Bret L. Simmons - Positive Organizational Behavior

Ten Signs You Are Too Smart To Learn And Too Incognizant to Know

Bret L. Simmons — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:40:21 +0000

The very first article I assign in my MBA class on Organizational Behavior is “Teaching Smart People How to Learn,” by Chris Argyris. People that are too smart to learn are very skilled problem solvers, but very unskilled at reflecting on and changing their own behavior. Successful people just like you and me are most likely to be too smart to really learn. It’s difficult for people to understand that there is a difference between performance and learning.

It’s tough getting through to smart people. Their defensive reasoning mechanisms create a stronghold of incognizance. If you even care to know, here are ten signs that you might indeed be too smart to learn:

1. You spend your time and energy trying to convince others your views are right instead of trying to understand their views.
2. You believe that making mistakes is a sign of incompetence
3. People that know you can’t remember the last time you changed your behavior in any significant way
4. You look for someone to “blame and shame” whenever something goes wrong
5. You take great pride in your intelligence
6. You consider yourself an expert
7. You would rather be recognized for your accomplishments than for your efforts
8. Self-esteem is the focus of your self-reflection
9. It’s impossible for you to question your assumptions because you’ve either never taken the time to identify them or have long since forgotten them
10. If you read outside of work, it’s primarily for pleasure

Our organizations are full of smart people masquerading as leaders. Do you want to be an authentic participant in the process of real leadership, or is being smart good enough?

What do you think? I know I’ve probably missed something, so please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Leaders Are Master Learners

REAL Learning

Your Core Performance Technology

Student Branding Achievement: MBA, Spring 2012

Bret L. Simmons — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:20:27 +0000

My MBA class in personal branding was one of the most enjoyable classes I have ever taught in my entire career. The majority of my 30 students challenged themselves and encouraged each other to create blogs they could be proud of. I’m sure they used my name in vain many times when they were reading three different books, tweeting, commenting on blogs, and posting their own blogs each week; however, a few might even agree it was worth the blood, sweat, and tears. I’m proud of what they achieved, and I think they realize the excellence of what they individually and collectively created.

We had some amazing guest speakers this semester. Via Skype we spoke with authors of the books we read for class: Erik Deckers, Jason Falls, and Shama Kabani. In person, we spoke to local entrepreneurs Milena Regos, Dave Polivy, Laura Zander, Abbi Whitaker (with Connie Aguilar), and Mark Estee.

In a separate post, I listed the best of the best undergraduate student brand videos. I hope you will check that out, because my undergraduate students produced some amazing work. Below are the names and blog titles of some of the best MBA videos. Please click the links and view the videos!

Daniel Herr: On a Search for Smarter and Mindful Living

Marie Wiere: Blue Sky Management Blog

Nicole Carlsen: The Local’s Reno

William Mullen: Young & Eager Professional in the Casino Industry

Laura Brigham: Raising an iChild

Kristin Stith: What Keeps the BIGGEST… Little

Angel Willis: Business Intelligence Blog

The best videos in my MBA class were done by Samantha Conway, Brian Anderson and Cory Bettinghouse. The videos were so impressive I’ve posted them below:

What do you think? Please post your thoughts in the comment section below!

Student Branding Achievement: Undergraduate, Spring 2012

Bret L. Simmons — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:20:52 +0000

I taught courses in personal branding and social business this semester to 32 undergraduate and 30 MBA students at The University of Nevada, Reno. At the height of the course, students were required to blog three times per week and tweet three times per day, five days per week. We produced a mountain of content.

Students were also required to create a 3-5 minute video that communicated the essence of their personal brand to post to the “about me” page of their blog. I gave them very little direction and almost no training. I simply encouraged them to create something they would be proud to put their name on. When I’ve done this in the past, a few students have produced stellar videos (e.g. Caitlin Durkin and Kendra Wilson), but most of the work was not very impressive.

This semester was different. The majority of my 62 students produced work they should be proud of, and a number of them produced some extremely impressive videos. They gave themselves permission to be excellent, and they blew me away with the quality of their effort and results. I’m going to list below the best of the best of undergraduate class, with a hyperlink to each video. If you take the time to click on a few of the links and watch some of these videos, I think you too will be impressed with my students. I’ll list the best of my MBA class in a separate post.

Here are the names and blog titles of some of the best undergraduate videos:

Renee Haynie: Helping Yourself by Helping Others

Kali Whipple: A Simple Guide to Healthy Living

Jasper Jacobs: Atmosphere Dive Apparel

Jesse Capps: Championship Power Poker

Teryn Yopps: We the Liberated

Kevyn Holden: Cooking for Pleasure

Blayne Osborn: A Look at Nevada Politics

Lesley Pastell: Recruit to Hire

Liz Provasi: Cultural Connections

David Bozsik: The Numismatic Enthusiast

Harvey West, III: Rural & Volunteer Fire Service 101

Clark Macario: Drinking & Dining Made Easy

The two best videos in my undergraduate class were done by Mark Omohundro and Kati Nelson. The videos were so impressive I’ve posted them below:

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Enterprise Cares? Not From Where I’m Standing

Bret L. Simmons — Sun, 06 May 2012 23:56:38 +0000

I experienced the worst car rental company customer service I can ever remember from Enterprise Car Rental in the Oklahoma City Airport recently. The line at the counter was ridiculously long, and they only had one person working the desk. The reservation system ensured they knew the other customers and I were coming, but they chose not to be prepared when we arrived.

