People around us seem to slide into success. It looks so easy for them.

But what do you do when you find yourself treading water? What is the mud sucking at your feet and keeping you mired in one place?

Check these four reasons and find solutions.

1. You’ve lost your passion. We need to know where our passions and strengths lie and then work to advance them. When we blindly follow the upward path because everyone is doing it, we fizzle.

When trying to identify your passion, the easiest place to begin is to ask yourself: “What interests me and what are interests? Interests are those things that grab your attention ever so gently without you even noticing. Think about those occasions when you find yourself speaking to friends for hours on end about subjects you find fascinating or times when performing a specific task was so enjoyable that it became effortless.

You have interests that if properly channeled can be the spark to ignite your inner passion to light the way to your dream career. In other words, what you find the most interesting can lead to personal enrichment and self-fulfillment in your life.

While not everyone can love everything about their job — moving up and away from what you enjoy will bring dissatisfaction and loss of motivation.

2. You’ve gotten comfortable and quit trying. Admit it. Sometimes we get to a very comfortable place. We know the job. We have a pattern to life. And moving forward feels risky. Overcome that fear with simple mini-steps. First decide to create a goal to move forward. Envision it. Take other steps. Seek a mentor. Step up your team player skills. Enlarge your network. Ask for feedback.

Then communicate your goal to progress with your manager and ask for help and guidance. “Share your aspirations with your manager or superiors in the company, so that management can help establish goals and benchmark for determining when is the right time to promote you,” says Lisa Kojis, managing partner for staffing firm Princeton One.

3. It isn’t where you want to go. You may look at what your boss is doing and think, I don’t want to do that! Recognize moving into that spot is not the only career direction available. There may be other careers paths available in the company. If not, look to choices in other companies or even other fields.

Also understand that while your boss might handle that job by working 70 hours a week or by running the team in a draconian manner– that doesn’t mean you would need to lead that way.

Explore choices and find the options that ignite your drive to advance.

4. You think the price is too high. Sometimes it seems that high success costs marriages, health, time and the things you hold valuable in life. It’s true that more workers feel overstressed and unable to unplug. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A mentor or coach can offer strategies and life-balance changes that allow you to succeed while keeping that which is most important to you.

Joel Garfinkle is an executive coach and author of “Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level.” More than 10,000 people subscribe to his Fulfillment@Work newsletter. If you sign up, you’ll receive the free e-book “41 Proven Strategies to Get Promoted Now!”

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Somebody, help, I’m stuck: Why you’re not advancing originally published by SmartBlogs

Big Business for UEFA

These championships are big business in Europe. The annual estimated gross commercial revenue expected from the 2012/2013 UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup is €1.34 billion or about $1.73 billion, according to UEFA. This compares to annual revenues of $9.5 billion for the NFL, $7.5 billion for Major League Baseball, $4 billion for the NBA, $3.4 billion for the NHL, and $300 million for Major League Soccer. UEFA isn’t the world’s biggest sports entity in terms of revenue, but it makes significant revenue and has fans worldwide.

In 2011, 178.7 million television viewers tuned in to watch Barcelona beat Manchester United in the final. It was the most-watched UEFA Champions League game ever and the most-watched worldwide annual sporting event that year. In the U.S., 2.6 million viewers tuned in, while the 2012 final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich drew a U.S. audience of 2 million. Both matches were shown live in the U.S. on FOX Sports.

The road to the 2013 UEFA championships started in July 2012. Teams compete in a qualifying round, play-offs, Group Stage, Knockout Phase, and the Final. Teams from Eastern and Western Europe, Israel, Russia, the Ukraine, and some Asian countries compete in the UEFA championships. Holding nine titles, Real Madrid C.F. is the most successful UEFA team. The current champion is Chelsea F.C. from London, though they were defeated in the Group Stage in this year’s competition.

The UEFA league is made up of 53 football member associations throughout Europe and one provisional team. Each UEFA member has its own league system.

