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Thanks,

Dean M. Brenner

Happy Holidays to All

On behalf of our entire team at The Latimer Group, I thank all our clients, friends and partners for a great 2011. We wish you happiness, health and prosperity in 2012.

Dean Brenner

Mind Your Tone

How many of you have ever had an email, its meaning and the intended tone of the message misinterpreted by the reader? Yeah, me too. Email is a communication tool that provides tone challenges, and it is easy to have things taken in a way that you didn’t intend.

If your message is in any way dependent on the tone being taken correctly, then my advice is “don’t use email for that message.” It’s too easy to get the tone of the email wrong and if you do, or if your reader takes it the wrong way, now you are spending time cleaning up that mess rather than focusing on the issue you wrote about in the first place.

I have one more comment on email tone. Tone is just as much about the way it is received as it is the way it was sent. The reader can choose to take tone in a variety of ways, and while it is easy for the writer to get the tone wrong in an email, I try hard to assume the best and not the worst when I read someone else’s tone.

A negative tone can be implied by the writer. But it can also be inferred by the reader. When I’m the reader, I really try hard to give the writer the benefit of the doubt. If we all did that, we’d have a lot fewer email communication mishaps. I have experienced many situations where I ended up in the middle of an email tone miscommunication, and many times part of the problem was that the reader assumed the absolute worst.

Let’s all be more careful in how we write our emails. But when we are on the receiving end, let’s also give each other a bit more benefit of the doubt.

Have a great day.

Balancing the Short and the Long Views

I’m in Perth, Australia with the US Sailing Team. For those of you who do not know about this part of my life, I’ve been involved as the Chairman and Team Leader for US Olympic Sailing for seven years now. It’s an important part of my life, and an important aspect of my work with The Latimer Group.

We are down here in Perth for the world championships, which will also serve as our Olympic Games selection. It’s a big event for all our sailors and our staff, and we are very focused on this event here. But we have lots of other initiatives in our program that are NOT about the competition this week. And while we are heavily focused on what is happening here, it’s important for the health of the organization and the team that we keep focused on both the immediate goals of this event AND the rest of our goals that are more long term in nature.

I’ve written in the past on the need for balance between the short-term and the long-term, and I’m living it here. It’s important. But how do you actually achieve that? I try to carve time out each day, usually very early in the morning, to look through the “to do” list, and spend some time with staff (some here, some back at home) talking through other things we need to get done. The primary goal here is the immediate goal, but we can’t afford to ignore other stuff while we are here.

It makes for longer days, longer “to do” lists, and a more complicated life for sure. But it also makes for a more efficient approach to productivity.

That’s my thought for you today.

Have a great day.

Dean Brenner

Flexibility

One of the most important concepts I know of, for both leadership AND communication success, is flexibility. In the 21st century, it has become so important to be able to adjust your style to different people and different situations.

It is just no longer appropriate or acceptable to assume that the whole world and everyone around you will adjust their style to yours. Good leaders today have their own core principles and are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. But they are willing and able to adjust to changing environments and situations.

This means that the good leader will think about the people around them, understand that different people and circumstances will require different approaches, and have the skills and willingness to change their style as necessary.

When I see a leader expecting everyone and everything around them to adjust to them, I see a recipe for underperformance.

Have a great day.