Conflict Resolution in the Workplace: 8 Useful Dale Carnegie Quotes.

Thanks to my dad for sending this to me.  A terrific read for any to avoid arguments.

TGIM!  Thank God it’s Monday!

If Duke or Wisconsin lose tonight, was their season still a success?  I think 100% yes.  They both have had great seasons and are the two teams left in a 68 tourney of champions chosen from 360 division 1 teams.

Do we celebrate success enough at Drexel?  I say… there is no such thing as celebrating a success too much.  And I am being 100% sincere when I state that.  Showroom clean, Success!  Smile on your face!  Success!  Make a mistake, realize your mistake, make the correction and move on, SUCCESS!

Life is not as black and white as a game.  In a game… You score more points you win.  Success!  In life and business, it is not quite as clear.

Each time we take an order it’s a success: Somebody thinks we are good enough that they will spend there money to buy from us.

SUCCESS!

For instance Joe from Wrightstown and their team unloaded upwards of 20,000 sheets of OSB last week.  All of it will be sold this Spring.  Did we pop champagne?  Sing Jump Around?  Of course not.  “It’s just our job.”  Well not really… possibly the largest buy and unload of OSB this year in Wisconsin.  I wouldn’t doubt that.  I say, way to go Joe, purchasing, sales, and the ap-ar that made that transaction seamless!  Success!

As we roll into Spring, CELEBRATE PEOPLE.  Life at Drexel is good.  And successful.  Look around.  Do you see successful team members or losers?

Don’t diminish encouraging each other one.  It’s a great habit to get into.  A hi-five, a pat on the back, a quick smile, a “wow nice work”.  Just have fun with this career.  Sales, this business, it’s a giant game we are playing.  Have fun playing it.

Teams and organizations that focus on and celebrate success create more success. Success becomes ingrained in the culture and people naturally look for it, focus on it and expect it. That’s why certain football coaches and business leaders are always successful. They implement systems and principles that create a culture that celebrates and expects success and this drives behavior and habits that create successful outcomes.

Drexel does this as well as anyone.  We have team member of the week.  Beth sends out her “high margin” winners for the month… mid 30s and 40’s are common!  And much, much more.  We can even do more.  REMEMBER each ORDER, EACH PHONE CALL, EACH CUSTOMER IN OUR STORES, AND even EACH TEAM MEMBER that ROCKS that chooses to show up here most days… THAT IS A SUCCESS.

Why would we ever complain?  What good does it do?

Celebrate the small wins as much as the big wins. Celebrate successful projects and implementations.

Tomorrow will have enough worries.  Leave those worries for tomorrow.  Fear is vastly overrated.  Fear is also grossly overestimated.

Celebrate and build from each success.

– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.   Since 1985, our business success has come from building others UP.

TGIM!

HAVE FUN, is a core value of Drexel.  Super easy right?

Yet, sometimes I see people stressed out from our “busyness”… heads down…eyes flaming…shoulders burdened…and pressure building.  Or “whatever” has taken in.  I don’t see how I make a difference at Drexel.

Here’s some advice:

HAVE FUN ANYWAYS.

Your boss or gulp, even Joe,l can be a little bi-polar, intimidating or even worse over-bearing.  His “accountability” efforts and passion for making Drexel great have come across to you as crude or even worse.  It’s like they don’t even appreciate you sometimes or understand you.  Today maybe they need a little of their own advice.

HAVE FUN ANYWAYS.

Your customer has crazy demands and wants it not later but now.  So do 10 other customers.  Now.  It is all coming in a little too fast.

HAVE FUN ANYWAYS.

Today the weather has got you.  It’s rainy, snowing, icey, hot, cold, damp, windy, dusty.  Heck it’s Wisconsin this could all be in the same day.

HAVE FUN ANYWAYS.

You didn’t hit your goals.  Maybe you don’t even have any goals.   You let yourself of someone around you down.  You hit a road bump and failed.

HAVE FUN ANYWAYS.

Your teammate or vendor screwed up and made you look bad.

KICK THEIR ASS.  … Umm… Have fun anyways.

*****

You want to be the best version of yourself don’t you?

Ultimately isn’t that why you are on this planet?  To be the BEST VERSION of you!

Doesn’t the best version have fun?

*****

Most of the time you won’t be appreciated or recognized.  That’s OK.  Just keeping doing the work.  Keep making a difference.

You will never regret it. 

*****

Drexel is changing the building supply world by

HAVING FUN. 

Seriously, what other of our competition has figured this out?  What vendor?  I can’t think of any!

This is our Iphone.  This is our Miller Lite.  Having fun is our game changer.

Simply we are telling the world–

“Have fun.  Work with us!” 

– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.   Since 1985, our business success has come from building others UP.

TGIM!

YOUR WORD- IT’S ALL YOU HAVE.

We are not perfect, but there is one character trait that you should hold dearly… honoring your word.

Its very liberating knowing we have complete power in this area of committing to our word.

TRUST

If you want people to respect you, follow you, help you, buy from you, like you… you have to be committed to YOUR WORD.  Do what you say, on time, and in full… or don’t say it at all.

Little things, even being 5 minutes late for a meeting… diminishes the trust people have in you.  When you miss a deadline or forget to get back to that person that asked for your help… that trust is gone.

THE MOST IMPORTANT CURRENCY AT DREXEL IS THE AMOUNT OF YOUR TRUST.

If you struggle with this, I encourage you to start the day with one task you will promise to yourself to complete on time and in full that day.

First is committing to yourself and then your word to others.

I challenge you to pay closer attention to the things you say you will do and make every effort to follow through with them with a time to have it completed.

How you do anything, is how you do everything.

– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.   Since 1985, our business success has come from building others UP.

T.G.I.M.!

Below is the scene currently at the front entrance of our competition in Wrightstown.  You can call Miron for a delivery, just not this winter.

CLOSED FOR WINTER.

Miron, you see, goes south for the winter and is closing the place down.

At least he has the balls to actually close the place.

Much of our industry also closes for the winter.  They just don’t post it.

They cut back hours as far as possible.  Training is put on hold.  Growth is put on hold.  Costs are controlled tightly.  They crawl into a hole and try to ride out all winter has to offer.  Their “leaders” go to Cabo for a week, and then go to a “business trip” for another two.  And then back to Cabo for two weeks.  And in Spring they will come back with a fresh start.  So they tell themselves.  But they are even less prepared as they were to face the ever changing needs of their customers the season before.

Often all of us

CLOSED FOR THE WINTER.

Mentally and physically.

We say things like:

I will do it in Spring.

It’s too cold.

Not now.

Pretty slow today.

Not much happening right now.

Nobody is working.

Just not in the mood.

Bidding a lot.  Gonna be busy come Spring.

We count the days until Spring.

We watch the scoreboard of business and life… and the score is often bleak in Winter.  We should instead work on our blocking and tackling, knowing limiting mistakes will crush our competition and delight our clients.  We miss the opportunity to grow!

WE ARE CLOSED FOR THE WINTER.  But…

Improvement shouldn’t take a day off.

Did you know most people die before they are 21?

When we were young, we had dreams.  We were going to do something fantastic.  The sky was the limit.  We knew we would be better, way better than anyone you knew.

Then something happens…

We “decide” to settle for life.  Actually we never really decide.  It just happens.

Our dreams to “be somebody” died at some point.  We weren’t going to be a professional athlete, a singer, or a race car driver.  We settle.  We die.

But why can’t we be realistic? What’s wrong with being great in any role you have?  What’s wrong with being awesome?  Why does your current life have to be consider settling?  Maybe you are doing exactly what you were meant to do?   Or maybe we crave to be more, what better way to start THEN RIGHT FRIGGIN’ NOW?  Maybe we should live for what God has given you.

Are you living your life to your potential?  Is life just something you are getting on with?

There is no rewind button.  No pause button in life.  You don’t get an eraser.

LIVE NOW.

Helen Keller was asked what would be worse than to be born without sight.  She replied, “To have no vision.”

You must have a vision and then execute the plan.

You get one life.  Spring isn’t promised to you.  What if you don’t make it until then?  What impact will you leave THIS WINTER?  And almost worse, what if you make it until Spring 2015 and YOU haven’t gotten yourself or those around you better? Is that almost worse, haven’t you already died?

Despite your current circumstances, challenge yourself to be phenomenal.

It’s our passion to be busier NOW then we will be this summer.  Maybe it’s because we enjoy golf.  But I don’t think so.  This is the time to get in the film room, learn how to block and tackle, and get better.

1% better each day.

Now is the time to grow and change.

As the competition hibernates:

we work on ways to drive them crazy in Spring.

Spring is coming, will you be better?

– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.  He has provided solutions for builders and their clients since 1996 and a whole bunch of other stuff that you probably don’t care about.

TGIM!

The following has been forwarded around the world via e-mails since at least the year 2000…but still totally worth your time.

You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them.

Just read the e-mail straight through, and you’ll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.

4 Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.

These are no second-rate achievers.

They are the best in their fields.

But the applause dies..

Awards tarnish..

Achievements are forgotten.

Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson:

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the
most credentials, the most money…or the most awards.

They simply are the ones who care the most.

– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.  He has provided solutions for builders and their clients since 1996 and a whole bunch of other stuff that you probably don’t care about.