Explore the map below to learn more about the top 16 teams in this year’s Champions League.

Click on image to enlarge map.

Watch Soccer on TV

Even though soccer is not the most popular sport in the U.S., it is gaining fans due to participation in amateur youth and adult leagues and the influx of immigrants over the past decade. Some Americans love the sport and are most likely to watch the UEFA championships on television. Where are the Americans who will cheer on their favorites?

People in the U.S. who watch soccer on TV most frequently live along the Eastern seaboard, near Chicago and Minneapolis, and areas in the West, including California. ZIP codes with residents most likely to watch soccer on TV include: 21402 (Annapolis, Maryland), 65473 (Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri), 92145 (Fort Irwin, California), and 98433 (Tacoma, Washington). Residents in these ZIP codes are at least twice as likely as the average American to watch soccer on TV.

Click on image to enlarge map.

What type of American most likely watches soccer on television? Esri, a geographic information systems company, developed a Tapestry Segmentation system that classifies U.S. residential neighborhoods into 65 unique market segments based on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Residents of Dorms to Diplomas, Las Casas, and Military Proximity neighborhoods are the most likely to watch soccer on television. Dorms to Diplomas residents are focused on their education. They have a median age of 21.9 years and most live in dorms. Las Casas residents are primarily young, Hispanic families with a household size of 4.14 people. Approximately half were born outside the United States. Residents of Military Proximity neighborhoods depend upon the military for their livelihood. Most are in the Armed Forces; others work in civilian jobs on base. Two-thirds of the households are married-couple families with children.

Residents of Prairie Living, Rural Bypasses, and Southern Satellites neighborhoods are the least likely to watch soccer on television. Prairie Living residents live on family-owned farms in the Midwest. Two-thirds of the households are married couple families; the median age is 43.3 years. Rural Bypasses neighborhoods are found in small Southern towns along back country roads near open space, undeveloped land, and farms. Unemployment is high in these neighborhoods; however, those who work have jobs in the agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and construction industries at a higher-than-average rate. Households in Southern Satellites neighborhoods are located in the rural South. Residents are primarily married-couple families who work in the manufacturing and service industries.

Why This Matters

Soccer has always been big business in Europe and Latin America. It has not been nearly as popular in the U.S. as other sports; however, some Americans love the sport. Soccer leagues – both domestic and international – can target U.S. soccer fans by understanding who they are and where they live in the U.S.

Many Americans who emigrated from Latin American and European countries or are first generation Americans from those areas are very connected to the game and want to watch it. They are often super fans who will do anything to view critical games played by their favorite teams as well as the league championships. Many fans are Hispanic, which are an increasing percentage of the total U.S. population. With the right marketing, messaging, and promotions, UEFA soccer leagues can increase their presence in the U.S.

More information about Esri’s data can be found at www.esri.com/data or to learn more about Esri in general, go to www.esri.com.

Pam Allison is a digital media, marketing strategist, and location intelligence consultant. You can visit her blog at www.pamallison.com.

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The big business of Champions League soccer originally published by SmartBlogs

Schultz first joined Starbucks in 1982, when the chain had only four stores. His dream was to create “the kind of company that our parents never got to work for,” he said. When the company went public in 1992 with 125 stores, it was the beginning of a long period of success for the coffee chain, during which “everything we touched turned to gold.” But speedy growth coupled with the nation’s unstable economy eventually led the company to put most of its efforts into growing same-store sales and stock prices. “The company began to measure and reward the wrong things,” Schultz said.

In 2008, Schultz gathered all of Starbucks’ store managers for a meeting in New Orleans, during which he laid out his plan to bring back the focus on strong customer service and community engagement on which the company had been founded. In 2009, all stores were closed briefly for retraining in an effort to make sure all employees were properly trained and that product quality was consistent across all locations.

“Great brands, great companies, great store experiences are very resilient, because the customer can remember what it was like. And they’re longing for it to come back,” Schultz said.

