Dr Lois J. Zachary has the answers to these questions and more. She believes that mentoring excellence and the ability of an organization to develop and maintain a vibrant mentoring culture determine an organization's success.

Lois J. Zachary is an internationally recognized expert on mentoring excellence and has been cited as "one of the top 100 minds in leadership" today. Since The Mentor's Guide was first published in 2000, it has become the primary resource for organizations interested in promoting mentoring for leadership and learning and for mentors seeking to deepen their mentoring practices. With her best-selling books, Creating a Mentoring Culture (2005) and The Mentee's Guide (2009), Zachary has created a comprehensive set of resources for promoting organizational mentoring sustainability. The second edition of The Mentor's Guide is set to launch October 2011.

Dr. Zachary is president of Leadership Development Services, LLC, a Phoenix-based consulting firm that specializes in leadership and mentoring, and director of its Center for Mentoring Excellence™. Her innovative mentoring approaches and expertise in coaching leaders and their organizations in designing, implementing, and evaluating learner-centered mentoring programs have been used globally by a wide array of clients, including Fortune 500 companies, government organizations, educational institutions, and other institutions, profit and nonprofit.

She received her doctorate in adult and continuing education from Columbia University. She holds a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University and a Master of Science degree in education from Southern Illinois University.

Dr. Zachary is a founding member and past chair of the Phoenix Athena PowerLink™ Governing Board (sponsored by the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce) that helps women-owned businesses expand profitably through the use of mentoring advisory panels; and, a member of Charter 100, an organization that recognizes women of achievement who make significant contributions to the community. She has held leadership positions on community and national boards including the Mentor National Team of the Chicago Public Schools and the Dean's Advisory Council of Arizona State's University School of Global Management and Leadership.

Hate speech can hurt you. Help speech can reshape your world and produce sustainable results. Your words, body language, and emotions form a triangle through which you interpret the world. By changing the interpretation of this triangle, you shift the resulting behavior and the effect. Simple statements, such as saying thank you more often and offering words of encouragement, have a positive effect on people. To boost productivity, use the word imagine. “How do you imagine this project progressing?” This engages people and decreases stress because creativity and curiosity are being generated, and people are motivated to speak up.

Another step to open up the lines of communication is to use requests and offers. For example, you can say, “Is there anything else I can offer you?” and “Do you have any other requests?” This allows people to open up and reveal the chatter in their head (or what they really want), thus providing transparency in communication and removing hesitancy to speak up. Encouraging people to communicate openly creates a positive culture and enables people to move out of inertia and display talents. Transparency—speaking directly to the point—gets results.

Be direct. When you speak directly, your communication hits the bulls-eye; no translation is needed.  Getting to this stage takes practice, courage, and the self-awareness to speak the truth in spite of inevitable criticisms. Take an active role by taking responsibility to hear the other person. Ask “you” questions to display an interest and other-centeredness: “What is your assessment of the situation?” Guard your tone. Take responsibility for how your language affects others. People often remember your words more than your actions.

Be aware of indirect communication.
Be aware of the effects of indirect communication, such as when someone: walks away, shaking his  head because he felt it wasn’t safe to respond; dictates by providing an answer without asking a question; finishes the other person’s sentence; makes more statements with “I” than asking questions with “you.” Unless you review the power of language, you become stuck by giving yourself labels. You might say to yourself, I will fail, or I’m incapable, and this language can paralyze you. You have to be jolted before you initiate internal reflection.

Avoid communication breakdowns.
A breakdown occurs if you are suddenly jolted out of your automatic action—requiring you to assess  your circumstances. Communication breakdowns happen when you don’t think about your words or their lingering effect. Any habitual response is automatic and falls into consistent, unconscious  patterns, such as resorting to a conversation around old stories that keep you stuck in the past. For example, if you say, “I don’t care how you do it, just get it done!” the receiver will likely have an internal breakdown—we all want to feel appreciated and valued for our contribution. You might say, “How do you envision achieving the task?” This keeps passion alive.

Communication breakdowns can also lead to ambiguity—the inability to confront brutal facts and act with conviction to resolve them. Much ambiguity comes from lack of clarity and direction. To avoid ambiguity: Make your choices strong and clear. Confront uncomfortable truths. Act with conviction and resolve. Take responsibility for the role you play and how you communicate with others. Set aside differences, and focus the dialogue on the results. Express your point of view clearly. Be careful of mixed messages, such as telling people to speak up, take a stand, and take risks, yet rewarding playing it safe! Language-induced breakdowns often result from messages being delivered in a command-and-control style—authoritative language that puts others down and makes assumptions. This style comes across as though you are giving orders and won’t listen to questions.

Communicate your expectations clearly. Don’t expect the receiver to know exactly what you expect in the outcome and what you mean. Instead, you need to say directly, “I have expectations that you will do this and that.” Unclear expectations result in wasted time and unnecessary tension. Design conversations that coordinate action, such as requesting someone to stop using words that put you down and cause shame, blame, and diminishing self-esteem. A coordinated action lives in promises, such as “I promise to complete the task by 5 p.m. today.”

Speaking up. Speaking up and clarifying your position is taking appropriate action. Language brings us together and enables us to live together. Problem solving is a dialogue—with yourself or another person. Try being vulnerable by using the word confess. When you don’t have the answer, try saying, “I confess that I don’t know (have) the answer, but I promise that I will get back to you by 11 a.m. tomorrow morning with the answer. Will that work for you?”

