Leadership Training in Dubai Enhances Strategic Planning & Decision Making

The most important constituent of Strategic Planning is being Proactive to change than Reactive. Being proactive means thinking and acting ahead of anticipated events; this means using foresight.

Every organization wants their staff to have a proactive approach. This was indeed the most thought provoking discussion we had at the Leadership training program we at ecube conducted, for one of the leading leasing and diversified financial services conglomerate in the UAE. Being proactive helps one deal with a potential future event before it becomes a reality. Almost all projects, even those properly managed, need to deal with obstacles, challenging moments, unsatisfied users, technical problems or fewer resources for execution. When a person is in control of an expected or anticipated occurrence, they can take proactive measures. It enables us to prove our insight and vision as leaders.

In ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People’ Stephen R Covey talks about the very first habit is to be proactive. “Habit 1: Be Proactive provides the foundation for all the other habits. Habit 1 is, undoubtedly, the foundation for leadership at home or at work because it begins with the mindset, I am responsible for me, and I can choose.” Being proactive streamlines leadership, enhances positive results and inspires a more joyful workplace. This learning had the most lasting impact on the participants and they left with a strong determination to bring in positive change.

Established in United Arab Emirates, Ecube has been successfully delivering leadership, management and softs skills training programs to corporate. Its training titles include situational leadership, time management, stress management, customer service and sales training across the Gulf including Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Every training session is preceded by a training needs analysis and is followed by measurement of training results.

Leadership Training Enhances Critical & Creative Thinking

Situations which require critical & creative thinking are often problems for which there is more than one solution. Creative thinking is a process of breaking down and streamlining our understanding about something in order to gain new insights. Creativity is the ability to go beyond the routine and obvious, and reject the traps of repetition. This was precisely the focus of the leadership program we @ecube conducted for one for the leading financial companies in the UAE.

As per Forbes “The important thing about coming up with any creative solution is that you have to do your homework. Researching what opportunities are available is the most important step in the process. Thinking outside the box and getting creative in finding solutions to business “challenges” can be vital for businesses.” The participants were eager to implement creative thinking methods at their work place and were high on enthusiasm.

Established in United Arab Emirates, Ecube has been successfully delivering leadership, management and softs skills training programs to corporate. Its training titles include situational leadership, time management, stress management, customer service and sales training across the Gulf including Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Every training session is preceded by a training needs analysis and is followed by measurement of training results.

Training on Values as a Corporate Social Responsibility

During our first visit to Manzil, we realized this place was more than just a school for special needs. Manzil also known as destination, seemed to have an amazing environment of joy, love and respect. As we toured in and out of classrooms, we witness the patience, discipline and creativity with which educators imparted learning to students ensuring each child was given an equal opportunity.

Given the amount of value each staff member has been adding to the organization, Manzil along with Ecube organized a special workshop on 'Valuing Yourself' for the teachers and management team members. The session helped 'tune in' with the self and identify ways in which one could enhance self-care. It included tips one could use to nurture the mind in order to lower stress levels that are known to create a negative impact on the body since most of the diseases we know of today are caused by stress or are psychosomatic.

Self-care begins with the awareness that I am the 'creator' of my thoughts possessing the capability of directing them in a positive direction and developing good wishes and pure feelings for the self and those around me.

The director of Manzil shared valuable insights with her team ensuring each one realized they were an integral part of Manzil family. The experience was deeply fulfilling knowing each participant took back magical memories of optimism, cheer and contentment.

Excellence Through Teambuilding

We @Ecube Training & Consulting conducted various Team Building Programs for some of the world class organizations that have a mix of nationalities and cultures. In spite of diverse backgrounds, it is a pleasure to witness how comfortably the participants engage and interact with each other. Life, as they say, in the office is never like before. There is trust, transparancy and accountability soon after participants leave the teambuilding training workshops of Ecube Training.   

In the first place why do organizations focus on building effective team? Article from Forbes Business beautifully explains this. "Building companies requires the know-how to build long-lasting teams. This is why most managers never become leaders and why most leaders never reach the highest pinnacle of leadership success. It requires the ability to master the "art of people" and knowing how to maneuver hundreds (if not thousands) of people at the right place and at the right time. It means knowing how each person thinks and how to best utilize their competencies rightly at all times. It’s playing a continuous chess match – knowing that every wrong move that is made can cost the company hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars".

