.  Here’s the web site:

http://www.tomburnettfamilyfoundation.org/index.html

General comments for the Burnett family should be directed to tomburnettfamilyfoundation@msn.com

Mailing Address:
The Tom Burnett Family Foundation
P.O. Box 633
Northfield, MN 55057

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