From FEAR to DARE How to improve your change-fitness

From FEAR to DARE How to improve yur change-fitnessFrom FEAR to DARE How to improve your change-fitnessResistance is a mental state, not an attribute.People are not born mora open (or not) to change. Thats a wrong assumption most of us make - we think others resist change on purpose. Mental states are fluid. We can all train our minds to overcome resistance.Most of us are change-averse. We are wired to resist uncertainty - our brains dont tolerate what they cant control or anticipate. Thats why we try to fit the unknowns into existing mental structures. We resist anything that we cant put in any of those predefined boxes.Becoming more open-minded is a counterintuitive mental exercise - to increase your change-fitness, you have to train your mind first. You must shift from FEAR to DARE.New direction, new mindsetWhat we binnensee changes what we know. What we know changes what we see. - Jean PiagetYou cant expect someone to run a marathon without any previous training. Those who ar e out of shape, not only can get harmed - they will resist the idea from the get-go.However, thats how many organization approach change. They expect people to embrace new technologies, initiatives or strategic directions with excitement - but they forget to prepare them to be more open-minded.Peoples relationship with change is directly linked to life experiences, beliefs, emotions, and what they went through in previous transformations. All their baggage comes to play when abspracheing with new initiatives.Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget coined the term Schema to describe both the mental and physical actions required in understanding and knowing. We use them to interpret and understand the world - schemas are the building blocks of knowledge.When we face new information, we have to either fit it in our existing mentality or to adjust our schema to fit the new information. We can either assimilate or accommodate to whats unfamiliar.Assimilation is easy - the new information fits within existing experiences and preconceived ideas. But, when theres no place for it, it challenges our beliefs, emotions, and confidence.Accommodation is hard - it requires to develop a cognitive ability. We have to put judgment aside and be willing to analyze the new information as potentially good. Once we recognize the benefit of a new initiative, it requires challenging our existing ideas - accommodation requires training our minds.Thats why its essential for any team to understand how they deal with change. Assessing what drives resistance (FEAR) is the first step toward training everyones mind, not only to be more open but to thrive in change (DARE).Note the FEAR to DARE framework welches adapted from the one Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (CBT) uses for psychotherapy ours has been repurposed for team and organizational transformation.F is for Fighting. Most of us are at war with reality. We fight what we cant control or dont understand. Our anxiety, emotions, and thoug hts prevent us from fully understanding ourselves, others, and the context. Low self-awareness causes blindspots, thus bad clouds our judgment to make decisions.E is for Excuses. When things dont go as expected, we tend to blame others. Excuses are distractions - we put the focus somewhere else instead of being accountable for our acts. Name your favorite excuse. We play the blame game instead of acting.A is for Avoidance. Change challenges us - we must leave our comfort zone to try new things. Our perfectionist mind tends to focus on whats missing instead of what we have. We are busy, others teams have more budget, our competitor is faster than we are, you name it. Constraints become a limitation - we avoid the real challenge.R is for Repetition. Avoidance of uncertainty keeps us in our comfort zone - we keep doing the same things in the same way we always did. We end living on autopilot.So, how can you break