• Have your meetings become a forum for competing agendas, apathy and wasted energy?
• How much time do you waste arguing, nitpicking policies, chasing rabbit trails, delaying decisions, and talking around the real issues?
• Is scheduling another meeting the only guaranteed outcome of your time together?

While meetings have a place and purpose, too often they are experienced as unneeded, unproductive, and unsafe, thus fostering a cynical and apathetic attitude among participants which negatively affects the organization at large.  Effective meetings build alignment around common goals, support innovation and decision-making, and facilitate direct, accountable action, and include each participant as a valuable part of the process.  In this live audio conference, you will learn tips to notice and combat drama in your meetings, identify logistical details to keep meetings on task, engage and motivate a diverse audience, and facilitate a more safe, creative, and accountable meeting atmosphere.

The result: More enthusiasm, more productivity and innovation, less wasted time and energy.

 As our guest, you are eligible for 20% off the *registration fee!

Essential Techniques for Productive Meetings
February 14, 2012
1:00PM EST – 2:30PM EST (Noon – 1:30PM CST)

Please see this attached marketing publication for more details: LORMAN ED_ProductiveMtg_Feb14_2012

Register online: http://www.lorman.com
Call: 866-352-9539
*Discount code: F2716129
Priority code: 15999

We look forward to having you in attendance and will be prepared to answer your questions and provide you the latest information on this topic.

An article in the November 28 issue of Time Magazine reported that 2 million people gave notice and left their jobs in September, the highest number of resignations since November 2008.  In this report, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 44% of those who quit their job in the last year did so believing they would find a better opportunity elsewhere.

In April 2009 we published a white paper titled “Prepare for the future: Invest in your people”, (http://next-element.com/whitepapers/prepare-for-the-future-invest-in-your-people/) outlining the current statistics on job satisfaction and engagement, and emphasized the danger of taking employees for granted during a time when they have fewer alternatives. In the months following we published a series of papers sharing perspectives and strategies to value, engage, and motivate your best people so that when things turned around, you would have a loyal and prepared workforce.

We are happy that the economy is showing signs of recovery, and we are happy that employees are taking the risk to find workplaces that value and respect them. Through thick and thin, you can count on Next Element to offer resources for maximizing your best people, helping those who are struggling, and making the tough decisions along the way.

- NGR

###

FEATURED CLIENT

Our featured client this month is Kidron Bethel Village, a retirement village in North Newton KS.  Read how they increased communication effectiveness by 20 – 40% in six key areas.  The article can be read in its entirety by clicking here.

PCM NUGGET

“PCM leaves no-one indifferent because it is so pertinent, complete, and predictive” – Jerome Lefeuvre, Kahler Communication France

From California to Michigan, Vermont to Florida, and right here in the Midwest our experience has been the same as in France. PCM is transformative. We will continue to expand the reach and impact of PCM, innovate, and explore the depths of what this tool can do.

CONTEST

The first person to reply to this question correctly, “What three words could change your life?” will win a $25 gift card of their choice. (This prize has already been awarded)

GOT PROCESS POLL

And the winner is…How can I adapt my communication style and stay authentic?  Authenticity isn’t just about “sticking to your guns.”  Being yourself is about being all you are, accessing all your potential and qualities to be effective with others. Read more by clicking here.

UPCOMING SEMINARS

• Process Facilitation Seminar – Nov 14 – 16, Newton KS
• NEOS Certification – Nov 15 – 16, Newton KS
• Advanced PCM® Conflict Resolution Seminar – Nov 17 – 18, Newton KS
• PCM® Trainer Certification – Nov 28 – Dec 2, Newton KS
• To register, or find out more about any of these seminars, click here.

Here is a blushworthy quote from an attendee of a Process Communication Model Seminar hosted by the greater Wichita area Young Presidents’ Organization…

“I say modern life is conceived through communication. Have you ever moved an object without touching it? That is influence. That is what Nate & Jeff did.“  – Mark Hamade,  Chief Operating Officer at PKM Steel, Salina Steel, MSS Transport

If you haven’t purchased the PocketPCM from your local apps store yet, what are you waiting for?  This handy-dandy, at-your-fingertips communication tool may be just the thing you could use for one of those “awkward moments” at those upcoming holiday parties!

