While working on a sales desk some time ago, my team and I were told that we were going to be visited by some of the senior executives of the organization for a half-day. The goal, they said, was for the senior members of our organization to spend some time with us to see what we do first hand to gain a better understanding of the day-to-day issues we faced. This would ultimately help with their strategic decision-making going forward.

To prepare for this visit, my team and I had meetings to cover what would be expected of us and which people would be targeted as those that the executives would most likely shadow for the day. We then had a stream of meetings to review what the routine would be for that day and what we were going to try to accomplish. Some of these meetings were to serve as reminders of existing policy and some were meant to highlight the things that needed to be emphasized or deemphasized during the visit with the senior leaders.

At the time, I did see a lot of value in senior leaders spending time with my team. What bothered me about the process the most, however, was that there had to be special attention given to the visit. I didn’t agree that when senior executives were coming to the office for the day there should be special meetings or advance warning of any kind.  Later on in my career, when I became a sales manager at another organization, I used this instance from my past as a building block for my management style.  I feel very strongly that it is important for senior executives in organizations to spend time with teams like the one I was a part of. It is one thing for managers to report things to senior executives, but it is also very worthwhile for them to sit down and see for themselves. Every person on the team should be operating as if the CEO of the organization is sitting right next to them at all times.  If a team member determines that part of their workday should be spent browsing the internet, that is fine.  It is part of the day.  If someone makes a great sales call, that is excellent. On to the next one.  If someone on the team makes a mistake on the phone, that is ok. How can we learn from that mistake and scale it out to the rest of the team? You should feel comfortable and encourage the mentality that the CEO could and should be watching all of this.

As a leader it should be your goal to get your organization to the point where you trust that, if anyone within the organization, no matter what level, were going to Continue reading »

In 2013, I had the fortunate experience of serving as a mentor at my prior organization.  The mentor program was a leadership development program within the company and I was asked to serve as a mentor to an employee in another department to help them see a different side of the organization. One aspect of this program included a panel discussion day where three mentors hosted a talk, answered questions, discussed their careers and, if asked, gave advice to the group of mentees, which totaled about 40 total audience members.  I was told following the session that people felt they had gotten a lot of great insight from the discussion, but it’s important to note that serving as a mentor and sitting on this panel was also personally rewarding for me.  I took pages of notes during the process that I still refer to today.

One of the questions that sticks with me to this day from this panel discussion was, “If you had to sum up your professional beliefs on a bumper sticker, what would it say?” As basic as it was, I didn’t answer the question.  I told the group, which included mentees, other mentors, and various leaders within my organization, that I couldn’t think of anything just then that summed up my beliefs so succinctly.  I think that was the truth, but I also honestly had no idea what to say in that moment.  Having now spent nearly ten years with two large financial firms and in my capacity at The CP Journal, I have an answer that I feel confident in.

Take Blame, Give Credit.

In my personal and professional experiences leading me to where I am today I have found only a couple of constants.  One Continue reading »

A former colleague of mine sent me this talk this week. Here is Susan Colantuono speaking at a TED Conference in Boston in 2013. I suggest taking a few minutes to watch it, as the concepts can benefit anyone who ever plans on having a job, keeping a job, or moving up in a company.  I found it extremely interesting and relevant to the work we are doing here at The CP Journal because we spend a lot of time working with and talking to military personnel and veterans, many of whom are entering, or have entered, the corporate world after service.  While this talk focuses primarily on women and their career progressions, here are my three biggest takeaways for anyone looking to land a new job or develop the skills needed to earn promotion.

Financial Acumen – In my experience interviewing military veterans, I have found that vets rarely like to go down the path of demonstrating the value that they will provide to an organization.  In their prior roles these are some of most confident and relied upon people in the world and yet they have significant amounts of doubt about their worth to an organization.  One of the first ways that a candidate can begin to think about the concept of financial acumen is to Continue reading »

My background has always been in finance. I know about stock, bonds, mutual funds, insurance and annuities, but when I first started spending time with Patrick Van Horne and learning more about the concepts he was tasked with teaching our nation’s military while he was a Marine, I was fascinated. I loved hearing about how he was working to improve people’s ability to identify threats and act proactively on the intentions of others.  As I began working more closely with Patrick, collaborating with him on how he could turn the programs he’d built into a business, I jumped at the chance to officially become a part of it.  I joined The CP Journal because I believe that the concepts Patrick teaches our nation’s protectors directly correlates to the civilian world, and that people everywhere can greatly benefit from improving their own ability to analyze behavior.

In my time in financial services I successfully transitioned from financial planner to wholesaler to leading a large sales team. I liked the investment world, but what I loved specifically was working with the people. I love learning and development and have a passion for understanding the reasons why people interact with each other the way they do. These are skills that aren’t simply picked up by reading a book or watching a movie.  They are skills that take time to develop by assessing yourself, the people around you, and the environment you are a part of.  I spent the first few years of my professional life making most of my decisions based on what I felt was the right the thing to do.  Fortunately for me, many of the decisions I have made along the way have turned out positively, but I realize now that I wasn’t consciously aware of why exactly I was making these decisions and what would come as a result of them in the near and distant future.

The first time I sat in a room with clients of The CP Journal and watched the group work to understand the concepts of Tactical Analysis, I immediately thought back to my sales training.  I can recall specific instances where I would be seated in front of a potential client, walking them through the fact-finding stages of the meeting, then walked them through all of the features and benefits of an investment idea, and handled all objections to complete the sale.  While the language and terminology may be different in my new context with The CP Journal, the overall concepts are the same.  Later, as a sales leader I taught others how to do the same.  I have always been good at helping people tap into their natural ability.  My businesses have been successful and my year-end reviews were filled with praise for understanding my team and getting the most out of them.  I was good at it, but I was not an expert.

In joining this firm I look forward to helping spread the importance of understanding human behavior in the worlds that exist outside of the battlefield.  I realize that becoming an expert takes time, and I am looking forward to continuing to work on developing programs to help more organizations improve their ability to analyze human behavior as part of their processes.  Whether it is a sales team looking to increase business, a hiring manager improving the process of interviewing talent, or a team of customer service reps that need to quickly assess the intentions of their customers, the skills we teach at The CP Journal can make human interactions more effective.  I look forward to the continued work helping you better understand the intentions of others and improving your ability to make more conscious decisions.