Don't Let Limited Thinking Stop Your Creativity

One thing is for sure, if you keep on doing what you have always done you will get less.
Here is a test designed to help stop thinking in the same old way.

What is the reason for the logical sequence of numbers below?
8-5-4-9-7-6-3-2-0

The answer: they are in alphabetical order.

If you didn't get that answer you are ready to start thinking outside the box and get different results.

With today's cutbacks in education it is critical you look for ways to create fresh solutions to your problems.

Tom Borg Consulting, LLC., is a consulting group that specializes in without the box strategic planning, leadership training, team building, and customer culture transformation, for public school systems in Michigan and the United States. For a free 30 minute consulting session or for more information please call 734-404-5909 or visit our website at www.TomBorgConsulting.com

Good Meetings Make Good Sense

I was doing a brain storming session with a client recently and an issue they were having with the  
inaccuracy of their website, was identified. Several participants complained that
no one was asking for their input from their department, and as a result, the organization had a website that was improperly informing their customers about new services that were being provided.

Good public relations begins at home. Happy staff equals happy customers.
Meaningful and staff meetings can be a very powerful tool in helping your company meet the needs and expectations of your customers. As situations come up, mini-meetings and brain-storming sessions that quickly solve problems can also be used very effectively.

Regular meetings held with a purpose can keep the lines of communication open.

Often employees feel stymied in their ability to communicate their feelings and viewpoints to management. The staff  feel like second-rate people because they are never given an opportunity to be heard. What most organizations lack is a structure to insure that the meetings are held on a regular basis.

To insure that the meetings are effective in your school district, it is important that some preparation be made before each meeting. What are the challenges that need to be addressed? What is being done about the issues that were discussed at the last meeting? What is going right? Why? How can we make things even better? By asking these kinds of questions, you are building a framework to give communication within your company a place to grow and develop.

By holding meaningful and action-oriented meetings, you make it easy for your employees to communicate with each other as well as with management. Many times, it’s not a “generation gap” that prevents teamwork within a school district, but a “communication gap.” By following through with a plan for communicating, you are insuring a clearer, more effective form of constant communication in your organization. As a result, by keeping miscommunication to a minimum, you will have a happier and more productive staff.

For more information on how to help your public school team run the best meetings possible please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or visit our website at: www.TomBorgConsulting.com

Listening to Your Customers is the Key to a Successful School System.

One of the smartest things you can do with your school district in these tough economic times is to make your students and parents happy. This happens by design not by accident. The people you and your staff serve want to feel important and they will reward your school district with their loyalty and support.

This all starts with the attitude of running your organization or department like a marathon, not a fifty yard dash. It is too easy to cut corners on scheduling and hiring when you are trying to save money. That makes the bottom line look good in the short term, but if you are planning on keeping your school district over the long haul, you have to think in terms of your customer’s best interests.

So what are the things that make your parents feel important? What are the actions you and your staff can take that will make them feel like valued human beings? One of the best ways to find out is to ask them. Sitting down with a parent over a cup of  coffee (your treat), can help them give you insights you never dreamed of hearing.

Many times the things you think are important to parents and students are not.  Curiously enough, the list of things that are important may change from week to week or may remain constant. This depends on the circumstances surrounding the people you serve. By having an ongoing dialogue with your parents and students, you can keep abreast of their service perceptions and realities.

In this age of increasing technology and the everyday frenzy that accompanies it, slowing the pace down and getting face to face with parents and students can be priceless. Investing fifteen minutes to simply ask a few questions and sincerely listening to the responses can be like hitting the mother lode of gold.

For more information on how we can help make your school district the best it can be, contact our office at 734-404-5909.

Using an Analogy to be a Better Communicator

If you are a school superintendent, principal, secretary or an employee, it is critical that you use as many tools as possible to help you communicate effectively. Most people will criticize things they don’t understand.  In order for you to be convincing, you must keep your communication tools as sharp as possible.

One of the best ways to verbally convey ideas that may need some explanation, is to use something called an analogy. An analogy is taking something that is familiar and comparing it to something that is not familiar. By taking this approach, it allows the listener to bridge the gap between something they are already accustomed to, to something they are not. Using an analogy can be the difference between having the person or group you are talking to agree or not agree with you.

