Tag Archives: Journalist

Episode 24: Collaboration and Success in Your Business | Mike Lednovich from True North Executive Development

 

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Mike Lednovich True North Executive Development

Mike Lednovich True North Executive Development

Teaser:

Mike Lednovich has worked with some of the largest organizations and businesses in the United States and has helped them create better policies and procedures to become more effective and efficient.  Learn how to create stronger relationships with the people involved in your organization in Episode 24 of the Defining Success Podcast.

Recap:

Mike Lednovich is the owner of True North Executive Development and has instructed more than 2,000 managers/directors and conducted hundreds of seminars during a 25 year executive career.  Mike heads True North Executive Development serving such diverse clients as the Make a Wish Foundation, Disney, Ruiz Foods, Edwards Life Sciences, the Philadelphia School District and Chapman University.

Mike was an executive with a communications company in Orange County and he was the director of communications and marketing.  Before he got into the executive world he was a journalist and he then went to work for the corporation that owned the TV station and the newspaper.  Mike became very engaged in company strategies, vision setting and helped the CEO implement change in the company.

True North Executive Development was based out of Mike’s experiences at the communications company.  His experience helped him build teams that could successfully complete the tasks at hand.

Many people get caught up in the “whirlwind,” the every day activities that keep the organization running.  When people get so engulfed in the daily activities there is no goal setting and no understanding of how the organization is going to move forward.  Mike helps companies by working with executives and helps them get an understanding of the goals they want to achieve, how they plan to get there and how do they measure success.

Members of an organization need to know what the goals of the business are and how do I help those goals and how will I be held accountable in reaching those goals.  Mike generally works with the management team to help the businesses grow.

Mike says that 90% of the time he goes into a company, all the team members commonly have different goals they feel the organization has.  He really helps develop and establish goals and then works with the organization to enhance their goals and helps team members become attached to those goals.

When Mike gets phone calls, he’s usually coming in to solve a problem.  He usually analyzes the systems to see what is not working.  He then figures out what is not working and tries to correct those problems to make things better.

There is a common symptom which is number 1 in the workplace and that is holding people accountable for an employment contract.  When you work for a company and you agree for a salary, that is a contract between you and a company.  Most employees feel that they are going to give their employers grade B performance which is good work done correctly, then the company feels good about what they are doing and they feel good about getting there paycheck.  In organizations where employees are not held accountable, their performance levels go down to the C, D or F level.

In entrepreneurial companies, it becomes difficult to manage employees as the company grows.  In a family you are rewarded for good behavior and you have negative consequences when your behavior is below par.

The yearly performance review rarely occurs on time when they are done yearly.  Mike recommends monthly performance reviews for businesses to help hold employees accountable.  The yearly performance reviews usually judge their employees on how the acted in the past six months.  Employee engagement is a huge factor in a companies success.

How do you increase performance on a non-performer?  It starts with a conversation that explains how employees are under-performing.  They judged based off of hard evidence and not opinion.  The employer than helps the employee meet their goals, and they make sure they can handle the task, but if they can not meet those goals, it is on them.

Popular culture says that to hold people accountable is to fire them.  Donald Trump is one example where the way he holds people accountable is by firing them, but in the real world employees and employers work together to build a foundation for the future.  People believe they have to be Donald Trump, but in reality, you just need to be able to communicate effectively with your employees.

The most effective way Mike gets clients is word of mouth.  Mike works for the Make a Wish foundation and one of his clients was on the board and Mike was able to come on board to help the Make a Wish foundation.

The best leaders create a culture of collaboration.  They learn and how to figure out how to get the most ideas out of their employees.  The organizations that maintain a strong workforce are the ones that collaborate well.  Listening to people and communication is an area where organizations falter.  In the real world only 8% of the communication is verbal.  The rest of the conversation is conducted through body language and voice inflection and using email and Twitter we miss out on a lot of that communication.

Larry Welborn, Zeb Welborn, Kent Oderinlo and Mike Lednovich

Larry Welborn, Zeb Welborn, Kent Oderinlo and Mike Lednovich

Engaging Discussion Questions:

  • What does it take to build a successful team?
  • What do you think is the biggest problem large organizations face?
  • How important is the management of employees in a business?