In case you missed it Nate’s article, “Problem Employees: Invest in them or invite them out,” was recently published by the Wichita Eagle.  Click here to read the complete article.

We are so excited to hit this critical mark! Many advisors have told us that most start ups don’t make it this far, and if they do – once they hit that three-year mark, success is much more attainable.

We have never questioned our ability to make it. And, since we chose not to participate in the recession, success has always been our only option.

We often get asked what is the secret to making it this far. It’s no secret. The keys to our success are integral to what we intend our clients to experience when working with us.  In no particular order of importance, here’s what we practice:

ACCEPT. First, we ACCEPT every one of our owners for who they are.  We all work differently, train differently, do social media differently, and the list goes on. The bottom line is that we ACCEPT all of our differences as wonderful and useful. And further, we do not judge those differences or put anyone in a box who thinks, acts or goes about business differently.

VALUE. Second, we VALUE everyone’s opinions. We may not agree and we not may follow each other’s advice every time. Still, we value and respect each person’s opinions.  We also invite all to share their opinions in staff meetings, emails, chats, or client feedback sessions. Opinions will always have a place.

HERE. Third, we want every one to be HERE. This may be via phone, Skype, e-mail, instant message or in-person. Wherever we are, we honor everyone’s presence and we want that presence.

HAPPEN. Fourth, we want to make it HAPPEN for Next Element. We want to make decisions as fast as our infrastructure will allow us. Then, once we have reached a goal or accomplished a task, we push on faster. Making things HAPPEN is not only important, it is a mandate for us all.

IDEAS. Fifth, we invite and entertain all IDEAS. We may not pursue all IDEAS. We may not use all IDEAS. Our intent though, is to have an open door policy on sharing all IDEAS – any time, any place, no matter how far out they are.

LIKE. Sixth, we LIKE each other for who we are. We are all different in how we live our lives. We are different in our approaches to faith, parenting, fashion, and work environments. We LIKE each other without condition. There are no strings attached at Next Element.

These six keys are something that we at Next Element follow and strive to put into practice every day. We also teach this to our clients and invite them to put this into practice.

These six keys, ACCEPT, VALUE, HERE, HAPPEN, IDEAS and LIKE are an integral part of why we are successful today and will be successful in the future.

Our first official staff meeting in our new office in 2008. (Nate was the photographer)

Your title is like a window of opportunity to connect, motivate, listen to understand, and model healthy conflict, which carries a responsibility beyond having the final say.

• Featured Client: Ranlyn Hill, Benevolent Vision
• Challenge Winner: Marja Brandon, Brandon Consulting Group
• PCM Nugget: First Break All the Rules
• Invest or Invite Out
• Nate is now a Certifying Process Education Model Trainer!
• Upcoming Events
• See You Soon: At SHRM Conference, ExpoSure and AEE International Conference
• Hot Wings Update: Joe’s on Sullivan in Atlanta

Do Happier People Work Harder?
By Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer
Published: September 3, 2011

Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer, an independent researcher, are the authors of “The Progress Principle.”

LABOR DAY is meant to be a celebration of work. Yet, on this Labor Day, few have reason to rejoice. Even those who have jobs.  The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has been polling over 1,000 adults every day since January 2008, shows that Americans now feel worse about their jobs — and work environments — than ever before. People of all ages, and across income levels, are unhappy with their supervisors, apathetic about their organizations and detached from what they do. And there’s no reason to think things will soon improve.

Employee engagement may seem like a frill in a downturn economy. But it can make a big difference in a company’s survival. In a 2010 study, James K. Harter and colleagues found that lower job satisfaction foreshadowed poorer bottom-line performance. Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. When people don’t care about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less, or their work quality suffers.