For example, if you were trying to explain what the office paper shredder does, you could use an analogy of how a cheese shredder works. A cheese shredder takes a block of cheese and slices it into tiny fragments. The office paper shredder does the same, only it takes paper and cuts it up into very small pieces

Another example is, if you were trying to explain how easy it is to accomplish a major project. You could use the analogy of how a large bundle of twigs cannot be broken in half as a bundle, but when taken apart, each twig could be easily broken. It is similar to how you can break a major project down into small enough tasks that would allow the person to easily complete them one at a time. By taking this approach, the entire project would gradually be completed.

Using an analogy to communicate your ideas can help you gain the understanding and support you need to communicate your ideas effectively.

For more information on how Tom Borg Consulting, LLC can help your school system please call us at 734-404-5909 or visit our website at:  www.TomBorgConsulting.com

How to Help Your Staff Be More Productive

If you are a school superintendent or principal who needs to have your employees become more productive, read on. One of the main factors that lie at the root of non-productive employees is a lack of true communication. I am not talking about just the day- to-day, “How are things going”, but, rather, an innate understanding of what it is that motivates that person. It can vary from employee to employee, depending on a number of different factors.

When it comes to motivation, it can change from one month to the next, depending on what is going on in that person’s life at that particular time. For some, it could be money. Others it could be recognition, still others it could be a flexible work schedule or a combination of all of the above. Sometimes job security or incentives to earn more money the harder they work motivates people.

Here are a few questions to consider using to understand your employees more thoroughly:
How would that person prefer you communicate with him?
How would that person prefer you not communicate with him?
What is the ideal work environment for that individual?
Which management style does he prefer his manager to use with them?
Does this individual know his true value to the organization for which he works?
Is he aware of other people’s perception of his work style?

One of the keys to helping your employees be able to work at their full potential, is to communicate with them and come to a mutual understanding of how they really are, and the potential they possess.

For more ideas on how to help your school district be more productive or to use us for an upcoming in-service program, please contact our office at 734-404-5909.

Public Schools Need to Generate Revenue

• When it comes to funding, The leaders of public schools need to experience  a paradigm shift in their thought process. With a continued eroding of funding from state and federal sources, public school districts must begin to explore and implement ways to generate and increase revenue on a long term basis. Up to this point the only approach for most public schools districts has been to merely continue making cuts. If continued, this approach will most likely  result in diminished services, erode staff morale, increased loss of confidence from parents, and continued student attrition.

 It is time to re-examine  the strategies for funding and start to explore and implement funding that could be generated by providing services to the public and business community. 

For some ideas on how we can help your school district create and implement this strategy please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or email us at tomborg@tomborgconsulting.com

Seven Ways to Insure Your In-Service Programs Get Results

Far too often in-service programs fall far short of their potential to create meaningful change in a school district.

Here are 7 ways to make sure your School in-service programs get the kind of results that make them worthwhile.

1. Get input from all of your staff on the type of programs they would like to attend.

2. Form an Action Group with representation from all of the different departments to formulate a list of topics distilled from the input you get from all of your staff.  Identify and select the most important ones. 

3. If possible, conduct concurrent sessions on various topics that have been identified.

4. Make sure that people from different schools and departments, are mixed in the seating arrangement. This allows for an opportunity for people from different schools and departments to get to know each other and for a fresh exchange of ideas during the program.

5. Begin and end the program with the sharing of successes that have been experienced in the last year.

6. Have all participants set a goal of using one to three ideas over the next six months. Pair each participant with a “buddy” and have them report to each other the results of their efforts to implement the ideas they have identified.

7. Encourage all school board, PTO and other school related volunteer groups to attend.

For more ideas or to book a speaker to make your next In-service program a success, please contact our office at 734-404-5909.

Merit Pay for MI TEachers

Lori Higgins writes about some good news for MI teachers.
http://www.freep.com/article/20120927/NEWS06/120927067/educational-achievement-authority-grant
For more information on how Tom Borg Consulting, LLC can help your school district contact us at 734-404-5909 or email us at tomborg@tomborgconsulting.com

Shifting Paradigms for Public School Administrators

Times have changed and it is critical that the leaders of public school systems begin reshaping the way they and their team of administrators, teachers, transportation personnel, food services personnel, school board members, coaches, volunteers and anyone else they have on their team,  represent their school district.  Why? Because coupled with declining birth rates and an economy that has forced some adults—often with children in tow-- to leave the state in search of new jobs, school

systems are losing enrollment.