Links to Great Stuff:

  • True North Executive Development – “Mike has instructed more than 2,000 managers/directors and conducted hundreds of seminars during a 25-year executive career.”
  • Make a Wish Foundation – “The Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Orange County and the Inland Empire is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and fulfill the wishes for children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 18 who confront life-threatening medical conditions.”
  • Donald Trump – A link to Donald Trump’s Twitter page.

Success Quotes:

  • “The key to success in relationship is to get rid of the negative ones.  If there are people in your life that are messing you up, get them out of your life.”
  • “If you love something passionately and you can make money from doing it than you have the perfect job.”
  • “Success is an individual evaluation of what makes you happy.”
  • “You don’t give to get.”
  • “The most effective leaders recognize that they are part of a team.”
  • “I’m a firm believer that successful people give without ever receiving anything back.”
  • “A common denominator is that successful people recognize that they want to give back to the community in some fashion.”
  • “The most important piece of that conversation is having data because data doesn’t lie.  Data is objective and most managers will operate on opinion.”
  • “When we talk about achieving success we need to follow the true north of our inner focus.”

Special Requests:

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Personal Branding | Rich Hammond from the Orange County Register

Rich Hammond is the USC sports reporter for the Orange County Register and has wanted to be a sports journalist all his life. Pay particular attention to a story Rich tells about former Los Angeles Dodger player, Lou Johnson. Lou had problems with substance abuse and lost his World Series ring as a result. Listen to the podcast to learn how Lou Johnson got his World Series ring back and to learn about personal branding and what it takes to make it in the highly competitive field of sports journalism.

Thank you for visiting the Defining Success Podcast.  Please download, subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-success-podcast/id619459909 Thanks for listening!

Rich Hammond from the Orange County Register - Personal Branding

Rich Hammond from the Orange County Register

Recap:

Rich Hammond always knew he wanted to be a journalist.  He loved reading and writing at a young age.  Once he began writing for his junior high school newspaper, he knew that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

Sports writing is a highly competitive field and Rich knew that he needed a strong foundation in his writing abilities and got lucky with some opportunities that were presented to him.  He attributes his success to the fact that he always seized opportunities when they came to him.  He encourages others to do the same.

He attended the CSPA (California Scholastic Press Association) Workshop and established some great connections that helped him along the way.  He goes back to volunteer his time every two weeks during the Summer’s at the campus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Each day is a challenge writing and every day presents new opportunities for Rich and he tries to make the most of them.  He enjoys successed every day and feels very fortunate that he’s been able to cover numerous memorable sporting events.

Being a journalist is interesting in the sense that you have to understand people’s motivations and you need to distinguish who’s telling the truth.  Often times Rich feels he made mistakes because sometimes he was too cautious about using sources or sometimes he has taken sources at their word and it’s “bit (him) in the butt.”  Typos are also a concern to Rich and he knows the value of making sure to avoid typos.

The coolest part for Rich about being a journalist is going to major sporting events for free.  People pay money to attend these events and he feels very lucky that he’s been able to attend some of the greatest sporting events.  It also gives Rich the freedom to travel, see different parts of the country and a lot of interesting people.

Although journalism is changing the fundamentals are still the same.  You have to be able to tell a story, be accurate, to relate to people, to ask good questions, to be aware and you have to be able to communicate.  We are now in a 24-hour news cycle, if something happens, as a reporter, you need to be on that story.

One of the biggest changes in journalism is the more personalized relationship with their readers.  During the age of newspapers, all people would see was the persons name in print, but now writers appear in T.V., more pictures are shown, they appear on podcasts and establish more of a personal connection then what was done in years past.  Your online reputation is important and now everything you do matters.  With the easy to use Google searches, Facebook pages and LinkedIn accounts it is now more important than ever to establish your online reputation.  When people look for you online, what are you going to find? Personal branding is critical to the success of businesses in the online world.

For Rich, success was working hard, enjoying what he did, and being happy doing it.  For him, it has nothing to do with money.  If money, or titles determine your success than there will always be something that you don’t have.

Engaging Discussion Questions:

  • How Do You Know What You Were Meant To Do?
  • How Do You Know if You’re a Success?
  • How important is personal branding?

Links to Great Stuff:

Quotes of the Episode:

  • “Your name becomes your brand . . . your name is your currency.” – Rich Hammond
  • “If you can go to bed at night being happy with who you are and what you’ve done then I think that’s what makes you a success.”

Special Requests:

Rich Hammond at the CSPA Workshop

Rich Hammond at the CSPA Workshop

THANK YOU!

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