Writing on the Web from Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Articles for Sale: 25% Discount on Executive Coaching Articles

Every year since 1999 I offer an end-of-year article sale discount through Customized Newsletter Services. This is a niche company for executive coaches and management consultants that is part of Krakoff Wakeman Associates Inc., providing article content suitable newsletters and blogs directed at executives in corporations.

If this is something that interests you, go visit the article directory site at www.CustomizedNewsletterArticles.com using the discount link here:

http://snipurl.com/articlesale07 - Sale is on only until Dec. 31 midnight ET.

The 25% discount applies to all the content there, except for the new article The End of Management as We Know It. The articles are evergreen (not dated) and can be used with your name, and can be revised; you can add your own marketing info to them.

This is a great way to save time because the articles are well-researched based on leading business books and journals such as the Harvard Business Review.

Mindset: How it can grow your business - or shut it down

Have you read Mindset: the New Psychology of Success? Carol Dweck, a research psychologist authored the book in 2006 after accumulating 20 years of data. After reading it, I signed up and attended 3 conferences in order to open up my learning mindset!

This is a change-your-way-of-thinking book that can easily improve your life and business, right away. It answers the question: "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"

According to Dweck, when young children are told they have high IQs, they easily adopt a closed mindset. They know they are smart, so they tend to not try anything that is challenging. Fast forward 30 years, and that smart person may avoid risking anything that might show them to be deficient.

A closed mindset can mean that you stop learning, stop attending conferences, because you "know all that already."

It explains why high achievers and high IQ scores don't always succeed when promoted, and why some executives thrive and others fall prey to "CEO disease."

That's why I wrote an article for Customized Newsletter Services, available for purchase and use in your newsletters and blogs: Mindset: Why Executives Thrive...or Barely Survive.

Marshall Goldsmith: What Got You Here Won't Get You There

If you are an executive coach or a consultant, you're familiar with the books, articles, and prolific work of Marshall Goldsmith. And there's a reason. In my view, he is quickly becoming this century's leadership development expert, with a stature reminiscent of Peter Drucker.

But I gush. If you've heard Goldsmith present at a conference, you'll recognize some of his stories and humor in his books. He is down-to-earth, funny, clear and authentic. I won't go on and on; this is after all a blog post, so here's my point:

Buy and read Goldsmith's latest book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There (Hyperion, 2007).

It doesn't matter if you work in a different field or you're not an executive. If you have a pulse, you will recognize yourself as participating in at least one of his "20 Habits That Hold You Back from the Top (p. 40)."

Goldsmith has an uncanny ability to recognize the challenges of interpersonal behavior, often leadership behavior. They are egregious everyday annoyances, that on the surface, appear to be normal; some of them even contribute to our success in getting ahead. But in the long run, they make the workplace more noxious than it needs to be.

And these bad habits, at higher levels of responsibility, will actually deter us from having continued success.

If you want to learn more about these bad habits and what you can do about them, order the book today on Amazon. I'm making it easy for you to order by including the link here, yes, right here; and yes, it includes my affiliate link so that I can profit greatly, at least a few pennies. But you will be far, far richer after reading the book and applying a few steps.

P.S. If you are working in the field of executive coaching or consulting and need material for your ezine, you can purchase an article based on Goldsmith's principles of coaching and other research about bad bosses here from www.CustomizedNewsletterArticles.com:
Good Boss, Bad Boss: 20 Bad Habits Leaders Should Stop Doing Now.

Instant Articles: Buy, Rewrite, Add Your Name

Do you ever wish you could buy a good article, add your own stories, and publish it as your own in your newsletters or blogs? Sort of like those vitamin powders you pour into water, shake up and drink?

I just launched an article directory site called www.CustomizedNNewsletterArticles.com. When you buy an article for your newsletters, you get to use it as your own. That means you can blend your own stories into them to personalize them and make them work for getting clients and spreading your expertise.

You can read the press release here.

Articles Drive Traffic

It's all the rage now.  Using articles to drive traffic to your blog and/or website.  The fact is, Internet marketers have been doing this for years, and it's finally catching on with the mainstream online business community.

This week Denise and I attended a teleclass with our mentor, Tom Antion, about using articles.  Denise wrote up some of his tips on her blog Your Project Partner.  Check out 21 Ways to Use Articles to Build Your Business.

Winning the War for Leadership Talent

I've got a new article available for purchase for use in your newsletters: Winning the War for Leadership Talent. Based on the book Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan, Steven Drotter, and James Noel, it offers great tips for succession planning.

If you are a consultant working with organizations, you know how important talent is for success. You also know there is a talent crunch coming, as Baby Boomers start to retire. Companies must keep the leadership pipeline full, and develop people as they progress to higher levels of leadership responsibilities.

To read a synopsis of this article, and to find out how you can use my articles as your own, please visit http://www.customizednewsletters.com/featured/index.html

Leadership "Power" Stress

Here's a synopsis of an article on Leadership Power Stress available for purchase and use in your newsletters and blogs through my Customized Newsletter Services.

Effective executives often find themselves caught in a cycle of stress and sacrifice, without any possibility or time for recovery or renewal. Most of those who make it to the top have proven track records for influencing others, getting teams to work together and achieving results.

Such leaders are what organizational psychologists Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee call “resonant leaders”: They are in tune with others and have high degrees of emotional intelligence and motivation for power and achievement.

“Yet even the most resonant leaders—whose ability to deftly manage their own and others’ emotions to drive their companies to great results—end up spiraling into dissonance,” the authors write. (Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Resonant Leadership, Harvard Business School Press, 2005)

Leaders are especially prone to “power stress,” which can drive talented leaders into a cycle of dissonance with themselves, the people they lead and their organizations. To counter it, leaders must learn to manage themselves effectively.

