One Millimeter Mindset

FEBRUARY 1, 2023

Your professional relevance is on the line each time you work with colleagues and clients. Are you being professionally relevant or just making business noise? This year, let’s make a difference: together. Here are two, one millimeter steps forward that you can take beginning today. Enjoy! The first step of becoming more professionally relevant is identifying your team participation and communication style.

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One Millimeter Mindset

JANUARY 25, 2023

I have two questions for you today. First, how many times during sales calls or project meetings are you intimidated by other colleagues’ perceived levels of knowledge? Next, what do you plan to do about that scenario, after today? Consider the opportunities missed (and sales dollars left on the table) when you remain a spectator when working with or selling to individuals who do not solve problems the same way you do.

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One Millimeter Mindset

JANUARY 11, 2023

How would others describe your professional intensity during your interactions with them? On one hand, the strength, energy, or feelings which you create can inspire, catalyze, and drive people to move forward. Alternatively, the strength, energy, or feelings you create can make people want to mentally run for the exit door – even though they diplomatically keep smiling and nodding their heads.

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One Millimeter Mindset

DECEMBER 28, 2022

What is our next one millimeter forward together as we traverse towards 2023? How have your focus and perspective evolved? Heading towards a new year together, I remain grateful for your readership, inspiration and support. I commenced blogging in 2009. Yet, during the last two years, my personal and professional perspective was profoundly impacted.

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One Millimeter Mindset

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Your job description is a great place to start building professional capabilities. Consider that these baseline requirements form the structural underpinning of a career well-planned. Consequently, your career feels less accidental than intentional. Plus, you create a participatory career where you are an active player instead of a spectator. Whether you are a young or older newbie in a new role in a new company – or not – consider what else is required of you beyond what is described for you to

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One Millimeter Mindset

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

You are the go-to resource for lots of folks, aren’t you? You always seem to have the right perspective, the right answer, the right choice of words to help people become unstuck. However, at times, being placed in that position leaves you in a lonely place. Who or what is your own go-to? If you currently do not have the “right” answer to my question, take the time to ask it.

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One Millimeter Mindset

OCTOBER 26, 2022

Do you know a rare colleague who influences your life so much that they become Legendary? These are the individuals whom we trust implicitly due to their ethics, values, professionalism, and overall humanity. The Legend is more than the sum of their expertise and proficiency. Your day is always better because you know they are there, in the background, regardless of whether or not you need their help.

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One Millimeter Mindset

OCTOBER 19, 2022

You are pushing client boundaries when you present and spearhead updated or new ideas, concepts, tools, and technologies. Often, your efforts do not result in accolades from that client. Far too frequently, clients view your efforts as contrarian. Why is that? First, your innovations move them one millimeter beyond what is known and comfortable. Next, adapting and adopting your offerings challenges them.

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One Millimeter Mindset

OCTOBER 12, 2022

Your actions, assumptions, and perspective impact making ideas actionable and understandable. Are you one of “those” team members who is always throwing new ideas out on the table, like a jump ball? And are team members “jumping” at the chance to play around with your ideas? Or do your ideas fall with a loud “thud” on the table, without being bounced around at all?

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One Millimeter Mindset

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

Do you describe yourself as intellectually curious? Those small actions you choose to do as part of your daily personal and professional life become habits influencing your values, mindset, and performance. Perhaps it is time to do a bit of self-observation. For example, will you take the time to look up the crossword puzzle words which stymie you? Then what happens?

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One Millimeter Mindset

AUGUST 24, 2022

Initially, there’s a high probability you will lose your balance when learning to ride a 2-wheel bicycle. Also, there’s a high probability that you will fall off the bike and land on the pavement. Ouch. So, what will you do next? Right now, many of you parent, teach, or coach young people doing life events for the first time: learning to ride bicycles, play sports, attend kindergarten.

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One Millimeter Mindset

JUNE 29, 2022

Those are the words of one of my greatest mentors. I think his words are even more relevant today than they were before. During our careers we get caught up in taking the next steps up the rungs of someone else’s idea of what a corporate ladder looks like. Or, we become chameleons: acting and dressing and living according to others’ expectations (or even demands).

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One Millimeter Mindset

JUNE 8, 2022

When clients are prioritizing absolutely everything, no crystal clear and actionable target emerges. It’s like the clients go to an all-you-can-eat, no limits buffet. They keep piling stuff onto their plates. Yet they are neither interested in the food nor hungry enough to eat what they choose. When you allow clients the freedom of prioritizing absolutely everything, you do yourself a great disservice.