After renewing its commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, the company’s sales began to rebound and 2011 brought “record revenue, record profit, record stock price — the same in fiscal ’12.”

Here are three key lessons from Starbucks’ overhaul:

Connect with customers.

“We want to create a connection with our customers that’s not based only on trying to ring the register but demonstrating a heartfelt commitment to communities we serve and where our customers live,” Schultz said. Social responsibility efforts, such as the company’s Create Jobs for USA campaign, are a cornerstone of Starbucks’ culture because they make the company’s values apparent to the customer. “The customer wants to support those companies whose values are compatible with their own.”

Store managers are essential to the company’s success.

“The store manager sets the tonality of his or her store. And I think that starts with the people that he or she hires. … We have to be sure that we’re hiring the kind of people that is consistent with the brand of Starbucks,” Schultz said.

“We want happy people, we want people who like people, we want people who drink coffee.”

The importance of staying relevant.

Schultz said we are experiencing a “seismic change in consumer behavior, primarily because of technology. Every company represented in this room and every company in the world, no matter what industry, must make a significant investment in the capability and relevance in their own business in social and digital media and in mobile platform.”

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Starbucks CEO talks about the importance of customers, social responsibility originally published by SmartBlogs

Turning the mirror back on the United States, we’d like to believe that Americans could gather around this same call of equity. In reality though, Americans prefer a narrative of meritocracy. We tell rags-to-rich stories of folks, such as Bill Gates, for example. This so-called poor man who came from nothing and built an empire attended one of the most privileged boarding schools in the nation; the college he dropped out of was a small university — Harvard. Gates had access to a computer when few people even really knew what computers were. The reality of his narrative is really one of privilege, connections, and access.

So, what might be a narrative Americans could rally around? I’ve come to believe that perhaps personalization is the answer. Somewhat tied to the American focus on meritocracy is our country’s rich history of “rugged individualism,” which includes a sense that we’re all unique. Current parents certainly want to see each of their children as “special,” so parents often support efforts to a tailored approach to education. In stark contrast to Finland’s largely homogenous society, America must educate a wide range of students, making it even more important to find ways to personalize learning pathways.

As teachers and administrators, we seem to be moving on a trajectory toward personalization: differentiation, Universal Design for Learning, emerging technologies, competency-based education, and advances in education technology make personalization of learning more possible.

• Differentiation: In many ways, the shift toward differentiation was a first step towards personalized learning. Though differentiation clearly doesn’t always happen in every classroom, at least there’s more consensus that this is how we should be teaching, if we’re to reach students who have a wide range of readiness, backgrounds, interests and skills.

• Universal Design for Learning: UDL takes differentiation even further and is becoming increasingly more recognized as the ideal approach. In Maryland, for example, all curriculum and implementation must follow UDL principles, as mandated by recently passed state law. When we design and implement curriculum that meets the needs of students who have historically been on the margins, we’re also better meeting needs of those students who fall in the center.  Adding features such as larger print, audio, embedded vocabulary, etc. allows teachers and students to personalize the learning experience further to meet individual needs.

• Cultural Responsiveness: As our curriculum and instructional practices become more culturally responsive, we’re adding another layer of personalization. Students connect to material when it feels relevant to them and is presented in formats that are engaging and reflect their own realities. It feels more personal.

• Competency-Based or Standards-Based Education: The shift from seat time to competency-based education allows us to embrace personalization more deeply. With mastery as the goal, we can personalize student pathways, recognizing that some students need more time to master material and that some students need gaps filled or are able to accelerate through material.

• Emerging Technologies: Advances in educational technology are making personalization more possible on a larger scale. For example, formative assessment engines are getting better at identifying student gaps and strengths, including attitudinal information. Teachers and students can learn more about the students as learners and what works best for them.

More publishers are also developing digital curricular resources that have different reading levels, including resources for ELL. When Amplify launched its new product at SXSW EDU, everyone was excited about the platform’s capabilities of allowing teachers to identify student needs quickly through digital formative assessments that recommended personalized assignments for different groups of students. Other competing products will continue to enter the market.