Leaders of school districts must look at what they can control that will retain their present student base and attract additional students. That is, the need to look at the quality of the experience students and their parents experience within their school system. School of choice has given parents and their children the powerful option of attending the school they want to attend. They are voting with their feet, choosing different options for schooling, and taking their state funding dollars with them.

Some of the places that are competing for students today are
    Private schools
    Charter schools
    Other school districts
    Voucher schools
    Online schools
    Home schools

Leaders in public school districts no longer have the option to believe that if they just wait a little while, this whole idea of treating students and parents like customers will just go away. Why should it? The people they and their respective school districts serve are human beings who want to be treated with courtesy and respect.


For more information on how Tom Borg Consulting, LLC can help your school district change it's paradigms and thrive in today's world please contact us at 734-404-5909 or visit our website at www.tomborgconsulting.com

The 4 Things the Parents You Serve Really Want to Know About You

Among the many things that people want to know about the people who serve them, research shows that four specific items are at the top of the list. Here is what the studies have identified.  Customers

typically want to know the answers to four questions. They are:
          1. Do you like me?
          2. Do you care about me?
          3. Can I trust you?
          4. Do you know what you are talking about?

The first thing they wanted to know was if they were sincerely liked by the person serving them. The customer knew this from how the representative interacted with them. Did they use their name, did they really listen, and did they have sincere empathy in their voice?
The second thing people wanted to know about the professionals who serve them was, did the representative care about them. The customer could sense this from the questions they were asked, again, the tone of voice, the little things they said or did that indicated they indeed cared, and how helpful the representative tried to be.

The third question they wanted answered was, could they trust the representative. Indications of trust could be seen in how confident the representative was and did they follow through as promised. One example of how trust can be lost by a public school administrator, secretary, teacher or some other representative, is by how promptly a phone call or email is returned  to the parent. When there is a long period of time that elapses between the time the parent contacts the school and there is follow up by the school, or worse yet, no follow up, trust diminishes rapidly. A good rule of thumb is to have all phone calls and emails returned within 24 hours or less.

Finally, the fourth thing people want to know about the professionals who serve them was, was  the person serving them knowledgeable and competent. Indications of these qualities were demonstrated if the individual was familiar with the particular situation the customer was experiencing and had they solved similar types of problems for other customers in the past.

In summary, to build lifetime customer satisfaction with the parents you serve, make sure your school system is able to provide customer service training that teaches the right kind of customer service skills. These skills should empower all of your administrators, secretaries, teachers, bus drivers, food service and all other employees to treat your parents in such a way that consistently answers their four most common questions about your school system.

For more information on how we can speak at your next in-service or provide consulting and training to help you attract and retain more students, please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or email Tom at Tom borg@TomBorgconsulting.com or visit our website at www.TomBorgConsulting.comwww.tomborgconsulting.com

Leadership in Public Schools- Garbage in - Garbage Stays

Be careful what you watch, listen to and read. It will definitely alter your attitude towards life and

work. I encourage you to be very selective in what you allow to enter your brain. As Nido Qubein says, the old saying “Garbage in – garbage out, is not true. Rather, garbage in, garbage stays.”

If you allow negatives to enter you mind, they have a tendency to limit your thinking. The wrong kind of thinking limits your actions. The wrong kind of actions will limit your potential in life and work. It is difficult to keep a PSL with a constant negative flow of information into your brain.

It has been reported that the Coca Cola Corporation spends over one billion dollars per year on advertising. Over the years they have used catchy slogans like, “Coke is the Real Thing,” or “Things Go Better with Coke.” More recent slogans include “Life Begins Here” and “Enjoy Coca Cola.”  The Coca Cola Corporation is not unusual. Most large companies spend enormous amounts of money to advertise their products or services. They do it because it works.

It has been proven that with enough exposure to an advertisement, a certain percentage of people will be influenced enough that they will try a product or service. If they like it, they will continue to buy and use it.

Why not take a lesson from big business and do something to influence the minds of your staff or fellow employees. Create your own advertisements. What I am suggesting is to create your own positive communications, to promote the optimistic and results oriented thinking that is needed in your school district.