this cycle?Work on you. Be honest. Be authentic. Be brave. Dare to ch ange.D is for Discovery. We must pause and reflect to increase our self-awareness. We put the time and effort to discover who we really are and become compassionate enough to accept our entire self (flaws included). We dont let our thoughts and emotionscloud our judgment - we discover reality as is.Self-aware teams make better decisions, interact better with each other, and manage conflicts more effectively.Discovery is an ongoing process - self-awareness turns our blindspots into bright spots.A is for Autonomy. We take ownership of our actions. Rather than blaming others, we take full accountability. Autonomy is our desire for choices - we want to manage our destiny, rather than leaving it in someone elses hands.Our brains are wired to self-direct. We need to feel autonomy over our tasks (what we do), our time (when we do it), the team (who we do it with), and the technique (how we do it).Autonomy lets action, not excuses, drive us.R is for Reframing. Limits, just like fear, are an illusion. We are wired to believe that having more (time, resources, budget, etc.) is what matters. Reframing is how we turn limitations into our best friend - they force us to be more focused, creative, and effective.Reframing turns constraints into a superpower.E is for Experimentation. Letting go of what we go is the first step to try new things. To learn something new, you must unlearn everything you think you know. It requires to embrace vulnerability - get used to making mistakes and recover from failing often. Put your perfectionism aside. Be okay to jump into the unknown.Experimentation requires to embrace doing over overthinking.Dare to changePlay is the work of childhood. - Jean PiagetTo move from FEAR to DARE a framework is not enough - it requires training, coaching, tools, and regular practice. But, above all, you must provide a safe space for dialogue and feedback. Here are some tips to get you started.1. Develop Self and Team AwarenessOur mindsets and emotions can make things look more complicated or challenging than they are. Self-awareness helps us understand our feelings and thoughts - we observe events instead of reacting to them. By looking at our thoughts rather than through them, we can see reality as is, not a distorted version.Self-awareness requires discipline to understand and train our minds.2. Ignite actionStarting is always harder than continuing a task (especially one we dont like). As the Heath brothers wrote on Switch, One way to motivate action is to make people feel as though theyve already closer to the finish line that they might have thought.A study on car wash promotion shows that when customers are given a 10-punch card with two stamps on it, they are more prone to complete it than an 8-punch card with no stamps.Dont start from scratch - make people feel theyve already made progress.3. Aim for quick-winsGaining momentum is crucial to keep the action moving. As finance guru, Dave Ramsey explains, When training sa lespeople, I try to get them a sale or two quickly because that fires them up. And getting fired up is super important.Progress fuels more progress - quick wins accelerate change.4. Get comfortable failingWhats your mistake policy? - I like to ask my clients. This kickstarts a healthy conversation on how organization deal (or not) with errors. To learn, you must fail first.Encourage a culture of risk-taking - celebrate mistakes as lessons.5. Acknowledge progressChange creates a gap between where the organization is and where it must be. By focusing too much on the destination, many leaders fail to acknowledge the ground gained.Remember to acknowledge and celebrate progress - people get excited when they feel they are moving forward.Upgrade your teams adaptabilityDownload my ebook Stretch Your Team how to thrive in a changing world get your free copy.Receive my weekly Insights for Changemakers Sign up nowThisarticlefirst appeared on Medium.

