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

Help Your Employees Create the Right Kind of Cultural Awareness

Creating the right environment for the development of cultural awareness within your organization does not happen by accident. At your next company meeting, make some time for your employees to raise their level of understanding of the different cultures  within it. This can lead to a positive impact on the quality of everyone’s life within your workplace.

Get Your Employees Involved

Paul Gorski, founder of EDChange, makes the point that when you get your employees involved in cultural awareness activities, it allows people to learn more about each other. It helps them eliminate preconceived notions and myths about each other’s culture, and allows people to become more comfortable with each other. Here is an exercise that Gorski recommends that can be used to develop cultural awareness within your organization.

Cultural Awareness Exercise

Ask the participants in the meeting to find someone who they do not know. Ask them to introduce themselves to that person and spend five to ten minutes talking about respect. What does it mean for you to show respect, and what does it mean for you to be shown respect? After the allotted time, ask the participants to return to their seats, and open the discussion. What ideas did people discuss?

When you get the participants back into the large group and discuss the discoveries that were made, responses could include things like:

·         Not everyone wants to be treated the way I want to be treated.

·         Not all cultures are comfortable shaking hands.

·         Different cultures have different expectations in social situations.

Learn From Each Other’s Differences

This type of an exercise can help your managers and employees learn from each other’s differences. When people are able to communicate openly about the differences between their cultures, mutual respect, trust and understanding can develop. In addition to the differences, people begin to see how many similarities there are. By structuring cultural learning time into your meetings on a regular basis, improved cooperation and greater cultural inclusion within your company can be obtained.

Tom Borg is president of Tom Borg Consulting, LLC. He is a business consultant, speaker, trainer and author. He and his associates help public schools become more successful and service oriented. For more information on our services contact our office at 734-404-5909 or visit our website at www.tomborgconsulting.com.

Don’t Use These Words

The words you use color your attitude. If you are constantly using words that are negative, you can be sure you will have a more negative outlook on life. One of the best ways to change your attitude is to be careful with which words you use.

When you are caught in a slowdown in traffic? What do you say? Don’t call it a “traffic jam”.  A more positive way to refer to it would be to describe it as “a chance to slow down and do some thinking”.

Rather than calling a disagreement with another person a, “heated argument’, you can refer to it as a situation where you both saw things from a different perspective”.   

When you make a mistake on a project and, “have to start over”, use self talk that describes it as “an opportunity to make it even better”.

Rather than complaining about the broken dishwasher, discuss the advantage of how it might be time for a new, more efficient one.

When you are running low on groceries, don’t complain about how much food costs. Simply say, “it would be fun to get out of the house and do some grocery shopping”.

The key here is to start positively reframing the situations you are experiencing.  By looking at things from a different perspective, it gives you a more pleasant and optimistic outlook on life. It allows you to look up and see things that you might have missed if you had kept your head down and kept complaining.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people think they have it bad when all they have to do is look around and see how good they really have it. It reminds me of the poem I once heard that goes like this:

“I had the blues because I had no shoes,

Until on the street I met a man with no feet.”

Tom Borg is president of Tom Borg Consulting, LLC. He is a business consultant, speaker, coach and author. He shows school districts and organizations how to attract and retain more clients and customers. For more information on his services please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or email him at: tomborg@tomborgconsulting.com

Do You Know the Lifetime Value of Your Students?

How often has it happened to you or one of your staff where you took a student for granted?

When you stop to think how much a student is actually worth, in dollars and cents, it makes you sit up and take notice.

For example, let’s say Joe Smith, one of your students, represents $6,900 to your school district. Every year that Joe is enrolled, your school district receives $6,900 in state funding.  If Joe Smith’s parents believe your school is doing an excellent job of educating their son, they will see to it that he attends school for all thirteen years of grades K-12. When you multiply that amount of $6,900 per year times 13 years, it equals $89,700.

So, you see in fiscal terms, Joe Smith is an $89,700 client. If Joe’s parents have other children enrolled in your school district, the overall value of the family goes up proportionately.

Whenever you or your staff deal with people, you are going to have misunderstandings and misconceptions that need to be clarified and resolved. By taking the time and investing in the education, training, and patience that is necessary in handling these kinds of situations, with your students and their parents, you are insuring a greater degree of successful student retention.

Many times you will have staff that do not realize the total fiscal value that each student represents.  As a superintendent or principal, it would be advisable that you educate your team to understand this vital concept. Yes, there will be times when you have students that will have to be asked to leave your school district. However, if you and your team can strive to minimize this sort of action, you can retain as many of your students as possible.