We sometimes may start the teambuilding program with analyzing characteristics of a good team and understand aspects which stand out. Various activities follow with relevant debriefs and inputs such as Belbin's team roles, Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions, Tuckman's Stages in Teams and so on. The eventual goal being the creation of 'a single gungho team'. 

Hone Your Negotiation Skills Throught Training

What is the greatest asset of any strong ‘negotiator’? Communicates effectively, emotionally intelligent, agile, tenacious, focused and many other traits that are the usual suspects. However, if there is one asset that supersedes any of these, it is the negotiator’s BATNA - Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.  The BATNA determines the position from which one negotiates. The stronger the BATNA of the person, the better would be the negotiators position and hence better the outcome. That is why, in ‘Getting to Yes’, one of the most renowned books on Negotiation, the first thing that the authors recommend any negotiator to know before the negotiation is his/her ‘BATNA’.

We usually negotiate with this in our minds, although mostly unconsciously. A child is more willing to give up a toy when he/she knows that a replacement of a better toy lurks in the horizon. Your chance of negotiating with your teenager into eating healthier food stands stronger when you know you can influence a benefit that he/she enjoys. We feel this ever so often in business when we become very dependent on just one or two customers; in which case we barely stand any chance to negotiate.

Often the parties in a negotiation need to decide their alternative in case the negotiation fails. How you feel about the BATNA will dictate how firm you need to be in negotiations. If you look at your situation in the absence of a negotiated agreement, and find it almost unthinkable, you will be pressed to enter negotiations in the hope of getting a satisfactory agreement. The word “satisfactory” is important here. Is the BATNA worse than ‘satisfactory’?

There may be times when you do not have a BATNA. Then, depending on the magnitude of the negotiation, it is important to ‘create’ a BATNA. Moreover, if the BATNA is weak, then it would immensely help to spend some time and energy in strengthening your BATNA. These steps are part of ‘preparing’ before entering into any negotiation. So next time you are going to enter into a negotiation, spend some quality time ‘preparing’ your BATNA. Otherwise, you would be entering a battle field unarmed! 

Ecube Training & Consulting is the leading Negotiation Skills Training company in the GCC. 

Rigorous Training for Enhancing Presentation Skills

Ten Tips that will make you a Star Presenter

In today’s business environment, as well as in academia, the use of technology such as PowerPoint slides or more recently Prezi is not only commonplace but also essential. However, the PowerPoint slides are not the end… they are a means to an end. They are a tool in our massive toolkit of communication skills to convey a message that is concise, clear and effective. 

You may be making a presentation to

·       Inform

·       Instruct

·       Entertain

·       Inspire/ motivate

·       Activate/ stimulate

Whatever be your purpose, communicating successfully is an art. Below are some of tools shared by Ecube Training & Consulting in its Presentation Skills Training workshops that you, as an artist could use to make your presentation more successful:

Know your Audience

For any form of communication to be effective, its vital you understand who your audience is, and speak with empathy. The better you know your audience, the more you can tailor your message to inspire, motivate and persuade them. Go beyond superficial qualities such as age, gender, etc and seek to gain deeper insights. Ask yourself the following questions:

·       What motivates them?

·       Why are they here?

·       What are their greatest worries?

·       How can I solve their problems?

·       What do I want them to do?

·       How can I best reach them?

Establish a Common Ground

Being able to connect with your audience (pathos) can make all the difference in the way your presentation resonates with them. How would you like them to feel?

Try to think about lateral reference points to the kind of cognitive or emotional response you would like to elicit from them.   Think about the best presentation you sat through that was mind-blowing. What about it resonated with you?  Think about the last conversation you had with a friend that made you more relaxed and receptive. 

Try to relate these experiences with your audience. Some commonalities to consider would be:

·       Shared experiences

·       Common goals

·       Aligned beliefs

Define your “BIG IDEA”

So, now that you have established how you would connect with your audience, the next step would be to ensure your main message is communicated. So what is your “big idea”? It’s the crux of your presentation. It is your clear view or opinion of the subject and what’s at stake if your audience does not agree with you. Your big idea should be a complete and concise sentence that includes tow components:

·       Your point of view

·       What’s at stake (why should the audience care about it)

Define the Audience’s Journey

During your presentation, are you asking your audience to change their behavior in any way? The more clearly you define what you want, the more likely your audience is to accept it, and the more clearly you define the next steps, the easier it would be for them to visualize getting there.

