How to Walk Your Talk

How to Walk Your TalkHow to Walk Your TalkIf you work in an organization, youve heard this complaint repeatedly. Leaders and managers say they want change and continuous improvement, but their actions do not match their words. The leaders exhortations to employees ring false when their subsequent actions contradict their words. A CEO once asked me, Why do they do what I do and not what I tell them to do? Another asked, Do I have to change, too? These are scary questions coming from leaders. The power of an organizations leaders in creating the organizations values, environment, culture, and actions is immeasurable. Want to know how to walk your talk to enable organization change and improvement? Want to take power away from the oft-repeated employee complaint that managers dont walk their talk? Start here to learn how to walk your talk. Or, use these ideas to help your organizations leaders and managers walk theirs. Its the shortest journey to empower change and the work environment they desire. Tips About How to Walk Your Talk The most important tip comes first. If you do this first action well, the rest will follow more naturally. If the ideas you are promoting are congruent with your core beliefs and values, these actions will come easily, too. So, start with a deep understanding of why you want to see the change or improvement and what change or improvement you want to see. Make certain it is congruent with what you deeply believe. Then, understand and follow these guidelines. Model the Behavior You Want to See From Others There is nothing more powerful for employees than observing the big bosses do the actions or behaviors they are requesting from others. As Mahatma Gandhi said, Become the change you wish to see in the world. And, it will happen. If You Make a Rule or Design a Process, Follow It Until you decide to change it, follow the rules that you lay out. Why would employees follow the rules if the rule makers dont? Act as If You Are Pa rt of the Team Dig in and do actual work, too. People will appreciate that you are personally knowledgeable about the effort needed to get the work done. They will trust your leadership because you have undergone their experience. Collaborate on Achieving Goals Help people achieve the goals that are important to them, as well as the goals that are important to you. Make sure there is something for each of you that will result from the effort and work. Do What You Say Youre Going to Do Dont make rash promises that you cant keep. People want to trust you and your leadership. Build Commitment to Your Organizations Big Goal You do have a big, overarching goal, dont you? Other than to make money, why does your organization exist? Utilize Every Communication Tool Use every possible communication tool to build commitment and support for the big goal, your organizations values, and the culture you want to create. This includes what you discuss at meetings, in your corporate blog, on your Intranet, in social media, and so forth. Use Strategic Conversations Hold strategic conversations with people, so people are clear about expectations and direction. Gerard Kleisterlee, Philips president, is holding strategic conversations with as many groups as he can. To build internal confidence, stimulate cross-boundary cooperation, and spark new-product speed to market, Kleisterlee is sponsoring what he calls strategic conversations dialogues that center around a focused platzset of themes that Kleisterlee believes will define Philips future. Ask Senior Managers to Police Themselves They must provide feedback to each other when they fail to walk their talk. It is not up to the second level managers and other employees to point out inconsistencies. (Confronting a manager takes courage, facts and a broad understanding of the organization.) Senior managers must be accountable to each other for their own behavior. In 1513, Machiavelli wrote, There is nothing m ore difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one. Given these thoughts from Machiavelli - true for centuries provide leadership and sponsorship through walking your talk. Incorporate these tips and behaviors to ensure the success of your organization. Walk your talk.

How Creative Writers Can Use Sentiment

How Creative Writers Can Use SentimentHow Creative Writers Can Use SentimentSentimentality comes up as an issue for nearly every writer at some point. In attempting to convey strong emotions, its easy to go too far and make your reader feel manipulated instead of moved. Over-the-top emotion runs the risk of rolled eyes and the worst case of all of the reader putting your masterpiece aside, never to return to reading it. Sentiment is a good thing. We want our readers to experience emotions as they read our work. Sentimentality, on the other hand, refers to excessive or inappropriate emotion, and it should be avoided in fiction at all costs. Whats the Difference? Think of the last good book you read, the one you couldnt put down, the one that had you glancing at the bedside clock in the wee hours thinking, Ive got to get up and go to work soon. One more page and lights out, I swear. In all likelihood, you were inthat story right along with the hero or heroine. Youre experiencing w hat he or she experiences. Thats sentiment. Sentimentality is the writer telling you what he or she wants you to feel, often by informing you what the hero or heroine is feeling. The sight was terrifying is a bare-bones example of sentimentality. Blood dripped from the knife in slow, congealing globules is sentiment. It inspires a feeling. It also tells the reader that the blood is no longer warm. Youre setting a scene, not just telling the reader whats happening. Achieving Sentiment One of the most productive ways of achieving sentiment over sentimentality is to quite literally put yourself in your heros or heroines shoes as youre writing. See what he or she is seeing. Tell your readers what it is. Dont try to tell your readers how your character feels about or reacts to what he or she is experiencing. Show them. Conveying a story in the first person is a good practice ground to hone skills you can carry forward into other works. Using dialog can also be very helpful in achievi ng sentiment. Run, run, run she shouted gets the point across that the blood isnt a good thing at all, even if its been dripping from the knife long enough to cool off a bit. And throw clichsout the window. Her heart stopped is as condescending to a reader as The sight was terrifying. Do Some Research The best way to learn about sentimentality is to read widely, both literature and pulp. Pay attention to your own reactions to books as you read, and study why they succeed or fail in provoking emotions in you. Finally, its worth pointing out that its possible to overcorrect for sentimentality, as John Irving reminds us in his New York Times essay, In Defense of Sentimentality. But as a writer it is cowardly to so fear sentimentality that one avoids it altogether. It is typical- and forgivable- among student writers to avoid being mush-minded by simply refusing to write about people, or by refusing to subject characters to emotional extremes. A short story about a four-course meal from the point of view of a fork will never be sentimental it may never matter very much to us, either. A fear of contamination by soap opera haunts the educated writer- and reader- though we both forget that in the hands of a clod, Madame Bovary would have been perfect material for daytime television and a contemporary treatment of The Brothers Karamazov could be stuckwith a campus setting.

ASME Brings Bioengineering, Robotics and Additive Manufacturin...

ASME Brings Bioengineering, Robotics and Additive Manufacturin... ASME Brings Bioengineering, Robotics and Additive Manufacturin... ASME Brings Bioengineering, Robotics and Additive Manufacturing Expertise to LiveWorx 2019 ASME Executive Director/CEO Tom Costabile (left) and Alexandria Sica (second from right), executive director of the DUMBO Business Improvement District, with students from the winning team at ASME EFx NYU MakerHack (from left) Ethan Pope, Riley Paterson, Adham Kenawy, Kyle Paterson and Youssif Youssif Traore. (Photos by Wendy Felton, ASME Strategic Communications)ASME and PTC LiveWorx have entered into a collaborative agreement in which ASME will provide its technical expertise in bioengineering, robotics and additive manufacturing to the LiveWorx 2019 program. Specifically, ASME will sponsor the life sciences track at the event and presenters from ASMEs network of technical engineering experts will lead four sessions at the annual digital transformation conference .ASME sessions at LiveWorx 2019, which will take place at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from June 10 to 13, will includeTransforming Modern Medicine Computational Modeling, internet of things and the Digital TwinHow Robotics Brings Digital Twins to LifeAdditive Manufacturing Digital Transformation of the Production LineDesigning for Additive ManufacturingMore than 6,500 technology professionals from manufacturing, aerospace and defense, electronics and high technology, life sciences, and industrial products businesses are expected to participate on-site and thousands more will live stream the event.To learn more about the ASME sessions at LiveWorx, visit http//livewrx.co/eEZt30nwSA1.