• Blending Learning: With more blended learning options available, we’re able to offer students additional course options, allowing us to personalize student courses of study. Each student can pursue an individual personalized set of courses, despite the capacity of teachers in a building. World languages, AP courses and other electives are excellent examples: students can pursue Chinese, for example, even if there is no Chinese language teacher at a building. Schools can offer upper-level courses, even if there are only a handful of students who need those courses. If a student is passionate about a subject not offered, schools can arrange to find a course that meets that student’s needs.

In the end, it’s most often the relationship between a teacher and student that impacts student achievement. One of the most powerful elements of a move towards personalization is that students will feel increasingly more that their teachers really understand and are meeting their needs. When students feel that someone cares about them, they begin to care more about what they’re learning. All of these approaches and tools support teachers in personalizing learning experiences for their students.

Katrina Stevens (@KatrinaStevens1)  has over 20 years experience as a district leader, professional developer, principal, adjunct professor, consultant, academic dean, department chair — and throughout all of these roles — a teacher. She has worked in public and independent schools, from elementary through higher education. Stevens publishes via her blog where she writes extensively about professional learning, educational technology and lean thinking.

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The personalization of education originally published by SmartBlogs

Management today is really about enabling people to succeed and that means providing them with the guidance, resources, feedback and support they need to do their jobs.

Coupling feedback with expectations is the foundation of manager-to-employee coaching. It’s also the method by which managers can help employees and teams get the work done and promote higher levels of engagement and productivity.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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A 4-step guide to coaching your employees originally published by SmartBlogs

Within the first two days of testing stories emerged that students were in sessions crying, leaving rooms ill, and not finishing. Teachers complained of confusing questions and overly challenging passages that did not match the grade for which they were created. In one response, Merryl Tisch, the State Board of Regents Chancellor who oversaw the creation of NYS’s testing program, said she visited schools during testing and reported that she only saw “one” student crying and believes that children not being able to finish the test is a “healthy problem.”

The conversation: What we gain and what we lose with current testing

I am not [yet] suggesting all of this testing is terrible, because honestly I do not know. What we have gained since NCLB is that often ignored groups are getting more of the attention they deserve; for instance I see a national increase in concern for the education of students with IEP and English Language Learners.

However, I also see another side that has grown in recent years and as an educator feels absolutely inexcusable to me. Here I post the reflection of one New York State educator (with their permission and request to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation) about a day of proctoring the test:

A view from the testing trenches:

I spent three hours yesterday and today with a group of special education 8^th grade students who were taking the new Common Core English Language Arts exam. All of the students I proctored have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and all of them took the test very seriously.  They were well trained by their English language arts teachers, their special education teacher and their reading teacher, and they all worked very hard. They underlined and highlighted reading passages, they referred back to them as they were struggling with the questions, they re-read to gain better understanding, and they (with the most polite attitudes possible) raised their hands with questions.  As I came over to them, they often whispered, “What does this mean?” pointing to a difficult word in one of the questions. I whispered back, as proctors must, “I cannot tell you; just do your best.” They raised their hands again, and when I went to them, they whispered, “This is hard!”  I nodded and said, “Do your best.”

I spent three hours yesterday and today with children who struggled valiantly to read what they could not understand, to bring everything they could to figuring out what they were being asked and to answer correctly. They applied elimination strategies to multiple-choice questions, dutifully trying to cross out the incorrect answer choices in order to narrow down the correct ones. They worked to plan answers to essays. They worked without ceasing. Aside from occasionally stretching, they did not take their eyes from their tests. Three hours each day, twice the amount of time given to students in general education classrooms, they worked. Three hours, when some of them needed twice that again. Three hours, when for some, thirty would not have been enough.