Before you begin your presentation, map your desired audience transformation:

·       From (their current position)

·       To (what you would like them to believe and how you want them to act going forward)

Generate content to support the BIG IDEA

When you are planning your presentation, it is very tempting to build your slides first and use them as an outline for your talk.  However, if you could step back, and build your content, you would have much better clarity and possibly generate new content.  The way to do this is to research existing content and then brainstorm on your ideas, around your BIG idea. 

Keep it creative, use mind maps, draw, use arrows, flowcharts, whatever works for you – just get your right brain thinking.

Anticipate Resistance

Asking an audience to change their behavior or beliefs in order to adopt your big idea is a big deal and some listeners are bound to object to your opinion.  Think about how your audience may resist your idea and be ready to overcome potential arguments. Consider how they might demonstrate the following:

·       Logical Resistance: an audience member might resist your argument by reasoning through why the budget doesn’t work. He or she might not buy your idea if they perceive holes in your argument structure or the way you made your case

·       Emotional Resistance: some audience members might object to your argument on the basis of a specific emotional response (such as fear, anger, or guilt) or an ingrained aspect of their personality (such as the desire to follow the majority).

·       Practical Resistance: Barriers such as money, time and geography can all limit an audience member’s ability to make the changes that you are calling for.

If you are able to acknowledge your audience’s objections, apprehensions and limitations, you give them the confidence that you have taken the time to consider their needs and desires, thus establishing a relationship that is based on trust.

Amplify your message by contrasting

You can make your presentation more interesting by highlighting the difference between two concepts. This creates suspense and provides the context for your idea. Some types of contrast that you could use are:

·       Past vs. future

·       Speed vs. endurance

·       Sacrifice vs. reward

·       Strategy vs. action

Contrasting is particularly useful when it comes to selling the audience on your big idea: by emphasizing the differences between the idea you’re presenting and competing and a competing point of view, you can better prepare the audience to accept your argument.

Create a solid story structure

As we were all told when we started writing in school, all compelling stories and presentations have a clear beginning, middle and end. This is also a structure we can find in most successful movies, stories and speeches in history.

·       Beginning: this is the “what is”  (an assessment of the current state) compared to the “what could be” (showing the audience this rosy picture of a possible future state). Using visualization or setting a huge challenge could be an in interesting way to draw attention.

·       Middle: shift between what is and what could be using appropriate content to show your audience why your Big Idea is more desirable than the status quo and move the audience toward your vision of “what could be”

·       End: clearly state a call to action, emphasizing how bringt your audience’s future will be if the heed it.

Add Emotional Texture and Humor

A good story elicits visceral responses: we may shed a tear, get Goosebumps, roll down with laughter and applause. Unfortunately, we don’t often see this in presentations. Think about how you can infuse humor into you presentation, how you can connect with your audience at an emotional level and make your message more memorable.

To forge an emotional connection with your audience, incorporate STAR moments (Something They’ll Always Remember) into your presentation. This could include:

·       Shocking statistics

·       Evocative visuals

·       Funny anecdotes and visuals

·       Repeatable sound bites

Try to use these STAR moments at points in you presentation when you want the audience to remember what you said and chat about it later on.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Having practiced in advance will help you feel confident about your presentation. When you know your material well, you are able to relax and focus on the message and not the slides – it allows you to connect with the audience.  Try to prepare well in advance:

·       Seek honest feedback and inputs from a trusted colleague or subject matter expert

·       Have a shorter plan B in case of unforeseen circumstances

·       Play around with the order of the slides to make sure the flow is seamless

·       Practice using the slideshow so you know how it flows and practice at least once without your speaker notes.

·       Videotape yourself

Finally, remember; NEVER deliver a presentation you wouldn’t want to sit through!

Sales Closure and Objection Handling at a Sales Training in Dubai

In today’s business environment, closing a deal especially with a new customer is extremely challenging. The days are gone where business was as simple as a phone call and following up with an invoice. Today, customers are careful and are thinking thousand times over before signing the dotted line. Some may blame the economic climate, however in approaching the problem differently lies the key!

Recently, ecube conducted a two day training workshop on advanced sales skills for one of the leading manufacturer of decorative and protective paints in the UAE. The ‘objection handling’ session was probably my personal favourite, as we got to share many experiences and stories around this theme. Here I am sharing an excerpt out of the session, to have your views too.

Most of the objections today are revolving around time, money and the people. Now I would want you to picture and imagine a lit-candle in front of you. By laying your hand on the fire, if it stays there for long it will hurt you. Ouch!

