Certain beliefs and advice keep being repeated in our conversations and seminars and feedback sessions with leaders What follows is Part Two in our series dealing with the issues that are critical to personal and organizational success. Share them with your own universe of people and be amazed at how effective they can be as a tool to begin discussions

People Relationships

?Become an observer of behavior ? first your own behavior, then the behavior of others. Understanding how you and others act and interact is a powerful asset ? a top 5% asset.

?Creating and maintaining positive relationships with people is the most important behavior in determining your success.

?Technical ability in your chosen career is necessary ? the ability to work effectively with people is absolutely necessary, regardless of your career.

?People rarely fail because of a lack of technical knowledge. Many people fail because of their inability to work effectively with others.

?Judging others based on your own experiences is a recipe for failure - you will always be wrong about their motivations because you will always use your motivations, experiences, attitudes and beliefs as the basis for judging ? and yours are not theirs.

? Listening beats speaking 70% of the time. When you are talking, unless you are the rare person skilled in accurately reading body language, you are learning very little.

?You cannot change the way people treat you ? you can change the way you treat them.

?Be sure you perform at a personal level of conduct that meets or exceeds what you expect from others ? placing higher standards on the conduct of others than on yourself is a sure way to lose the respect and trust of others.

?30% of the population thinks in terms of opportunities; 70% thinks in terms of consequences. Neither is better or worse than the other ? but opportunity people and consequence people can have a really hard time understanding and dealing with each other. Yet both are absolutely essential to the success of any enterprise ? creating synergy between their behaviors creates competitive advantage.

?When you receive an abusive or stupid or poorly written E Mail, and you are tempted to "fire off" an answer ? remember ? there is nothing easier for someone to do than to forward that response - and guess who looks bad. When using E Mail, stick to the facts and keep your emotions out of your writing. Always write as if you are writing to a boss you do not know, have never seen, but who has complete control over your career. If you need to react, pick up the phone or, better yet, meet face to face.

?Become really good at the art of Constructive Confrontation ? a top 5% behavior. Learn to deal with the issues without defensiveness and with an end in mind.

?There is nothing more devastating to a person than to communicate by your actions that you don't expect too much from them. Low expectations are the root of low performance. If you expect little, you will get little.

?Tell people by your actions that you expect the best from them ? people will respond positively 99% of the time and will exceed your expectations.

Time ? Trust ? Respect

?Assumptions are the destroyer of trust. Whenever possible, replace assumptions with clear expectations and goals. In doing so you will create the path to trust.

?Time is a variable ? based on the level of trust you have with your boss and your organization and the members of your "universe." The higher the level of trust you have with your universe the more freedom you have to use your time for the important, high leverage things.

?Trust comes from meeting or exceeding commitments, expectations, goals and keeping your word ? there are no other ways to get and keep trust.

?There is no more disrespectful action a manager can take than to be wasteful with the time of his/her people ? when meetings routinely start late, run late; when time commitments are not kept; when reviews are late; all proclaim loudly that the manager is more concerned with things other than with his/her people.

There are lots of ways to use these elements of advice from leaders. One person we know ? plagued with a boss who was always late ? highlighted the respect/time element and left it on the desk of his boss ? unsigned. It worked. Find your own ways to use these pieces of advice from successful leaders in your own business and personal life.