Yesterday, after the first three-hour session, two students had filled in only half of the answers; they had to randomly guess at the rest of them. “This is not fair!” they protested.  Today, after the second three-hour session, where they were not even able to get to some of the writing tasks, they cried. Proud, hardworking young men, student athletes with tears rolling down their cheeks because they had not been able to finish. Boys who have known how difficult school can be from the very start, boys who have always had to work harder and longer than everyone else just to receive marginal grades, boys who have had to give up their summers to school sessions because their test scores are not deemed sufficient, boys who know what it is to be intellectually impaired and to try their hardest despite their difficulties; these boys cried.

I consoled them as well as I could. I promised them that doing their best was something to be proud of. I gave them time to compose themselves before they returned to class after three hours of giving everything they had to a task they could not complete. I told them I would call home to let their parents know that they worked as hard as they could.

When I left them in their classrooms, I talked to other teachers and learned that a student threw up, another child banged his head against the wall, and many other students across the grades could not finish their tests within the time allotted.

I thought about the third day of testing to take place tomorrow, another three hours of a test that these students cannot read and understand. I also thought about these boys and their small heroic acts of tackling tests so far above their ability that to even finish them became impossible, and I cried. 

What are we teaching these children, and why?

My question, educators, is should this be valuable data as well? Should the reactions, feelings, self-perceptions of children who from eight years old and on face a battery of tests each year — ones that each year tell them what they probably already believe about their relationship to reading, math, science or social studies — be included in assessment reports? In evaluating this current system? What would this data comparison show?

Is all data bad data, no. As a profession do we want all children to succeed, yes. Are we willing to fight for these improvements at the expense of children we claim to being helping? That I just simply cannot agree to.

Christopher Lehman (@iChrisLehman) is an author, speaker and senior staff developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. He is author of several books for educators including “Energize Research Reading and Writing,” and can be found at ChristopherLehman.com.

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Testing: Are percentage of students crying valuable data? originally published by SmartBlogs

The Coca-Cola Company proudly sponsors this blog post and invites you to click here or visit our NRA Show exhibit (#4402) to learn more about how we can work together to make your business better!

The National Restaurant Association’s NRA Show in Chicago kicks off Saturday with an anticipated 58,000 attendees from all 50 states and 100 countries, and a trade show floor featuring an array of exhibitors showing off new products from more than 900 categories including beverage, food, uniforms, equipment and furniture.

The show’s four-day agenda includes a keynote from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and a talk and book signing with Anthony Bourdain, along with a slew of sessions and features aimed at addressing hot topics in the industry, including health care, sustainability and nutrition.

The Affordable Care Act puts health care on the front burner for restaurant companies as they navigate new rules and work to calculate the costs. In addition to three educational sessions on the topic, the Health Care Knowledge Center at NRA Show will offer one-on-one sessions with restaurant consultants who can help operators craft personalized plans to cope with the changes.

Also on tap at this year’s show

• “They Gave Me Food Poisoning — What to Do When Your Restaurant is Attacked Online.” This session takes on the often-troubling topic of how to address negative and often unfair comments that come with the territory for restaurant operators in a digital age, with experts sharing advice from legal and public relations perspectives.
• “Re-Thinking Corporate Social Responsibility” with Denise Lee Yohn and Don Fox, a session to help restaurant operators figure out how to get the most bang for their charitable buck by creating shared value for all stakeholders.
• The show floor will feature a fully functioning hydroponic garden to demonstrate how relatively easy it can be for restaurants to grow fresh, sustainable food on site with a very small carbon footprint.
• Sustainability will also feature prominently in the education agenda, capped by a panel on “The Evolution of Sustainability” featuring Ted Turner, Ted’s Montana Grill CEO George McKerrow and “Last Stand” author Todd Wilkinson.
• Several sessions will center on creating healthier menus,  making your restaurant more kid-friendly and catering to patrons with food allergies. One session will feature Healthy Dining president Anita Jones-Mueller and executives from Darden Restaurants and Silver Diner Restaurants on how to adapt nutritional trends for chains of all sizes.
• A packed session schedule addresses a slew of other topics, including menu design, franchising, food trends, management and marketing.
• The World Culinary Showcase will feature demonstrations by celebrity chefs including Rick Bayless, Cat Cora, Marcus Samuelsson and many more famous faces from the culinary world.