I stepped back and took a video of the line which I then posted to my Youtube channel. I tweeted my complaint and within a short time received a reply tweet from @enterprisecares. They gave me an e-mail address and asked for more information, so I sent them the link to my video of the long line along with an explanation of the situation. Within a short time I had this direct reply in my e-mail.

The e-mail promised someone would get back to me and discuss the issue. That was nine days ago, and I’ve heard nothing – no call three days later and no e-mail reply. By any standard, that is dismal customer service. If the long line at the counter was not evidence enough that Enterprise Car Rental does not really care about customers, the non-response to the e-mail certainly is.

When I returned the car a few days later about 5:45 am, there was only one attendant working a lot that was a mess. Once I finally located the attendant, I just gave her my keys and took off.

I see two big problems with Enterprise based on this experience. One is operational. There are no excuses for failing to prepare to impress your customers when you know they are coming. That’s a local leadership issue that I suspect is driven by corporate level training, policy, and reward systems.

The other problem is the disconnect between their social media monitoring teams and the people with the real authority to resolve customer complaints. The Twitter team actually did their job very well, but because of the way Enterprise has structured their response system, the social media team has neither control nor responsibility over the final resolution of the complaint. If you are going to give your Twitter team the authority to promise customers a response from other departments in the company, you should also make it a responsibility for them to follow-up on the promises they make.

Enterprise does have low rates, but their service sucks. I think other companies offer competitive rates and competent service, so I won’t be renting from Enterprise again anytime soon.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Redbox: Best Ever Customer Relationship Management On Twitter

Return To Campo Reno

Making McGood On A Service Failure

Goal Accomplished

Bret L. Simmons — Sun, 06 May 2012 01:50:56 +0000

I ran my first marathon on October 3, 2004 at the age of 43. I’d been a casual runner my whole life, but always thought that running a marathon was something “other” people did, and certainly not something an old fart like me could even consider. In 2003 I was working at North Dakota State University when a colleague of mine, Joe Mike Jones, mentioned in casual conversation that he had run two marathons when he was in his 40’s. I knew then that if Joe Mike could do it, so could I.

As I learned how to train for a marathon, I discovered the biggest barriers to accomplishing this goal were between my ears. It’s amazing what your body can do once your mind gets with the program. I learned a lot about how to train from a good book by Hal Higdon, but I learned the most from two very gracious women that let me crash their party and train with them. They taught me much of what I know today about how to prepare for a marathon.

I really enjoyed that first marathon, so much so that I set a goal to run 10 marathons before I turned 50. I pursued my goal with determination and ran my 7th marathon in May 2007 and my 8^th marathon in June of 2007, only two weeks apart. That summer I was training for marathons 9 and 10 when the wheels feel off my bus.

For the next three years, I struggled to run even 5 miles, never fully recovering from the effects of my injury. It was very discouraging, but I never gave up, never quit, never lost hope. Even though my body kept telling me “game over,” I always believed that I would eventually find a way to recover and get back on track.

I ran my 9^th marathon on December 4, 2011 and just completed my 10^th on April 29, 2012. I’m already 50 now, so technically I did not accomplish my goal, but that’s not the story I’m telling myself.

My 10^th marathon was The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, and it was an extremely well organized and very moving event. Race day was warm, humid, and rainy – very challenging for a heavy runner like me – so I was totally wasted by mile 20. But as I struggled through those last 6.2 miles of the race I reflected on how thankful I was to be alive and healthy, and I was equally thankful that I was able to participate in a tribute to the 168 innocent people that lost their lives to domestic terrorism in my home state of Oklahoma on April 19, 1995.

It took me 7 years to accomplish that goal. My next goal is to stay healthy and continue running at least one marathon a year until I am selected via the lottery to run in the NYC Marathon (I don’t see myself ever qualifying for the Boston Marathon). I did not get selected this year, but hopefully sometime in the next few years I will get selected and have a chance to accomplish this new goal.

In June, I’ll start training for The Biz Johnson Marathon in October 2012 .

What’s your goal accomplishment story? Have you struggled through difficult circumstances to achieve a goal that really mattered to you? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Praise Grit

Committing To Your Goals

Excuses Are Irrelevant

Inbound Marketing For WordPress Reno

Bret L. Simmons — Sat, 05 May 2012 17:21:45 +0000

Inbound Marketing

View more presentations from Bret Simmons

I’m doing a presentation today about Inbound Marketing for the WordPress Reno group. I’ve spoken about Inbound Marketing, Social Business, and Personal Branding many times before, but I am particularly excited about this presentation because the audience understands the value of blogging. For those of you that have heard “blogging is dead,” keep in mind that you did not hear that from Google, which still very much values and rewards sites with active blogs that produce relevant and socially shared content. If you don’t have a blog, you don’t have an engine of relational capacity; therefore, your site can only practice outbound marketing.