In the school districts where we have conducted our workshops and training programs, we have had them participate in an exercise where we divide the participants into small groups. Then they brainstorm slogans or sayings that espouse a positive alternative to negative thinking.

Some examples of the slogans they have created are:
“We care.”
“Do it now.”
“Expect the best”
“The best is yet to come.”
“Big enough to deliver, small enough to care.”
“We are the best, but were getting better.”

Often, the teams create posters or banners that contain the slogans  they have created. Then they post them around their building on walls and bulletin boards. It serves as a constant reminder of their commitment to create a more positive and productive school environment.

For more information on the services of Tom borg Consulting, LLC and how we can help your public school district attract and retain students call 734-404-5909 or visit our website www.tomborgconsulting.comwww.tomborgconsulting.com

How to Create the Right Brand for Your School District – Brand Insistence – Part 4 of 4

When you can consistently exceed the expectations of your parents and their children, (your clients) you can become the only school district they want to send their children to.  In other words, you create something called brand insistence.

In a business sense, Brand Insistence is where a customer will only buy from one company. For instance, when it comes to men’s dress shoes, I am insistent that I will only buy Johnston-Murphy dress shoes. I purchased my first pair over 25 years ago and have purchased four more pair since. I have come to believe that they are the best shoe company for me. The recommendation I received to buy them from a business colleague 25 years ago, plus the extremely high quality of these shoes, have made me a loyal lifetime client.

The goal for your school district and every school district should be to create brand insistence from your parents and their children. You must form the right kind of image in their minds.

In order for this to happen, you must have and consistently work a plan. To set yourself apart, you have to create a WOW experience for the people you serve. Promising a lot and delivering even more, will be mandatory. You cannot be just like your competitors. You’ve got to be the kind of school district  your parents and their children need and want. Somebody they just can’t do without.

Contact our office for more information on how we can help you develop your customer service culture and market your school district effectively. You can reach us at Tom Borg Consulting, LLC 734-404-5909 or visit our website at:
www.TomBorgConsulting.com

How to Create the Right Brand for Your School District – Brand Preference - Part 3 of 4

Brand Preference is when your parents send their children to your school district on a regular basis. They like your school system and will send their children to it, when they need it. However, yours is not the only school system they will use for all of their children.

For example, they may have a daughter who needs special assistance, and a neighboring school district
receives special funding and has the ability to provide that type of help. Rest assured, their daughter will attend school in the other district. You probably won’t be able to do much about this situation.

In another example, they might feel that another school district has a better high school band program. . They have heard some good things about this other school district from a neighbor who has chosen to send their daughter there. Since their son is musically inclined, they decide to send their son to the same high school that they believe has a superior instructor.

Although your school district would normally be their preference, in certain situations parents will send their child or children elsewhere.

So, in summary, brand preference must be earned.

Contact our office for more information on how we can help you build your customer sevice culture and market your school district effectively. You can reach us at Tom Borg Consulting, LLC 734-404-5909 or visit our website at:
www.TomBorgConsulting.com

How to Create the Right Brand for Your School District – Brand Image – Part 2 of 4

Do your parents insist on keeping their children in your public school district? Are you creating the

right brand? Part of this is creating the right Brand Image.

Brand image is what people “think” about your organization. It is what comes to mind when they hear your school district’s name.

By creating the right brand image, you create something every superintendent wants: loyal parents that want to send their children to your school district. When you have this, you attract and retain more students in your public schools, which insure funding from the state for those students. By consistently providing excellent communication and the kind of customer service that meets your parent’s and their children’s expectations, you can create life-time clients.

Contact our office for more information on how we can help you develop your customer service culture and market your school district effectively. You can reach us at Tom Borg Consulting, LLC 734-404-5909 or visit our website at:
www.TomBorgConsulting.com

Making Service Count in Your School District

Watch this Michigan Association of School Administrators (MASA) video/webinar presentation by Tom Borg and Keith Elliott of Tom Borg Consulting, LLC present their program entitled Making Service Count. This program is designed specifically for public school districts.