Which sessions and features hold the most interest for you? Tell us about it in the comments.

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Nutrition, sustainability and health care are hot topics at NRA Show 2013 originally published by SmartBlogs

Mentoring is a two-way street
The mentor and the mentee each have responsibilities when it comes to building a good relationship. “My expectation is there is an open and trusting dialogue up front,” said UTC Aerospace Systems’ Samantha Stovall, recipient of the 2012 Mentor of the Year award. Stovall said she tried to set expectations up front and establish open communication right away with her mentee, Danielle Wilke. She said Wilke was expected to compile a list of her five- and 10-year goals, her strengths and weaknesses and professional issues she wanted to work on, while Stovall came up with exercises for Wilke to do and books for her to read.

“The most important aspect is that each side must have some degree of commitment to the relationship and willingness to truly participate in the mentorship,” Carvin said in an e-mail interview. The commitment is especially important for the mentees, who must make sure they regularly schedule meetings with their busy mentors.

“I am there for them, but it is their responsibility… to get on my calendar,” Mentor of the Year finalist Judy Novak of Xerox said.

A successful mentorship requires planning
Mentees should go to meetings with their mentors prepared and have some kind of structure in mind, according to Timothy Lamendola of Covance. “There was a lot of talking on my end in the beginning,” he said about starting a relationship with his mentor. They spent a lot of time mapping out the mentee’s priorities and what specific training he would need to achieve his career goals.

“It is their time that is a gift to you, so use it wisely,” said Novak’s mentee, Jennifer Allen. “Have a clue what it is you want to accomplish.”

Allen said she and Novak spent time discussing short- and long-term goals, looking at members of the Xerox organization whose positions Allen might be interested in within the next five to 10 years, and what things they had in common.

According to Stovall, having and keeping a focus during meetings with Wilke was an important part of their relationship. “I wanted to make her realize her strengths and build on her strengths,” Stovall said. “I try to keep conversations focused on her and what she needs to do and not worrying about other people or situations.”

Mentorships should benefit both the mentor and the mentee
The mentors stressed that relationships with their mentees should always benefit both parties involved, and Novak said that if a relationship isn’t working out, that it’s OK to look for another one that does. “It’s great to make a new friend, but the most successful mentorships are about more than that,” Carvin said.

Stovall and Novak said that experiencing successful mentorships early in their careers made them want to become mentors themselves. Stovall said Mentor Scout’s award program helped her realize that Wilke recognized a lot of things about her that she wasn’t aware of. “I recognize that mentoring is a great accomplishment. … I learn as much from the mentee as I do in other things,” Stovall said.

“You really get as much out of it as you put into it,” Wilke said.

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Tips from Mentor Scout’s mentors of the year originally published by SmartBlogs

A millennial leader address to other leaders

It might be interesting to switch the roles. Rather than an audience filled with newly minted graduates, let’s make the audience today’s leaders, consisting of Boomers, Generation X and the Silent Generation. The commencement address is given by a millennial (Generation Y) leader. What words of wisdom would a millennial pass on to older leaders? It might go something like this:

Welcome to this graduation as we move from one generation to the next. As I look around the audience, I see hands and faces wrinkled by the experiences of time, showing the shock of challenges unforeseen and successes big and small. I see eyes worn by the hard work done yet still shining with the sparkle of what is ahead. These are marks of experience, and you have experienced a lot.

Over the past decades, you have seen wars, economic challenges, and innovation only imaginable in science fiction shows. Maybe all of it was unimaginable because as these situations stared you in the face, you didn’t think too much about it; you just did the work necessary. You led. You led with a steeliness I see in your eyes, and you led using your soul, mind, voice and hands. You had some successes and you had some failures. Some of you lost track of your integrity while others kept your character in check, always trying to be the best you could be.