Over the past decade, we researched the micro-level causes behind this macro-level problem. To gain real-time perspective into everyday work lives, we collected  nearly 12,000 electronic diary entries from 238 professionals in seven different companies. Our study charted each person’s psychological state each day, and asked respondents to describe one event that stood out during that day. Our analysis revealed their inner work lives — the usually hidden perceptions, emotions and motivations that people experience as they react to and make sense of events in their workdays.

The results were sobering. In one-third of the 12,000 diary entries, the diarist was unhappy, unmotivated or both. In fact, workers often expressed frustration, disdain or disgust. Our research shows that inner work life has a profound impact on workers’ creativity, productivity, commitment and collegiality. Employees are far more likely to have new ideas on days when they feel happier. Conventional wisdom suggests that pressure enhances performance; our real-time data, however, shows that workers perform better when they are happily engaged in what they do.

Managers can help ensure that people are happily engaged at work. Doing so isn’t expensive. Workers’ well-being depends, in large part, on managers’ ability and willingness to facilitate workers’ accomplishments — by removing obstacles, providing help and acknowledging strong effort. A clear pattern emerged when we analyzed the 64,000 specific workday events reported in the diaries: of all the events that engage people at work, the single most important — by far — is simply making progress in meaningful work.

As long as workers experience their labor as meaningful, progress is often followed by joy and excitement about the work. “This time it looks good! I feel more positive about this project and my work than I’ve felt in a long time,” one programmer wrote after she’d completed a small but difficult task. This kind of rich inner work life improves performance, which further supports inner work life — a positive spiral.

Unfortunately, many companies now keep head count and resources to a minimum and this makes progress a struggle for employees. Most managers don’t understand the negative consequences of this struggle. When we asked 669 managers from companies around the world to rank five employee motivators in terms of importance, they ranked “supporting progress” dead last. Fully 95 percent of these managers failed to recognize that progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses.

This failure reflects a common experience inside organizations. Of the seven companies we studied, just one had managers who consistently supplied the catalysts — worker autonomy, sufficient resources and learning from problems — that enabled progress. Not coincidentally, that company was the only one to achieve a technological breakthrough in the months we studied it.

Working adults spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else. Work should ennoble, not kill, the human spirit. Promoting workers’ well-being isn’t just ethical; it makes economic sense. Fostering positive inner lives sometimes requires leaders to better articulate meaning in the work for everyone across the organization. Sometimes, all that’s required is that managers address daily hassles and help with technical problems. If those who lead organizations — from C.E.O.’s to small-team leaders — believe their mission is, in part, to support workers’ everyday progress, we could end the disengagement crisis and, in the process, lift our work force’s well-being and our economy’s productivity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/do-happier-people-work-harder.html?_r=1

The Assessing Matrix: Tools for dealing with personality differences in the workplace.

SHRM State Conference, Hyatt Regency, Wichita, KS

September 15: 9:45 – 11:15 AM

Click here for conference details.

Visit our booth to learn about Next Element and get some cool free stuff!!

In a remote area in the Calabasas hills, there is a stone building, an outdoor amphitheater, a tree house and a garden. Children come here each day, ages preschool through 5th grade, to follow their passion. The lessons are based on what they want to learn that day. A simple question to a teacher like, “How does a robot work?” can turn into months of instruction and international Skyping to engineer and build a working robot, just to see how it is done.

Students at this learning center are also engaged in a professional, unique communications strategy called the Process Communication Model (PCM). This personal development training allows children to identify their own personality and how it relates to their peers – all while learning traditional subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Founders Suzy Amis Cameron and Rebecca Amis

Inspiration following Frustration
The Amis sisters, Susan and Rebecca, founded MUSE School CA in 2006. Before this, their first-hand experience – namely frustration – with the public education system made them wish for a better way of learning for their children. As a result, Suzy Amis Cameron chose to home school her oldest son in the eighth grade. Then she hired a teacher who wrote a school curriculum just for him. This, Cameron says, is when he burst wide open.
“If we had known his learning style when he was two or four years old, it would have saved us a lot of heartache and tears,” she says. “Next we found a Los Angeles high school that catered to his passions. In one month, just watching him go from having his spirit completely squashed to witnessing his essence come back was amazing.”

