Author Roger Dean Duncan has a great interview with Julia Tang Peters on the Forbes website that I recommend you read. Peters is the author of the forthcoming book, Pivot Points: Five Decisions Every Successful Leader Must Make.

“Pivot points are the decision points when you can change your story,” said Peters, a leadership consultant and coach. “I don’t mean changing how you tell your story, I mean changing the actual story.”

It’s these points that help you focus on what matters to you, Peters said.

“Whether a leader is made or born, whichever you believe, we see in the way leaders evolve—one pivotal decision at a time,” she said. “At times in your career you realize, ‘This is not going the way I expect or want.’ And sometimes the situation is in your favor and you say, ‘This is a good time to make this risky move while we have momentum.’ Either way, you believe it’s time to do something that changes the status quo. You’re gripped by the need to change how the story goes from here.”

There are five decisions, Peters said, every successful leader must make:

1) The Launching Decision
“Every young person needs to ask, ‘What do I want to be great at that is worth the commitment of massive amounts of my time and energy?'”

2) The Turning Point Decision
“The question here is, ‘What problem do you want to solve or condition do you want to improve that gives you the verve to pass this test?'”

3) The Tipping Point Decision
“Ask yourself, ‘What fundamental barrier stands between me and a tipping point, which I want to break through to get to the next level?'”

4) The Re-commitment Decision
“Everyone after about 20 or 25 years of work asks, ‘What’s next? Do I keep at this, and if so, what do I want to accomplish? If not, how do I need to recommit to myself?'”

5) The Letting Go Decision
“There comes the time when we all need to ask, ‘How do I both leave a legacy and personally move on?'”

Please read the full interview for more insights and let us know in the comments if you’ve ever “changed your story” and how.

(photo credit: weesen via photopin cc)

I posted a blog entry last week about learning a persuasion trick in less than a minute. You really enjoyed it judging by the page views it received, so I thought I’d share another persuasion trick from the same “:59 Seconds” series that I think you’ll enjoy.

In the video above you’ll learn how to impress in meetings. Spoiler alert: It has to do with where you sit.

As usual, please watch the video, try it out, and let us know your results.

Many of us are taught that in order to get hired into our dream venue career, we just need to know all of the technical aspects of our selected profession—basic venue operations, booking and scheduling, marketing and sales, finance, food service, crowd management, and general workplace stuff, like time management, email, and voicemail etiquette.

But, in fact, what might be equally, if not more important, isn’t necessarily what you know, but who you know, or more accurately, Who Knows You.

In a recent Forbes article, Internships May Be The Easiest Way To A Job In 2013, an Internship.com survey polled more than 7,300 students and recent graduates, as well as over 300 human resources and recruitment professionals, and found that internships truly have become the “new interview” in the job search process for students and employers alike.

For those seeking a venue-related job, one internship opportunity is through IAVM’s Venue Management School as and the Graduate Institute. The school takes place May 31-June 5, 2014, at Oglebay Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia. The week-long immersion into venue management is one place venue pros go to hone their skills, visit with colleagues and network to make new connections.

Venue Management School attracts all types of venue professionals: executive directors, department heads, allied members (venue service and product providers) who want to get a broader perspective on venue management, people new to the industry, and veterans who want to keep up with the industry. Not only will you get a good overview of venue management, you begin to build this amazing network that can really give you a leg up when it comes to getting a job.

Robyn Williams, the executive director of Portland’5 Centers for the Arts and an instructor at IAVM’s Venue Management School, has some great tips to take advantage of your captive audience of venue pros who attend Venue Management School and the Graduate Institute.

Williams says, “Interns should network like crazy with fellow interns, students, and with the faculty. You’re hanging out with some of the best and brightest in our business. Interns help out with a variety activities and are generally assigned to one classroom where they can assist the instructors. Be friendly, actively participate, and network, network, network!

1. Network

2. Network

3. Be prepared to help me with the projector. (I’m terrible with technology….)

4. Have fun. Don’t be afraid to strike up conversations with people you don’t know. This is always a great bunch of people, and everyone loves spending time with the interns. Take advantage of that.”