When you look back at me, my hope is you see bright eyes, filled with wonder and excitement of what is ahead. My hope is you see my skin, little touched by time, yet ready to dive into the experiences that will test me. My hope is that you see beyond the characteristics you have read about in popular articles. I hope instead you see a person, ready to lead, to pick up the baton and carry it forward with renewed energy and insight.

Even at my young age, I had some of the same experiences you did. My generation saw new types of wars, some in our backyard. We saw deep economic pressures and what they did to our neighbors, our parents, ourselves. We also see how fast things happen now, whether in connecting to others or innovation unfolding. We share in some experiences, just not to the same level of detail or expectation.

This begins to turn though. The way we can become better leaders is by discarding any perceived gaps between us and focus instead on sharing our unique experiences and lessons learned. We have so much to learn from each other. Yes, it will be lopsided at first, as you have many more years of experience and many more lessons learned. But if millennial leaders can tap into your experience, just think how much better we can lead.

The same is true for you. You, as older generations, have many years left to lead, to give and to serve. During that time you can tap into our experiences too. In this new age of communication, connectedness, and challenges, we have some insights to offer in how to embrace the possibilities and tackle problems with a new mindset and sense of purpose.

As we leave this hall today, we both have so much ahead to do. Let’s embrace each other in making each better leaders. Let’s rise up to the leadership challenge ahead. Equip millennial leaders with the insights from your wrinkles and the determination in your eyes. Tap into your spirit and see what enlivened it over time and kept it solving challenges while serving others. Let’s close the perceived gaps between us and make each other better leaders.

Let’s lead forward for the generations.

Strength in generations of leaders

Here are the key points:

• In diversity of ages, we grow stronger as leaders.
• In diversity of experiences, we strengthen our knowledge.
• In shared conversations, we close leadership gaps and empower a new generation of leaders.

We need to focus less on the characteristic differences between leadership generations and focus more on sharing our experiences.

Jon Mertz is a vice president of marketing in the health care industry and is a leadership populist, writing to empower and inspire Millennial leaders at ThinDifference.com. Connect with Mertz on Twitter @ThinDifference or on Facebook.

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The reverse commencement speech to leaders originally published by SmartBlogs

But true word-of-mouth marketers know that these experiences — while sometimes frustrating and disappointing — are opportunities in disguise. They take advantage of these moments to show customers that they’re listening, that they’re human and sometimes make mistakes, and that they care enough to fix the problem.

The next time it happens to you, think of these inspiring strategies others have used to win over upset customers.

• Make them laugh: There’s obviously a time and a place for jokes when it comes to fielding customer complaints, but a good sense of humor can be disarming and personal enough to defuse a negative comment while showing you’re human. Bodyform famously did it with a hilarious (and viral) video response to a husband’s rant on the brand’s Facebook page about the company’s misleading, euphemistic TV commercials.
• Be vigilant: No matter what their concern, your customers will appreciate a fast response — even if you’re just acknowledging the issue and letting them know you’re on it. For example, when one cyclist was almost hit by a UPS truck, he tweeted about the incident — and when he got home, he was contacted within several minutes by their social media team. He later blogged about being blown away by the company’s careful attention on his social business strategies blog.
• Make it personal: Dell allows their employees to answer customer service concerns with their real names and sometimes post unscripted videos of them working out problems. When your community managers can reply in their own voice, it reminds negative commenters there’s a real person behind your company’s social media page — it also let’s them know a real person cares.

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• Andy’s Answers: How Dell engages online fans and critics
• Andy’s Answers: How Dell joins conversations about its brand in social media
• Are you making it easy for fans to share your story?
• Andy’s Answers: How GE turns focused connections into big impressions
• How to command attention with your content on Facebook

Andy’s Answers: 3 inspiring ways brands respond to customer complaints in social media originally published by SmartBlogs