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Making A Difference – Thoughts, Observations and Opinions
This is Dave Brock’s Blog.
It offers my views on a variety of business, sales, marketing, and leadership topic. My goal is to make a difference for you, the reader, in both your professional and personal lives.
Latest Posts
What We Miss About Creating Value
I’m often called upon to speak about Value Propositions! Every time, I do some quick research about the topic. It continues to be one of the most popular subjects:1. Yesterday’s Google search on “Value Propositions” yielded 4,140,000 hits, up from 2,900,000 in January.2. It continues to be a “hot topic” in blogs and in consultant pontification (I guess I need to include myself on this).3. In our own web marketing (SEO) programs, it is the second highest performer, just behind strategic alliances and partnering.4. When we talk to our clients’ customers, one of the biggest issues they have is they […]
It’s All About Trust
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about trust recently. Everyday, the news brings more reports of breaches of trust. The leaders and institutions I have thought I could trust have failed. All around, I see erosions of trust—little things, here and there, a commitment made and missed, a confidence betrayed, selfish or thoughtless actions. A close business friend took many months to pay a large invoice and decommitted on a project, in the middle of the project — costing me thousands of dollars. He has told my how badly he feels, but it was a rather large betrayal. Another […]
Does Your Behavior Foster Or Limit Trust?
Trust is at the core of all relationships. It can take years to build trust and only a fraction of a second to destroy it. Maintaining trust in the face of tough business or personal circumstances can be extremely difficult. Too often, as leaders we succumb to behaviors that destroy what we seek to preserve. The Slow Leadership blog has one of the best articles I have read recently. I won’t repeat it here, but I have copied their list of 30 leadership behaviors that create mistrust. Make sure you read their article! 1. As leader, you fail to keep […]
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
My father was (and continues to be) a fantastic role model. I’ve always looked up to him and sought to live by the example he set. As a kid, every once in a while, I would catch him in some sort of contradiction. His glib response was “Do As I Say, Not As I Do!” Both of us realized the humor and irony in the statement. Both of us realized the real intent. The lessons I learned and the values I have were largely set by the example of my parents. Today, we seem to see so many executives essentially […]
Resistance To Change
Thanks to Art Petty for calling attention to the excellent column in Quality Digest by James Harrington, Managing Resistance To Change. The article is very good. Some of the barriers he cites include: • An unclear vision that causes confusion • A history of poor implementation • No consequence-management system developed to accompany the change • Too little time to implement the change • Lack of synergy There are a number of other reasons that people resist change, but it is important to recognize this resistance as natural. The moment leaders start thinking “What’s wrong with them?” the change efforts […]
The Arrogance Of Success
Success masks all sorts of problems and challenges. In the past couple of months, we have been deluged with reports of dramatic failures of all sorts of businesses and organizations — many of which were the benchmarks of success just a year ago. While the housing, finance, and automotive industries seem to be the most visible,there are very visible examples in every sector. We all strive for success, frankly it brings on such a rush. The rush keeps us pushing for more success. At some point, however, too many of us are seduced by success. We forget the hard work, […]