Cameron says the same spirit-crushing school environment made her oldest daughter “live under her hoodie” for two years. Placing her daughter in the same L.A. high school as her son, Cameron watched the hood hiding the girl’s face disappear and see her essence rise again. Then Cameron met, married and started a family with film director James Cameron. When it was time to place their five-year-old child into a school system, Cameron once again considered home schooling. She had researched the Reggio philosophy of child-led learning and decided to open a private school that would accustom ten children in its humble beginnings. Fellow parents soon heard of the school’s focus on giving children an opportunity to pursue knowledge within their own heart. Today, MUSE School CA has grown to 90 students and 15 teachers for preschool through 5th grade levels.

“When we searched for a name my husband, Jim, referenced the Nine Muses of Greek Mythology and the inspiration they create,” Cameron says. “The MUSE school is really about inspiring children and adults. We want to be a muse and give everyone the courage to be who they authentically are.”

Child-led Learning
Cameron says MUSE school teachers are trained to identify a child’s interests and build curriculum into projects that suit each individual. This allows each student to grow and learn at their own pace. This can often mean children engage in subject lessons offered at one or two levels above their grade in school.

MUSE School boasts a tag line of inspiring children to live more conscious lives in relation to themselves, others and the planet. This includes learning to take care of Mother Earth. MUSE School has a no waste policy. They eat snacks and lunches grown in their own gardens and drink water from Kleen Kanteens. Students clean the school using dye-free, toxin-free and pesticide-free products. MUSE School students also participate in community outreach programs, for example, raising money for a local animal shelter and cleaning up beaches.

“These sustainable practices are about taking care of, respecting and honoring one’s self and one another,” Cameron says. “We have three sets of relationships, teacher to teacher, student to teacher and student to student. This is a place where each child’s idea is as good as an adult’s idea.”
Sustainable education isn’t cheap but the MUSE School maintains its original 501(c)3 status. Cameron also says half of the students receive financial aid to cover tuition. The end goal, she says, is to teach sustainability at a young age so that as the child grows into adulthood they believe it is commonplace to recycle and avoid toxins.

“If people don’t make big changes very quickly, there won’t be much of a planet left to grow up in,” she says. “We teach them that it is how you live and that they should do it for the greater good.”

Learning How to Communicate
As if it weren’t enough to open a school that literally teaches children how to live and learn, Cameron’s sister, Rebecca Amis, began raving about the PCM. Amis told Cameron repeatedly how amazing the Next Element-led course is and finally, Cameron gave in and attended her first PCM session.

“It was so much fun learning personality styles and realizing why people do things the way we do,” she says. “I was hooked from there. We incorporated PCM into the MUSE School three years ago by having a one-day parent training. Parents said they learned a lot about their own children, and specifically, how to talk to them in a different way, which was really mind-blowing.”

Next Element teaches PCM as a framework for appreciating, respecting and developing the uniqueness and dignity of others. MUSE School CA uses this adaptive approach as an environment for better learning. It helps teachers and student’s negotiate conflict in productive ways and empowers children with skills to be more effective throughout their lives.

MUSE Schools incorporates PCM and facilitates self-efficacy with teachers to help them connect with students on social-emotional learning, academic achievement and behavior. MUSE selected Next Element as its communication partner because of the company’s expertise in helping businesses align metrics and training with organizational communication and staff development.

The PCM Experience
The next PCM-MUSE encounter was a three-day training with school staff. Again, Cameron says the group had amazing results. Cameron has now completed the advanced training – twice – and is working to earn her training certificate in PCM.

At MUSE, gifted teachers offer the PCM experience on a daily basis. Through inquiry, listening and observing, they evoke the authentic interests that animate our students and bring personal relevance to project-based learning. This not only engages children toward learning but models how to fully engage them in everything they do, for a lifetime.