With the loss of every student, you lose funding. Lose enough students and you will have to start making even more budget cuts than you have made in the past. So, even though from time to time, most of your students will have issues that must be dealt with, you must remember that they are the very reason you have a school district. It makes good business sense to keep as many of them as you can.

For more ideas on how to increase student retention in your school district, please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or email our office at: tomborg@tomborgconsulting.com.

How Public School Districts Can Thrive in Today’s Economy-Part II.

A Special White Paper by
Tom Borg, MS; Keith B. Elliott, RA, CSI; and Katherine Pinard ©2015

In Part II of this paper we continue to discuss how American public school districts continue to be hit hard by cutbacks from state and regional funding. Most districts immediately look for areas where funding and staffing may be cut to reduce overall expenditures. This is the first logical step with any budget, but when the proposed reductions get to the point of cutting so deeply that curriculum variety, quality and class sizes will suffer, it may be time to create a flexible and unique strategy for the development of new funding opportunities to help offset the future reduction strategies.

We recommended that the first step that administrators, teachers and school boards need to embrace is to change the way they think. Once that is accomplished all things are possible. The simplicity of that statement is intentional; the actual process takes time! We presented concepts and structured guidelines on how to create and use Action Groups, composed of representatives from teachers, administrators, transportation and food service personnel, as well as other pertinent groups that represent stake holders in any part of the school district team.

In this section of the white paper we would like to discuss how you can leverage the opportunities that exist when the action group process is applied to marketing your school district. This means marketing not only to the present client base of students, parents and community members, but also to potential students and parents who are not yet part of your school district.

Today, it is a necessity, that public schools develop an effective marketing plan that promotes their school district in a positive and proactive light. With one recent public school client we were able to assist them in creating and facilitating an ongoing Marketing Action Group that continues to produce impressive results. One key factor for this team’s success was the recruitment of representatives, from all pertinent sectors, who could amplify its success. A representative from the school board, administration, teachers, business community and other entities came together to form a powerful and action oriented group that gained impressive marketing results.

The reason for this success stems from a team process, where participants are empowered to contribute their own broad range of ideas to a consolidated, stake holder based marketing approach that is sponsored by the Action Group, and then rolled out to the rest of the district. Remember from Part 1 of this paper, “People don’t argue with their own data.” When they can contribute their own ideas, they usually support them.

Direct advertising by school districts continues to rise in the formats of direct mail, newspaper ads, radio and cable television spots, and more recently, lawn signs. Individual schools, as well as entire districts, commit to promoting themselves as the school of choice over their nearby competitors. The unfortunate mistake being made is these school districts advertise to the universe and other school districts and not to their established base of students and parents. We all need to be aware that current market research suggests that it costs six times more to attract new clients than to satisfy and keep present client base (students and parents). It makes sense to invest the majority of the dollars spent on advertising, on services that exceed the expectations of the present student and parent base.
If a school district effectively services the currently enrolled client base of students and parents in a caring and professionally flexible culture, most parents would not consider moving their children to another school district, private school or homeschooling environment.
Barring the inevitable moves away from the area due to the parent’s employment challenges, the school district needs to commit to retaining current students and parents support for the entire thirteen years of schooling.

In the past, many school districts actually have engaged in some form of marketing, however subtle. Unfortunately, these commonly disjointed efforts have lacked an organized or centrally coordinated plan. The soccer team solicits for donations for its athletes, the high school band promotes its’ spring concert to a certain audience, and the following week, the drama department promotes its’ spring play to a whole different group of people. The high school football team boosters will involve themselves with some form of fundraising just before a different group of students moves in to raise money for their class trip. Then the administrators and school board go to the voters with the hope of passing a millage to support the new school facilities.

These types of marketing efforts never seem well coordinated (if coordinated at all) with the myriad of student activity clubs, sports team fundraising, and millage efforts. This is a good example of where all the entities within a school district must work together, if it wants to survive, let alone thrive, in the years to come. A coordinated presence, a uniform presentation, and the well-timed “Ask” or request for funds from prominent individuals or corporations, will become a key survival tool.

We have found the most critical element that must be analyzed, enhanced and maintained is ongoing internal and external communication. The administration, teachers, assistant teachers, coaches, food services, transportation, and all other parts of the school district (internal clients), must have clear and concise ongoing communication between all departments. Observing what happens when staff members learn to actually talk to each other in terms of what they need for improvement, can be an amazing revelation.