How to Sell Radio Advertising

How to Sell Radio AdvertisingHow to Sell Radio AdvertisingThose are just two advantages anyone working in radio schlussverkauf must tout when selling radio advertisements over other forms of media. The key to selling radio ads is to convince your clients that they need them. The best way to do that is to show them the bottom line. The Price Is Right With Radio Ads Inexpensive or free production costs can seal the deal with a client.At many stations, the person who sells the spot writes the script. Most ads need only asolid radio personalityto act as the announcer. You might add some bells and whistles with background music and sound effects, but stations can obtain stock versions of both at low cost. Since the salesperson and announcer already draw salaries as part of the staff, the production cost to the station is minimal. That means the station can waive any fees it might charge for the ads if the client agrees to purchase a certain number of spots. You also can save money for your client by acting as a consultant.If they want to lavish money on some well-known voice to make the on-air pitch, remind them that the expenditure wont automatically boost their sales result if people dont recognize the high-priced vocal talent. If the client wants to play a more active role and produce a spot that you know will fail, gently explain what will work for them. You might point out how thebest radio ads incorporate thesix types of media advertising. Advertisements Can Air Quickly Television or newspaper advertisements can take weeks, if not months of production before the target audience ever sees them. Radio advertisements can be written, produced and aired all in the same day if a station has open advertising slots on its program log. Those availabilities or avails are hard to get during the December shopping season but should be easy to offer during the rest of the year. You can use expediency as a key selling point. If its late August and a clothing store is late launching the Labor Day sale for its fall fashions, it still has time to mount a successful radio advertising campaign. Getting aTV commercial on the air or in the print media on such short notice can be mission impossible. Make that work for you. Radio Advertisements Hit a Target Audience Many potential clients may be confused by the term target audience because they want to sell their products to everyone. Thats why they often waste money on ineffective newspaper or TV advertising that doesnt reach their potential customers. Radio formats make targeting an audience easy. Most business owners instinctively know if the people they want to reach listen to hip-hop, country or sports radio. If a car dealer wants to move pickup trucks off the lot and you sell radio advertising for a country music station, you likely wont have to spend time convincing the dealership that your station is the right place to advertise. However, you may have to show other prospects whymatching the client to a target audience is critical to getting results. If you work for a cluster of radio stations, you can work a deal with the pickup truck dealership for the country station, and then go next door and sell ads for a sports bar on your sports radio station. Radio is ideal for that sort of smaller, targeted campaign. Love Those Low CPMs Another advantage of radio advertising advantage is its low CPM, or cost per thousands,rate. Explain to your clients why the worlds slickest, most creativeadvertisement wont boost sales if it runs only one time unless it appears during the Super Bowl. An ad must repeatedly air if you want the sales homilie to stick in the audiences brain. Radio advertising provides the opportunity to repeatedly air the clients message multiple times throughout the day at relatively minimal cost. By the time a listener hears the same ad five times on the way to work and another five times on the way home, she will know the car dealership is great deals on th e most rugged pickup trucks that money can buy. Simple Message Advertising rarely works when the sales message is muddled. Readers will overlook a newspaper ad that is lost on whatever clutter crowds the rest of the page. TV ads often have so much going on music, pictures, flashy editing that viewers dont know where to place their focus. Radio advertising demonstrates that a simple message is usually the most effective. A restaurant offering 99-cent tacos on Tuesdays can use the 10-, 15-, or 30-second ad to simply state, Come get great-tasting tacos for 99 cents every Tuesday. Heres where to go. The listeners cant see the tacos, but thats where effective advertising copywriting can use words to paint the mental image of fresh, hot, spicy, crispy, tacos filled to the brim with delectable goodies. Radio advertising offers a wealth of advantages over other forms of media. Emphasize each of them, and youll persuade clients to buy spots on your station that will increase sales and decrease their expenditures.

Content creation TheSkimm founders say that the key is to never stop learning

Content creation TheSkimm founders say that the key is to never stop learningContent creation TheSkimm founders say that the key is to never stop learningDanielle Weisberg andCarly Zakin created a daily newsletter in 2012 to summarizepopular news stories. Today, theSkimm has more than 5 million subscribers, as well as an app, videos, and a absatzwirtschaft tool.Ladders spoke to Weisberg and Zakin via email about the lessons theyve learned and their thoughts on the future of work.Ladders What have you learned from starting a business? Weisberg and Zakin Weve learned that you never stop learning. Though the pain points we had when it was the two of us on ur couch are much different from those we have as a 40+ person team in ur third office, were so grateful to have an incredible network of investors and advisors who have been there before and can continue to help us navigate.What is your definition of success?To us, success is something that is constantly evolving. We still really dont consider theSkimm a success, and thats important to our culture, but we always take time to celebrate milestones, big or small. Product launches, new hires, closed deals, or finally getting to inbox zero.We love popping champagne or ringing the bell in HQ to announce an accomplishment, but our team is scrappy and hungry. Were always pushing for more.What advice would you give on how to be a strong employee?Be nimble. At theSkimm, our employees are not only exceedingly good at what they do (humble brag), but they can be all around athletes as well. One of our core values is that Nobody is too senior to do something. Nobody is too junior to do something.Its literally written on our wall. One minute youre throwing big ideas across the table, another youre responding to community feedback, the next youre literally taking out trash.How has technology affected your company and leadership?Our best piece of advice when starting a business would be to take a coding class. Understanding tech and analytics is the foundation of understanding our audience.Our first hire was a growth hacker, and today a third of our company is made up of incredibly talented engineers and data analysts - were investing heavily in building out those teams as we continue to expand our product suite.What do you think is the future of work?We hope that the future of work involves knowing an audience and meeting them where they are. That is a central tenant of theSkimm. We have seen so much good content not rise because there is just so much good content out there.Because of that, we focus on what this audience is doing and when they actually need this information - instead of creating content just to create.