Why Free Advice Is Free

"Let me give you a little advice, for I am not currently using it," is what you hear when a broke financial planner offers you investing advice.

Would you take free medical advice from a pump jockey at a gas station? Would you take free legal advice from your city bus driver? Would you take free career advice from someone who's been fired from every job he's ever had?

If you don't have to pay for the advice, is it worth much? It seems that once you commit to paying for something, you view the information differently.

Take a person who borrows a book from you - a book you may have gotten great value and results from by acting on the advice within. But because your friend didn't buy the book for themselves, what are the real chances of them taking the advice the same way you did?

Getting sales advice from your next door neighbor, the salesman, is different than getting sales advice from the sales trainer you are paying to help you. Getting business advice from the corner store owner on your street would probably not come with action steps like you would get from a business coach.

The same could be said of any information you pay for. In fact, there is more learning in a credit card than a Library card - if the credit card is being used to buy books, learning DVD's and seminar registrations.

If you want advice that will move you forward, be prepared to pay for it. If your organization wants to move to the next level, pay for new training. Because here's the truth: if you had the answers, you would already be achieving what you want to achieve. But since you're not where you want to be, you're obviously missing something. So you need help - good help - help that will cost you money but will give you a return on investment.

You see, the illusion of doing something isn't going to cut it anymore. Your people are too smart. If you want to build an organizational Culture of Excellence, replete with solid managers, you're going to need some outside help. Get it and get moving on it.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

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ROI In Training

If you can't determine whether you're actually getting your money's worth and a decent ROI (Return On Investment) after sending an employee to training, then you're doing the wrong training. Employee training is a waste without addressing the human component. Sorry but it's true.

For example: Time Management is a waste of time if you don't address self-discipline. Sales training is a waste of money without addressing confidence. Team building is really only tolerance-building: you really don't change people - you just get them to tolerate each other better.

If you want to get decent ROI then train your people to be better, decent human beings. They will be more willing to do what is necessary to help the organization move forward and more readily accept future training.

According to a recent survey by Adecco, one of the world's leaders in human resource solutions, an incredible 41 percent of Gen Y respondents said they would do something dishonest in order to keep their jobs. These behaviours include blaming coworkers for mistakes, setting up situations for co-workers to fail or even blackmailing colleagues. Good luck training that bunch to do honest, good work without addressing values and ethics.

Oh and stop sending jerks to management training. They're still jerks when they get back – but now they have a title.

As for leadership? Leadership is an attitude. Management is something you could do with a leadership attitude but it's not a pre-requisite for the job.