Simple, ongoing communication is commonly hampered by internal politics, union concerns, and lack of communication structures that are designed to encourage “open and often” communication.

Once a solid communication stream is either re-found, or created anew and continuously supported from the top-down, the school district and all departments aforementioned must use it to communicate clearly and concisely with the students and parents (external clients) on a regular basis. It never ceases to amaze us, how easy it is, for all departmental staff, students and parents to NOT effectively communicate with each other. Talk, communication, a two-way flow of information; how simple yet so effective!

By implementing solid communication processes between all departments and stakeholders, a marketing plan can be established and a specialized Action Group, representing both your internal and external clients, can be implemented. You will find that there are multiple ways you can market your school district for little or no money.

We recommend that your Action Group use a 12 month look-ahead calendar to schedule the marketing activities. By plotting out the entire school year, it is easier to strategize and coordinate the different marketing approaches you will employ. You will also find that your marketing efforts generate the highest return on your investment in both materials and staff hours.

As a general summary statement: “It is all connected!” Not one part of this puzzle stands alone. When your school district teams create and maintain ongoing internal and external communication, coupled with a solid and continuously updated 12 month marketing plan, you will be able to leverage your marketing Action Group’s creativity and develop an effective marketing structure to promote your school district in a uniformly positive and proactive light.

In Part III, we will highlight the opportunities that arise when the Action Group process is applied to a school district’s creation and growth of an alumni association.

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

Don’t Worry About Criticism

I remember when I was recreation director for a small township in Michigan, and my department had been invited by four other recreation departments to participate in a regional winter festival. It was agreed that my small department, which was composed of a few part-time employees and myself, would organize and facilitate a fun run.

Much planning went into organizing this winter festival. Many of the activities were based on having a reasonable amount of snow on the ground. Usually in southeastern Michigan you can depend on having plenty of snow on the ground during the month of February, but this particular year was a different story. The weekend of the winter festival came and there wasn’t even a trace of snow on the ground. No, nada, nyet snow. Oh, it was very cold, but absolutely no snow. Most of the winter festival activities were cancelled due to the necessity of having snow, but not the fun run. As matter of fact, it was perfect for it. The dry roads were ideal for the runners. Our race was a huge success and actually made a profit for the festival.

A few weeks later, all of the regional recreational directors came together for our follow up meeting. The first person who spoke, was the director of the park where the entire event was held. This gentleman lashed out at my program because of some trite mistake we had made in conducting the fun run. Much to my surprise, the rest of the group spoke up and defended my event by saying it was the most successful, well attended event, and that I should be congratulated. My critic was soon silenced and the meeting continued.

What I learned that day, is that when you are doing anything that garners some success, you will have critics who will find something to criticize about it. It just comes with the territory. As Dale Carnegie once said, “”Remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment.” Here is my point. Do your best at whatever you do, and don’t be surprised by the critics. Your benefit, you will be able to have fun and more fully appreciate the experience.

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

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 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

Seven Tips to Better One-on-One Communication in Your Public School System

Clear communication is one of the key result areas that allows your staff and employees to successfully perform at their job. My recommendation is that you invest in your team by taking the time to communicate with them more effectively.

Here are 7 things you can do to enhance your one-on-one communication process with them.

1. Stop finishing the other person’s sentences. Marshall Goldsmith reminds us that this approach does nothing to help your employees and managers think for themselves.

2. After a team member shares with you some great revelation they have discovered, don’t say “I knew that.” All that does it extinguish the flames of excitement for their learning process.

3. When others praise you, just say “Thank you”. Don’t deny or talk down or trade the compliment. By simply receiving the compliment, you give the person giving it, a chance to feel the power of giving something special.

4. Stop using the word “no”. Instead, give people options. They may not be able to do something a certain way, but usually there are other possibilities that could be considered.

5. Stop using the word “but” or “however”, and start using the word “and”. When you do this, it prevents you from negating what the person is saying and allows them to be more open minded to what you suggest instead.

6. Don’t allow yourself to “multi task” when you are communicating with another person. Keep your eyes on that person and not your computer or the paperwork in front of you.

7. Stop trying to impress your subordinates with how smart you are. Just because you are the boss does not mean you are always right, nor does it mean you have all the answers.

By taking the time to communicate in a more focused and proactive fashion with your staff, you will be creating the kind of work environment that is destined to improve both the productivity of you and your team.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it. Pick 3 items from the seven suggestions listed above and use them for five days.  Evaluate the results and decide for yourself whether or not they are worth using on a regular basis. I have a hunch you will be glad you did.