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One Millimeter Mindset

JUNE 1, 2022

Are you the default team problem-solver for your teams? Did you earn that default role by chance or design? Are you enjoying the role? If you collaborate on teams, you know that problem-solving together is complex and sometimes frustrating. During some meetings, everyone is on fire and of one mind! Then, during other meetings, perspectives and energy are all over the place.

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One Millimeter Mindset

MAY 11, 2022

You all serve clients regardless of your respective professional disciplines. So it follows that when you serve those clients, your focus primarily is helping clients prioritize their own needs. That focus is truly noble. However, as you work with those clients, at what point do you shift your focus towards meeting your own needs first? Crossing that barrier, or interface, is where theory meets practical reality.

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One Millimeter Mindset

MAY 4, 2022

Are you serving yourself first or last? Or do you dismiss the importance of serving yourself first as being selfish? On the other hand, do you ever focus on putting other people’s needs ahead of your own? Take a breath, step back, and ask yourself the three questions encompassed in the title of today’s blog post. Instead of being pulled in all sorts of directions, create the balance you seek.

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One Millimeter Mindset

APRIL 27, 2022

Today’s post compiles five ideas to catalyze you to think about the same things, differently. It is time for action. Yes, sail into uncharted waters so what is uncomfortable and unfamiliar today becomes your professional environment moving forward. Get to where you really need to go, together, one millimeter at a time. These five themes surface constantly as I research and speak with motivated colleagues and readers like you.

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One Millimeter Mindset

APRIL 6, 2022

Are you leveraging business stories that make people think twice? Business stories provide rich, illustrative palettes upon which to engage people to move forward together. Are you intentionally – or unintentionally – causing people to think twice about their direction, speed, objectives, goals, and purpose? When business stories catalyze people to think and rethink about the status quo, you focus them on what is new, next, and changing.

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One Millimeter Mindset

MARCH 23, 2022

There is a great professional recalibration going on. Are you experiencing it? If not, you should be. Let’s explore together, shall we? By now, you are reading plenty about the Great Post-Pandemic Resignation. This phenomenon primarily is a response to employer mandates focused on a 100% return to the office, ending many pandemic-based initiatives. Plus, some of you tell me that your employer has moved headquarters.

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One Millimeter Mindset

MARCH 9, 2022

It is time to revisit your professional signal to noise ratio before you are tsunami’d by it. Over the past five years, I’ve written about its importance in your professional innovation and cross functional leadership success. Signal to noise ratio is the amount of desirable signal compared to the amount of background noise interfering with the strength and clarity of that signal.

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One Millimeter Mindset

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

Are you unintentionally creating self-imposed boundaries for your professional self? When do you create these? What stories do you tell yourself, denying the existence of these impediments? How do these limits make you feel secure, comfortable, and end up keeping you professionally static? Last week’s blog post focused on the importance of creating a habit of self-acknowledgment : inward affirmation.

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One Millimeter Mindset

FEBRUARY 2, 2022

Do you make it a habit to acknowledge yourself each day? Think about it. Before you awake or when you have that first cup of coffee, take time to appreciate yourself. Then, continue the habit. Make it your priority to tell yourself, throughout the day, how proud you are of “you.”. Now, if you have children, your refrigerator is a display of their artwork or awards.

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One Millimeter Mindset

JANUARY 19, 2022

Surprised to enter 2022 digging yourself out of a huge 2021 customer defection hole? It just could be you left your entire client retention strategy up to the virtual customer retention dog. What excuses do you make to your managers about your less-than-stellar rate of customer retention? Consider that customers who defect have an entirely different story to share.

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One Millimeter Mindset

JANUARY 12, 2022

How well do your professional goals complement your sense of strategic purpose? Is your professional glass half empty or merely half full? Consider that your strategic purpose is changing. It is time to re-write your Strategic Professional Purpose Playbook, together with me. . This change is in response to your collective professional experiences, regardless of how long you have been working.

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One Millimeter Mindset

JANUARY 5, 2022

Each New Year brings with it a plethora of blog posts and articles. These pieces encourage you to set bold goals, crush quotas, and move forward with resilience and vigor!! Realistically, you just may not have the mental (and physical) energy to fulfill everything you are told to do in those articles. Equally realistically, consider how your professional priorities changed over the past 12 months due to pandemic experiences.