Inbound Marketing: Picking The Right People To Help

Social Businesses Love Social Objects

The Digital Passport

Researching A Social Media Agency

Bret L. Simmons — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:59:33 +0000

I had coffee this morning with a local small business owner interested in learning more about how to use social media for business. The first thing I did was search on his name, and his business website ranked number three in my Google search. I was impressed that his website has a blog, which gives him the opportunity to practice inbound marketing, but his most recent blog post was April 2011.

He asked for my advice about a social media agency he was considering hiring to do some work for him. I Googled the agency and explained my concerns. The advice I gave him and always give others is in line with Michael Brito’s counsel from his book Smart Business, Social Business:

If an agency truly is a social media agency, examining the website closely should validate it. Are they blogging? Using Twitter? Does their content make any sense? Is their website optimized with social functionality with social bookmarks, Twitter, and Facebook? Simple observations such as these help narrow the focus and separate social media agencies from ones who just add social media as an add-on service. There is an important distinction between the two, because agencies that are socially proficient should be very active on Twitter, blogging, and also have some level of Facebook presence. (pp. 136-137).

These criteria are why I never hesitate to recommend The Abbi Agency to folks here in Reno. This agency practices every solution they sell, and Abbi Whitaker leads the way for her team by contributing blog posts and running her own twitter account and professionally personal Facebook page. She employs folks like Constance Aguilar and Nicole Rose Dion. – real digital citizens. Abbi gets it because she is personally immersed in it.

Google is a learning machine. It knows the people in your market who know what they are doing because those folks have taught Google that they understand social business. Ask your friends for advice, then always consult Google.

Inbound Marketing: Picking The Right People To Help

Social Businesses Love Social Objects

Social Business: Recommendations For You Personally

Redbox: Best Ever Customer Relationship Management on Twitter

Bret L. Simmons — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 02:15:20 +0000

I love Redbox! At 9:57 am this morning, I posted a question to @redbox asking how to resolve a problem I encountered this morning. I got a response to my tweet one minute later, at 9:58 am, from @redboxcare telling me to e-mail them to request a refund. I sent the e-mail at 10:03 am, and by 10:06 am they had responded to tell me the issue was resolved. WOW!!

This was VERY impressive customer relationship management (CRM), especially considering the problem was my fault and not theirs. I am now not simply a satisfied customer, I am a raving fan of Redbox. No regrets at all about cancelling my Netflix account and spending my money with Rebox instead.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

ATT Has Twitter’s Number For Impressive Customer Service

Why I Always Complain About Poor Service

Enchanting Social Business Advice

Leadership Encourages Hope

Bret L. Simmons — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:29:38 +0000

The process of leadership flourishes when people assume responsibility for the choice to pursue substantive changes that enhance a shared purpose. This process is potent when its participants have hope – the belief that one knows how to perform and is willing to direct and sustain consistent effort to accomplish goals that matter. Hope requires three steps from leadership:

1. Help identifying meaningful goals that really matter

2. Help understanding what it takes to achieve those goals

3. Encouragement to assume responsibility for investing effort

The first two steps toward hope are relatively straightforward, but it’s probably where most leadership surprisingly flounders. Do the people in your group know what really matters to the long term success of your organization? Do they know the most important things they need to do on a daily basis to help the organization thrive? Do they understand how and why their daily behavior makes a difference? How do you know?

The third step won’t happen without the first two, but even when the first two steps have been done well, it’s no guarantee that everyone will care and then choose to put forth effort to perform. Leadership can never provide hope because ultimately hope is an individual choice that involves uncertainty, risk, responsibility, patience, perseverance, and fear.

Leadership lives and dies on its ability to help people move forward through fear in the right direction, in the right ways. When we commit to the process of leadership, we can never be responsible for the hope of those we engage with, but we must always hold ourselves accountable.

Nourishers And Toxins

Three Beliefs Leaders Hold About Employees That Cause Silence

Leadership Requires The Courage To Fight For Real Changes

April 2012 Leadership Development Carnival

Bret L. Simmons — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 02:56:19 +0000

The April 2012 Leadership Development Carnival is out and as always, it’s packed with links to great blog posts. The heavy lifting this month was done by Tanmay Vora of QAspire, with the continued stellar support of Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership. My contribution this month is entitled “The Difference Between Leadership and Management.”

I usually find good material from a blogger new to me, like this article entitled “The Adaptability Paradox” by Linda Fisher Thornton. So take a few minutes to browse what Tanmay has assembled for us and see if you can find something new to help your own leadership development.