Tom Borg is president of Tom Borg Consulting, LLC. He is public schools consultant, trainer and author. He can be reached at 734.404-5909  or visit his website at: www.tomborgconsulting.com

Partnering with Your Business Community

Watch and learn from this Michigan Association of School Administrators (MASA) video/webinar program entitled "Partnering with Your Business Community". In it we discuss how to develop a working relationship with your business community that will allow your school district to develop this very valuable resource. http://vimeo.com/53118773

For more information on how Tom Borg Consulting can help your public school retain more students, call our office at 734-4040-5909 or visit our website at:
www.TomBorgConsulting.com

4 Questions to Guide Your School District's Next Strategic Planning Session

Each year every superintendent and his or her team need to invest the time in strategic planning.

Like a space shuttle headed to the moon, constant course corrections need to take place. A strategic planning session can help to tweak the direction and focus of your school district.

Here are 4 main questions with sub questions to ask your team that will guide your next strategic planning session.

1. Where are you now? How are you positioned in the academic market place? What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

2. How did you get here? What decisions and actions have led your school district to where it is now?

3. Where do you want your school district to be in the next 3 to 5 years? What kind of standards must you meet? How do you want your value to be perceived in the community?

4. How will you and your team get there? What are the strategies you will implement? Who are the people you need on your team? Who do you need to add or deploy? Which programs and external consultants do you need to get there?

When done properly, your annual strategic planning session can keep your school district on course and effectively deal with the challenges it will inevitably face.

Tom Borg Consulting, LLC works with schools systems that are having issues with retaining students and community support.
For additional information on how we can help your team with its next strategic planning session please contact our office at 734-404-5909.

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.

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

Publics Schools Consulting, MI - 3 Keys to Keeping a Productive Attitude

Here are three keys to being more productive at work and at home.

1. Avoid the “I’ll be happy sometime syndrome.” In other words people who suffer from this malady are thinking that a better day will come when something in the future happens. For example they will be happy when:
•    they get a raise
•    spring finally arrives
•    they have their first child
•    their child starts school
•    their child finally graduates from college
•    when they go on vacation
•    when they retire

My point is, these people live their lives on “some day I’ll”. They  are always complaining about the present moment, and therefore, not capable of living in and enjoying the present moment.

2. Next avoid associating with members of the “Chicken Little Club”. These are the card carrying, dues paying bringers of doom and gloom. They will tell you about all the things wrong with your school system. They will go on and on about how bad things are, and how bad they are going to get.

3. Finally, remember there is no Lone Ranger coming to your rescue, but there are Tontos. What I mean by that is, there are people who will help you overcome the challenges your school district is facing. Tontos could come in the form of individuals on your team helping each other. It could come in the form of outside consultants that you hire. It could come from the business community. Tontos could come from a number of different places. My point is, there are people willing to help your school district,  but, no one who will just take away all you problems. 

Tom Borg Consulting, LLC works with public schools to help them increase student retention and

minimize student attrition. They do this through their consulting and training programs that  create better internal and external communication and a  more dynamic service culture. For more information on our services please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or visit our website at www.TomBorgConsulting.com

Public Schools Consulting - Watch Out for the News Media

The next area to be aware of, that can seriously affect your attitude in a negative way, is getting too much exposure to the news media.

A number of years ago I was the program chairperson for the Detroit Rotary Club. Being in Detroit, we had access to many major people of influence. On one occasion we invited the new editor and chief of the Detroit News-Free Press to come and speak to our club. He accepted and came and spoke to our group of business people. At the end of his talk he asked if there were any questions. One attorney in the group asked, “Why is it that your newspaper paints such a negative picture of the city of Detroit?”

The speaker, somewhat surprised by the question, took a step back, gathered his thoughts, stepped forward and gave this answer. “Well you see, what we do in our business is report on things that are unique. It just so happens that just about everything in Detroit that is unique is negative.”

That was his answer. Bad news sells; sad but true. It seems that the news media, be it, television, radio, on-line print or hard copy has a purpose, and that is to get as many people as possible to view, listen or read their news. The higher their subscription rate, the higher the fees that they will be able to charge their advertising clients.

It is not about providing the “news.” It is about providing the kind of news people will read.

Tom Borg Consulting, LLC works with public schools to help them increase student retention and minimize student attrition. They do this through their consulting and training programs that  create better internal and external communication and a  more dynamic service culture. For more

information on our services please contact our office at 734-404-5909 or visit our website at www.TomBorgConsulting.com