In this program you will learn the basics for what it takes to create service culture with your entire public school staff. Click on the link and learn.  http://vimeo.com/52823461

For more information on the services of Tom Borg Consulting,LLC
please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or email us at:
tom@tomborg.com

Communicating Clearly with Your Staff-Public Schools, MI

If you are a superintendent or principal, it is critical that you use as many tools as possible to help you communicate effectively. Most people will criticize things they don’t understand.  In order for you to be convincing, you must keep your communication tools as sharp as possible.

 One of the best ways to verbally convey ideas that may need some explanation, is to use something called an analogy. An analogy is taking something that is familiar and comparing it to something that is not familiar. By taking this approach, it allows the listener to bridge the gap between something they are already accustomed to, to something they are not. Using an analogy can be the difference between having the person or group you are talking to agree or not agree with you.

For example, if you were trying to explain what the office paper shredder does, you could use an analogy of how a cheese shredder works. A cheese shredder takes a block of cheese and slices it into tiny fragments. The office paper shredder does the same, only it takes paper and cuts it up into very small pieces

Another example is, if you were trying to explain how easy it is to accomplish a major project. You could use the analogy of how a large bundle of twigs cannot be broken in half as a bundle, but when taken apart, each twig could be easily broken. It is similar to how you can break a major project down into small enough tasks that would allow the person to easily complete them one at a time. By taking this approach, the entire project would gradually be completed.

Using an analogy to communicate your ideas can help you gain the understanding and support you need to communicate your ideas effectively.

Tom Borg of TomConsulting, LLC.  located in Canton, MI. works with public school superintendents and principals to help them keep the support of the parents of their students and keep student retention consistent.. You can contact him email him at tomborg@tomborgconsulting.com  visit his website at www.TomBorgConsulting.com or call him at 734-404-5909.

How to Create the Right Brand for Your School District - Brand Awareness – Part 1 of 4

There are four basic levels of branding you can create for your public school district:
Brand Awareness - people know about you.
Brand Image – what people think about you.
Brand Preference - they prefer your services or products to others, but they will use others.
Brand Insistence - they demand your services or products and no one else.

In this article let’s look at Brand Awareness. Brand Awareness is something your school district earns by being visible in the marketplace. Some of the things you can use to create brand awareness are advertising, publicity, public relations or word of mouth. In other words your prospects become more aware of who you are and what you do.

For example, Target Department stores, advertises on a regular basis. Their post cards and newspaper advertising help create an awareness of who they are and what they sell.  Target could get publicity by building a new store. In order to develop public relations they might sponsor or contribute to some charitable event. Of course, word of mouth would come from what their customers are saying about them to their friends and business acquaintances.

Regarding your school district, you could advertise in many different ways. One great way is to do what Wayne-Westland Community Schools does. They create and periodically mail out a publication called Wayne-Westland Connections to the parents of the students in their school district. This excellent piece does a number of things. First it communicates to the parents timely and important information about their school district. In the fall edition, it publishes the start and dismissal time of all of their schools. It also includes a school bus schedule of all of the pickup times and locations. This is vital information to most parents and their children.

Publicity is another way to build your brand awareness for your school district. Articles about your school that you can submit to your local newspaper are a good example of this.

Public relations can go a long ways in helping create brand awareness for your school district. It is here that a good public relations firm can help you craft a campaign of messages that are communicated to the community.

Word of mouth, by far the most powerful, is what people say about your school district to their friends and acquaintances. This is the result of all of the other efforts you put into place, i.e. the quality of service you provide, how you handle the problems that come up, and how you deliver what you promise.

In summary, good brand awareness is something your school district earns by consistently doing the right things to be visible in the marketplace.

Contact our office for more information on how we can help you build your customer service culture and market your school district effectively. You can reach us at Tom Borg Consulting, LLC 734-404-5909 or visit our website at:
www.TomBorgConsulting.com

The 3 R's to Handling Customer Complaints

Every organization receives complaints. The key is turning a complaint into win-win situation.

Too often employees and managers take the client or customer’s complaint personally and get defensive. It would be better if they took the complaint professionally and look at the complaint as an opportunity to fix what went wrong and if possible keep the customer. The second reason is to take an action that would prevent that sort of problem from reoccurring in the future with other customers.

The first R in my formula stands for the word RESPECT.  It is critical that you show respect to the customer.  You can do this by listening and letting the customer vent their feelings and frustration. The longer you are able to listen, the better. Use cushion statements to ease the frustration level of the customer.  A cushion statement is anything you say or do that shows the customer you empathize with their concern. Some examples would be: “You are right to feel concerned” or “That must be frustrating”.