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This is a synopsis of an article available for purchase and use in your newsletters, blogs and web sites at www.customizednewsletters.com/featured/index.html.

The full article contains the following concepts:

What Is Power Stress?
Sources of Leadership Power Stress
The Cycle of Sacrifice and Renewal
Renewal: A Holistic Process
The Leadership Paradox
Three Keys in the Renewal Process:
   Awareness
   Hope
   Compassion
The Brain and New-Age Rhetoric

Articles are available in three lengths: 2,000 words, 1,000 words and 600 words with full reprint rights.

Leadership by Persuasion

I've just finished writing a 1800 word article about how to lead using persuasion. Jay Conger, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School and author of Winning ’Em Over: A New Model for Management in the Age of Persuasion is an expert on this topic, and I use his quote in the article:

“Effective persuasion becomes a negotiating and learning process through which a persuader leads colleagues to a problem’s shared solution.” —Jay A. Conger, PhD

The main concept is that leaders today in any kind of organization must use persuasion rather than authoritative pressure to get people to whole-heartedly back projects. Come to think of it, this is also true in real life and family situations as well.

You can use this article for you own consulting/coaching newsletters, upon purchase of full reprint rights. It's available in long, short and shorter versions, and can be modified with your own writing.

Please check out my website www.CustomizedNewsletters.com to see options and to read a brief synopsis of the article here.

And if you need any kind of help with your newsletters, blog, or ezines, let me know. I can help you get the most out of your efforts.

Beware of Busyness

Customized Newsletter Services is announcing an article available for use in executive coaching newsletters called Beware of Busyness: Harnessing Willpower for Purposeful Action.

This article is available in three versions, long (2000 words), short (1000 words), and nugget version, 600 words. Full reprint rights are given with purchase.

Some people don't really understand how to use OPC (other people's content) in their newsletters. If you don't buy the reprint rights, you must cite the author's name and web link address.

But with reprint rights you can use the article as your own, put your name on it, and send it out as if you had written it. But WAIT! This is much more effective when you use the article as a base, then add your own personal stories to it.

For Customized Newsletters, I write the articles using plenty of research and resources from business books that are relevant to executives who are the readers of your newsletters. It is up to you to add an introduction, and/or a conclusion that brings in your experience and how this applies to the people you work with. This is key to making your content-rich newsletters work as a marketing magnet for you.

Beware of Busyness was based on the work of Heiki Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal in their book, A Bias for Action: How Effective Managers Harness Their Willpower, Achieve Results and Stop Wasting Time. To read a synopsis of the article, go here.

Please visit Customized Newsletters if you are interested in using a newsletter service to improve the quality of your newsletters and informational products.

Leading With Values: Walking the Talk

Need an article for your coach ezine? Here is a synopsis of a Leadership article on Values, available at www.customizednewsletters.com.

Leading with Values:
Walking the Talk
(c) 2004 Patsi Krakoff

All organizations have a mission statement and a set of values or guiding principles. They include such items as Integrity, Customer Service, Quality, Respect, High Performance, Teamwork, Leadership, and Innovation. Often these words are prominently displayed on plaques, posters, laminated cards, and even screen savers.

But when values are ignored and people don’t live by them, the culture becomes hypocritical. Employees lose respect for the organization’s leaders. It is one more reason people disengage from their work.

When values are put into action, however, people feel energy, enthusiasm, and the drive to go beyond the mediocre. When people connect to company values that resonate with their own personal beliefs, they have even more commitment, higher productivity, and better engagement with customers. The end results show up on the bottom line.

Leaders have to take personal responsibility for their organization’s values and for making sure their people share a common set of principles. This is not easy. It is one thing to agree with lofty words and ideals; it is quite another to translate ideals into action. A leader is accountable for ensuring that people not only know the values, but also put them into practice.

“We judge ourselves by our intentions. The rest of the world judges us by our actions.” – Eric Harvey

Strategies for Leading with Values in Action

How does a leader put values into action? What questions does a leader need to ask himself or herself to clarify what is needed to lead by, with, and through values? Here are six common sense leadership strategies to consider, adapted from the book Leading with Values by Bud Bilanich (2004):

1. Know your values

2. Walk your talk

3. Teach values to your people

4. Remove obstacles to working with values

5.  Reward and recognize those who live the values

6. Redirect those who aren’t working with values

Focus, Attention, and Persistence

As a leader, you must never lose focus on values. There is always a value present whatever the situation, even when it is buried under detail work, financial data, or other seemingly ordinary tasks. Look for the value. Point it out and remind people how their work is an important expression of values in action. It is your job as a leader to constantly teach, recognize, reward, and help course corrections where necessary.

Every member of your workforce is responsible for values-driven business practices, but they look to you, the leader, for living examples of how the values translate into action. You set the tone. When you take a cavalier approach to values or lose sight of them—even if temporarily—you give your team members permission to do the same. When you refuse to give in to pressures and obstacles and remind everyone of the important values at stake, your people will have an excellent model to follow.

The greatest challenges leaders in top positions face are ethical dilemmas—for example, questions of choosing between long-term and short-term gains. It is often a problem of choosing between right and right. There are no easy answers to some business problems. Using values will help you with clarity and decisiveness.

Recommended Reading:

Bilanich, B. (2004). Leading with Values: 8 Common-Sense Leadership Strategies for Bringing Organizational Values to Life. Dallas, TX: Walk the Talk.

If you'd like to use the full article in your newsletter or ezine, contact Patsi Krakoff. This article is available for purchase with full reprint rights in both long and short versions. If you'd like to use the synopsis as it is printed here, you must cite the authors name, Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., CBC, and website url, www.customizednewsletters.com. Thanks!