Take advantage of both the learning opportunities and the networking, and fill out an application to intern at VMS and VMS-GI. The deadline to apply is March 31, 2014, and there are eight slots available. Venue Management School is one of IAVM’s most sought after programs. By becoming an intern, you’ll not only be able to hear what the pros are learning, but you’ll be able to network with someone who might become a future boss.

There was a lot of news this past week you may have missed. Here are some headlines that caught our eyes.

Here are the First Photos of a Baseball Diamond in an Australian Cricket Stadium
—San Jose Mercury News
“In under a month, the Los Angeles Dodgers will play a two-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks at the legendary Sydney Cricket Grounds in Australia, marking the first-ever Major League Baseball games in the Southern Hemisphere.”

WME Partnering for Six Country Festivals
—ENCORE/CelebrityAccess
“William Morris Endeavor Entertainment is building its portfolio in the festival sector with investment in six new strategic alliances in the country music fest space.”

Boston Marathon Bans Bags as Part of Security Plan
—Associated Press
“Runners will be given a chance to check gear on Boston Common on the morning of the marathon to allow them to have a change of clothing at the end of the race. The athletic association said it will provide clear plastic bags for that purpose.”

“My Job Is Very, Very Different From Your Job”
—Sports Illustrated/The MMQB
“The Jonathan Martin-Richie Incognito situation, coupled with Michael Sam’s announcement, has put the NFL locker room culture under a spotlight. An Eagle takes us inside his workplace to better understand it.”

3D Glasses for Meetings
—PCMA Convene Blog
“Imagine sitting down at a console and working with a 3D model of your meeting that shows the exact placement of every chair and table, in a virtual environment that simulates the actual event space down to the color of the carpet and the texture of the walls.”

(Image: MLB PR)

I’ve never met anyone, manager or employee, that enjoys a performance review. Even if you know it’s going to be a good one, there’s still something nerve-wracking about having your work evaluated.

Enter Satoris Culbertson, an assistant professor of management at Kansas State University. Culbertson, working with associates at Eastern Kentucky University and Texas A&M University, is developing ways to improve performance reviews. Surveying more than 200 employees who just completed a review, the researchers found three types of employee goal orientations.

1. “Learning goal-oriented people like to learn for the sake of learning. They often pursue challenges despite setbacks.”
2. “Performance-prove goal-oriented people want to prove that they have competence to perform a job.”
3. “Performance-avoid goal-oriented people want to avoid looking foolish.”

Performance-oriented people, the researchers think, will only be satisfied with positive reviews because negative ones make them look bad. Learning goal-oriented workers, though, may be satisfied with negative reviews because they would view it as a teaching moment.

“Surprisingly, we found that learning-oriented people were just as dissatisfied with an appraisal that had negative feedback as the performance-oriented people were,” Culbertson said. “Nobody likes to get negative feedback—even those individuals who aren’t trying to prove anything to others, but instead are just trying to learn as much as possible.”

Culberston said that managers have to be careful when providing feedback to employees, because they can affect motivation, commitment, and performance.

“It is not so much that the performance review needs to be abolished, but we need to fix what is broken,” Culbertson said. “Instead of limiting ourselves to formal performance appraisals conducted once or twice a year, we need to think about performance management as a system that is linked with the strategy of the entire organization.”

In other words, the review process should be on-going.

“We can actually make the most out of the system,” Culbertson said. “But if we are only going to have once-a-year evaluations, we shouldn’t expect it to work.”

Culbertson offers three suggestions based on the research to help managers improve the evaluation process.

First, focus on constructive feedback, bringing in ways for improvement.

“Negative feedback is not the same as constructive feedback,” Culbertson said. “We should be careful that negative feedback is provided in a way that is more constructive because it can help people try to improve.”

Second, tread lightly with number-based reviews, because people view numbers differently.

“This is where our words are really powerful,” Culbertson said. “We want to make sure we are conveying to employees whether we are giving a good evaluation or describing something that needs to improve.”

Third, steer clear of the “sandwich” approach (i.e., positive , then negative, then ending with positive feedback).

“Sometimes the sandwich approach comes across as dishonest or not something that people will buy,” Culbertson said.

How do you conduct performance reviews? What works? What doesn’t? Please contribute to the conversation in the comments section below.

(Image: Dilbert.com)