Cameron also says PCM offers great solutions for conflict resolution, which is key for reducing children’s  frustration. When MUSE teachers speak to students in their channel, the child responds to the challenge and distresses.

“At a very young age, MUSE children participate in council, a traditional way of communicating by passing a talking piece around,” she says. “They learn to speak and listen from the heart at a young age, in contrast to so many adults who can not articulate how they’re feeling. PCM has also been strong in teaching children how to navigate relationships and even if they don’t get along with everyone, it raises an awareness and encourages respecting each other as individuals.”

Jeff King is a partner with Next Element and has been helping incorporate PCM with MUSE Schools CA for the past year. After training both Amis and Cameron in the communications program, he also travels to California once a month to observe teachers using PCM in the classroom. At the end of his day-long visit, King provides feedback, telling teachers what they did well and how to improve their connection strategy with students based on personality types.

“Multiple teachers have felt their connection with students and realize PCM is a more efficient way of learning and communicating,” he says. “MUSE teachers love it.”

Personal PCM
On a daily basis, Cameron uses PCM to better communicate with her husband and five children, each of whom, she says are all different personalities. PCM training has helped get her family to the same end point by using various channels. One daughter is a Dreamer, constantly reading a book in a discreet corner of the room. Cameron says PCM tells her to specifically command her to complete tasks, which actually motivates this child and removes her from stress.

“She will go read for ten minutes then come back to the group,” Cameron says. “She knows how to recharge and feels empowered about taking time for herself.”

One of Cameron’s sons is a Rebel, a jokester yet difficult to stay mad at. PCM gives Cameron insight on the right channel to talk and motivate him to accomplish tasks as well. Her youngest daughter is a reactor, who loves hugs and wants to be with other people. Cameron’s director husband is a Promoter, and her sister, Rebecca is a Reactor.

Cameron herself is a persister-workaholic. She maintains a tight schedule and does not like to be late. She says she is constantly looking for and gathering more information and though she often wants to manage everything on her plate, Cameron has realized how to de-stress through PCM.

She also enjoys discovering other people’s communications channels, a PCM skill that she will hone as she works toward her PCM training certificate. During one of the advanced PCM sessions, Cameron made the comment to King that she wanted a quick reference of each of her family, friends and teachers PCM profiles, preferably on a keychain.

King presented her with this exact gift, made from business card-size tags, all looped together on a keychain. Cameron keeps this at her side at all times.

Accomplishing Her Goal
Six years after building a place to help her own children grow and learn in a positive educational style, Cameron has built a multi-grade, international school system that celebrates individual children for who they are. MUSE School CA students learn at their own pace and are not expected to sit in a box all day. Watching MUSE students flourish and hearing comments from happy parents is what truly motivates Cameron.

“Because PCM allows you to be exactly who you are, it gives you ways to differentiate yourself,” she says. “Schools are mainly started and created by Workaholics. Then a Reactor goes in and starts making mistakes and a Promoter without the right attention stirs things up. Rebels are left to do their thing and are kicked out because the teacher doesn’t know how to communicate. Before we brought PCM into the school there were times when I would get frustrated but I’ve seen extraordinary things happen since our teachers went through their first PCM training.”

Cameron is an avid reader and when she was a single parent, she accumulated volumes of parenting and leadership books. Though they contained interesting information on motivation and sibling rivalry, she says PCM has taught her how to manage communication techniques much more effectively.

“Early on I was a single mom for many years and went to a child psychologist to become a better parent,” she says. “If I didn’t have PCM skills now, I would have many more frustrated days of not knowing how to reach my children. Now I have five children who are successful, gorgeous and darling and will become functioning adults. Even as a mommy and a wife, there are things that come up with Jim where I’m able to see where he is coming from and have the ability to get him out of distress and let him go.”

Cameron says her hope is for each child of the world to appreciate who they are as authentic individuals.

Now isn’t that a dream coming true?

Read this article in the Wichita Eagle, published April 14, 2011