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One Millimeter Mindset

DECEMBER 22, 2021

As you and I enjoy the remaining days of 2021, I offer you these three tips to reflect on as we move one millimeter forward together into the new year. Cut yourself some slack. Do you realize your inner critic holds you back instead of allowing you to move one millimeter forward towards where you really need to go? Is that critic (still) telling you that you are not perfect?

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One Millimeter Mindset

DECEMBER 15, 2021

Creating your 2022 playbook of what it takes to design, align, and implement solutions clients really want? First, consider that these solutions and outcomes may not be aligned with what your organization’s culture (and strategy) currently support. Then, consider that what clients really want may reside beyond your organization’s core competencies. However, aligning solutions with the reality of what clients really want is an opportunity.

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One Millimeter Mindset

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

This month, review these three chewable one millimeter mindset blogs: posts freshly created throughout November 2021. As you digest your Thanksgiving meal (and leftovers!), chew on my perspectives a bit more. Then, let me know what you think. First Post – Chewable One Millimeter Mindset Blogs. Will Your Clients Elect (And Re-Elect) You As Their Go-To Professional Resource?

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One Millimeter Mindset

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

Are you continuing to do business with business owners who make you feel like disposable clients? Over the past month, I ceased doing business with three of my long-term vendors. Yes, I completely walked away from these relationships. There was no other choice to make. As a business strategist, I somehow felt responsible for not “fixing” what I found was deteriorating in their business, service quality, and operational models.

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One Millimeter Mindset

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

Clients have a voice and a choice regarding whom they do business with, initially and on an ongoing basis. Obviously, the goal is for clients to initially elect you as their go-to professional resource to serve their needs. However, will they subsequently re-elect you to serve them in the post-pandemic business ecosystem? First, the pandemic created opportunities for suppliers and consultants like you to step up and serve clients in non-traditional ways.

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One Millimeter Mindset

OCTOBER 27, 2021

Each of you has a one millimeter that you must journey professionally, to get to where you really need to go. First, keep in mind that each of you has your own, specific one millimeter to move beyond. That millimeter is the space, place, or scenario which gives you professional pause. The place that makes you hesitate and even creates fear of the unknown or unexplored.

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One Millimeter Mindset

OCTOBER 13, 2021

Consistently choosing the right solution to better serve colleagues and clients is no easy task. First, the right solution is not necessarily the easiest or most popular. Next, you or your team can become comfortable choosing professionally comfortable solutions. Over time, your arsenal of comfortable solutions makes you myopic to selecting the best solutions for solving current problems.

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One Millimeter Mindset

OCTOBER 6, 2021

Have you ever been involved in a project where everything looked great on paper? Until, that is, the project is implemented within a real-time setting? At that point, what you expect to happen takes off in all sorts of unanticipated directions. I can see some of you nodding your heads in agreement. And I have a great program designed to address this specific question: “3 Questions, 4 Agreements, and 5 Whys Catalyze Professional Innovation.” .

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One Millimeter Mindset

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

First, how will you get from where you were yesterday to where you really need to go, today? Then, how do you plan to navigate from a professional place of irresolution today to one of resolution tomorrow? Throughout September, the pace of how we work accelerated. Are you experiencing that sudden surge in the velocity of our workplaces, as everyone plugs in simultaneously?

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One Millimeter Mindset

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Do you perceive yourself as a problem solver, manager, or a spectator? Think about it. First, a colleague identifies a current or potential problem. Next, are you their top-of-mind, go-to resource to find a solution? Or are you the last person clients and colleagues consider for complex problem solving? Alternatively, are you a sought-after, stellar manager of complex problems?

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One Millimeter Mindset

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

Do you have the same post pandemic professional target you aimed at about 18 months ago? Our professional environments have shifted. Many professionals I speak to feel somewhat out of sync professionally: trying to fit back into environments that just do not fit them anymore. Are you an out of sync professional? Is what you are feeling necessarily a bad thing?

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One Millimeter Mindset

AUGUST 11, 2021

Organizational value silos are found in all sizes and shapes of companies. Initially, silos are created and nurtured by business and hiring models which categorize people into functional roles based on how they solve problems. Then, these silos are perpetuated by problem-solving tools, mindset, and terminology “owned” by the professional disciplines inhabiting these silos.

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