Let me draw a parallel here. When your prospect or customer object to your proposal saying that they don’t have money, time, resources and more, they are actually resting their hands on top of the lit-candle.

If they keep the hand too much on the candle – it pains, they want to move to pleasure area – somewhere away for the candle ie pain points. As an effective sales person, it is your role to help your customer to move them from the pain area to a more pleasurable area – an area away from the lit-candle.

How do we do move them? By asking questions! Questions which motivate them to move towards those pleasurable area. If the objection is time, you might want to ask him/her - who controls your time Mr/Ms customer? So for how long it’s been going on? So how long you want to let that happen? At this point you have an opportunity to get back your customer into the negotiation table- not the price, the time but the real value.

One of the most classic objection, and you would agree with me, is PRICE! Let’s see how to handle this part of the objection in a five step process:

Step 1: Neutralize:  Once the customer raises his objection on price, say Okay. Now try saying loudly with me – OKAY! Now okay, seems like you are agreeing to them, but not really. You are in reality neutralizing the situation and giving the customer an impression of agreement.

Step 2: Confirm: Confirm what is really going on. So Mr/Ms Customer; Is that your only concern with our product, the price? By this you are eliminating all other concerns which do not exist and you have clearly separated the concern.

Step 3: Question & Uncovering: Here you are questioning the prospect/ customer to understand why he/she feels the product is expensive. For e.g.: What you mean it is too expensive? What are you comparing the price with?

Step 4: Reposition – Get back to the customer by saying -- WOW! I guess I failed. I guess I failed to show you all the value & benefits of my product and getting through it me. Now you will agree, people will buy what they value, see value, and what they desire to own.  Let me make sure I go over this again…I don’t want to fail you and me by you not seeing the entire value.

By repositioning, you are trying to continue to continue the discussion over and over again till you overcome the objection and setting in place the true value of your product.

Step 5: Re asking for the sale: Now it is about time to move the discussion towards closing the sale. The real objection is why the customer should buy from you and not anywhere else. When you establish this equation, no price objection is too big.

Now why don’t you go out and overcome your objections successfully and may more sales closures come your way! 

Stress Management

Every 3 Out Of 4 Visits To The Doctor Are For Stress-Related Ailments, according to The American Institute of Stress. Needless to say how devastating this stealthy and seemingly innocent dis-ease could be, both personally and professionally.    

No one in the world today can claim to be ‘completely free from stress’ and rightly so. We all experience stress from time to time and in different situations. The idea is to understand stress so that it does not ‘persist’ interminably, resulting in mental or physical damage over time.

There is a beauty of balance that exists within each and every one of us. The stress that we experience is in fact the struggle to remove anything that is causing an imbalance to us. Therefore, stress is important…only to the extent of understanding what is causing the imbalance and then ‘doing’ something to return back to our normal balanced state. An irate customer, for example, calls me, a gush of stress pushes me to take corrective measures and I then regain my internal balance. Simple so far. The price of oil falls, a gush of stress pushes me to take corrective measures, but I don’t have any say in this situation, my stress therefore persists - a poor move. I forget to realize that in this case, the only way I can regain my equilibrium is by accepting the situation unconditionally. Once I do so, I experience the beauty of balance. So, who is really responsible for the stress that persists in someone?

Out stress thus has much to do with the thoughts we carry about things that we ‘cannot’ control. Here are a few tips that would help us to stay balanced and full of beans all through the day, despite various stress triggers:

1.        Be an avid student of life – look at every person and uncontrollable situation around you as your teachers. I try to influence them, but realize that I cannot control them. So as my teachers they have taught me life’s greatest lessons and I am grateful to such teachers. I respect them. Stress changes into gratitude.   

2.       Look into the mirror – It is always easy to blame others when things go wrong. Check yourself first and 9 out of 10 times you will realize you need to change, improve and amend the way you communicate with or lead others! Stress changes into self-development.  

3.       Build resilience – There are two ways one can reduce stress. Either reduce external pressure or increase internal resilience. External pressure will only mount with time, so focus on building resilience. Meditate, practice mindfulness and Auto-suggestions. Stress changes into enrichment.     

‘Stresponsibility’ gives me the bad news that I am responsible for my stress, and the good news that I have the ability to overcome it. It simply asks me to take ownership of my emotion of stress, only then can I do something about it. Else I only am pointing fingers at others, pointlessly!