The next R stands for the word RAPPORT. You can develop rapport with the person by sincerely apologizing for any trouble that was caused by the person who experienced the problem. One way you could say this is: “Mr. Jones, I want apologize for any trouble this has caused you”. Then thank them for bringing this concern to their attention.

The third R stands for RESOLVE. Here is where you resolve the situation to the best of your ability. One question you could ask is: “What action would you like us to take?” Many times the complaining person’s idea of a resolution is much less than you would think. The key here is to take action and if possible, resolve the problem.

By following this three step process you will be able to use your customer’s complaints to strengthen and grow your business.

By Tom Borg ©2013

Tom Borg Consulting, LLC., is a consulting group that specializes in outside the box strategic planning, leadership training, team building, and customer culture transformation, for public school systems in Michigan and the United States. For a free 30 minute consulting session or for more information please call 734-404-5909 or visit our website at www.TomBorgConsulting.com

The Power of Answering the Telephone Properly

Have you ever called another business or organization and heard something like this,
“ABC Company.” That’s it, nothing else. How did it make you feel? Probably not very welcome.
Yet, this type of a response is repeated day in and day out all across the country.

When it come to differentiating your public school district as one that is exemplary, the telephone is the place to start. It has been shown that your callers are forming an opinion of your organization based on the way your telephone is answered within the first six seconds. That opinion can be a positive or a negative one. If it is the latter, don’t expect to make the kind of an impression that will lead to attracting new students or retaining the ones you already have.

The main reason the telephone is answered in a positive or a negative way in school districts is because of what leadership will tolerate. The superintendent or principle is responsible for making sure that the telephone is answered properly each and every time it rings. If leadership makes it a priority it will be a priority.

Here is simple format to use when answering the telephone. 
“Good morning, ABC Public Schools,  “This is Mary. How can I help you?” A variation of this is
“ABC Public Schools, This is Mary. How can I help you?” The difference between the two examples is rather than using the words “good morning”, the person answering the telephone can use his or her voice inflection to communicate their greeting.

Please note, it is critical that the person answering the phone identifies themselves by giving their name. Your parents and community members want to know there is a real person answering their phone call and not some nameless entity. By having the employee give his or her name to the caller, it demonstrates the desire to be personally accountable to satisfy that person. Your parents or community member like to know that if they need to call back about this particular concern, they will know a person on a first name basis who is familiar with their situation.

By making sure that all of your staff at each one of your schools uses this simple formula on a consistent basis, you will maximize the way you communicate your school system’s professional image. It will be a constant reminder to the people you serve, that you and your school system are committed to excellence, and stand out from the rest.  

For more information on how Tom Borg Consulting, LLC. can be a speaker for your next in-service day or consult with your school district to help it attract and retain more students please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or email our office at TomBorg@TomBorg Consulting.com

Learn to Disagree - Agreeably

Anytime you are working with one or more people there is room for disagreement. Since everyone is unique and has had different personal and professional experiences in their life, it is normal and natural to expect differences of opinion when working together on a project or assignment.

The key here is not to take it personally, but to take it professionally. In other words, the goal is to look at the situation where there is disagreement, and see how both perspectives can possibly be combined to create an even better solution. In other words learn to disagree - agreeably.

What this means is getting your ego out of the way and being able to be more objective when working towards a solution. It might mean that your approach is not a good fit for this particular project or your co-worker’s approach may not be acceptable. It might even mean that neither approach is correct, and you will have to go back to a discussion and come up with a new solution. Regardless of the final approach, it is going to work out much better if everyone keeps their ego in check.

It has been said “when two people in that work together in a public school district always agree, one of them isn’t necessary”. To think that a certain way of doing something is the only way is not only myopic but foolish. Like I mentioned earlier, the main thing to remember when working with others is that it is ok to disagree, just do it agreeably. A true professional is one who sees the big picture and works toward creating the best solution using the proper amount of input from others.

So in summary, keep your cool and don’t take differences of opinion personally. The result will be a more productive and harmonious work environment.

For more information on our services for your public school district please contact our office at:
734-404-5909 or email us at tomborgconsulting.com or visit our website at:
www.tomborgconsulting.com