Your relationships are defined by the conversations you have or don’t have with the people in your life, and you can determine the quality of your relationships by analyzing the conversation: “How do I create my conversations?” “Do I blame people or circumstances? Do I take responsibility to speak up to air the truth?” Wonder about what the behavior may be and listen for concerns. Wonderment lives in the ability to connect with the essence or core of the other person because of the effect you have on them. What draws you to some people and not others? Much of the pull has to do with the communication connection.

As you alter the language that shapes your choices, you enable transformation. Transformation boils down to effective communication. Think about your language. The words you choose can submerge you into negativity or elevate you to a higher consciousness—and take others with you. That’s the power of language!

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Sandra Ford Walston is known as The Courage Expert and innovator of StuckThinking™. She is an organizational effectiveness consultant, speaker, trainer and courage coach. She is the internationally published author of bestseller COURAGE The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman (2001), the follow-up book STUCK 12 Steps Up the Leadership Ladder (2010) and the recently released FACE IT! 12 Obstacles that Hold You Back on the Job (2011). She is certified in the Enneagram and MBTI®. Please visit www.sandrawalston.com.

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Timothy R. Clark is a writer, columnist, speaker, coach and former two-time CEO. He is considered a leading expert on leadership, change, and employee engagement. His unique combination of Oxford training and shop-floor experience in the steel industry has earned him a reputation as the "Blue Collar Scholar." He possesses an extraordinary ability to simplify and communicate complex concepts in meaningful and memorable ways.

Dr. Clark's new book, The Leadership Test: Will You Pass? is being used throughout corporate America as a guide for understanding the foundation principles of leadership.

After earning a triple degree and first-team Academic All-America honors as a football player at Brigham Young University, Dr. Clark worked for what is now Harris Interactive and then went back to school with a plan to teach. He completed a doctorate from Oxford University and was a Fulbright and British Research Scholar.

As fate would have it, there were no teaching jobs when he finished his Ph.D., so of course he traded in his chinos and Birkenstocks for a hard hat and metatarsal boots, and went to work in a large steel mill. At Geneva Steel Company, he was soon elevated to vice president and plant manager and oversaw all plant operations for five years. He then served as CEO of two consulting organizations before founding TRClark Partners LLC. He advises, trains and speaks to leaders and organizations in industry, government, healthcare, education, and the non-profit sector.

Dr. Clark writes the syndicated weekly column: "On Leadership" for the Deseret News. He is also the author of the ground-breaking book, Epic Change: How to Lead Change in the Global Age, which CEO Refresher named one of the best books of 2008.

Mike's strength is in his unique knowledge of how adults learn and applying that to developing strong managers, leaders, employees and teams.

Come visit Mike's popular teamwork and leadership blog at http://www.teamworkandleadership.com

Follow Mike's Teamwork and Leadership discussions on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/teamworkleadership

Follow Mike's Team Building and Teamwork discussions on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/teamworkleadership#!/pages/Team-Building-Teamwork/110581132333106

Follow Mike on Twitter at  http://www.twitter.com/secondgleader

Join our Teamwork Group on Linkedin at http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2232816/

With her mindful approach, Helen gives you the opportunity to create a positive, dynamic and nurturing relationship to money and therefore, yourself. The results; a foundation from which you can create a conscious-based, fulfilling life. She is currently completing her book, Your Money, Your Mirror due out this fall.

Dr. Bonnie has appeared 5 times on Oprah, a 3 day series on the Today Show, 3 day series on Fox, O'Reilly Report, CNN, 20/20, The View, Good Morning America, CBS Health watch, CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News. She frequently appears in/on USA Today, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Toronto Sun, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, Women's Health, Self Magazine, Money Magazine, Glamour, Time Magazine, and Daily News.

Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil is the author of the best seller’s Make up Don’t Break Up, Adultery the Forgivable Sin (that became a Lifetime movie) and Financial Infidelity Seven Steps to Conquering The #1 Relationship Wrecker which recently came out in paperback March 31, 2009.

Dr. Rao conceived the pioneering course Creativity and Personal Mastery. This is the only business school course that has its own alumni association and it has been extensively covered in the media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the London Times, the Independent, Time, the Financial Times, Fortune, the Guardian, Business Week and dozens of other publications. 

He has done pioneering work in motivation and helps senior executives become more engaged in work and discover deep meaning in it. He also works with teams and groups and has been extraordinarily successful in using group dynamics to foster lasting personal change. Many who have been through his program experience quantum leaps in professional and personal effectiveness.

He is the author of "Are You Ready to Succeed: Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life", Hyperion, 2006. The book is an international best-seller and has been translated into many languages and distributed in all continents. He has conducted workshops for and spoken before executives of Microsoft, Google, Lehman Brothers, McDonald’s, Chubb, IBM, United Airlines, Allstate, Johnson & Johnson and dozens of others.

Dr. Rao was an executive with Warner Communications, Continental Group, Data Resources and McGraw-Hill and has consulted with such companies as RCA, Reuters, Citicorp, GTE, Pan Am and Diner’s Club. He has been a seminar leader with the Institute for Management Studies and the American Management Association. He is an expert on marketing strategy and has taught in the corporate programs of companies such as Verizon, Northrop-Grumman, Symbol Technologies and General Instruments as well as in the executive programs of London Business School, Columbia Business School and the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served as a marketing advisor to the national board of MENSA.

Dr. Rao received his Ph.D. in Marketing from the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. He has an M. Phil. in Marketing from the same school in addition to an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His undergraduate training was in Physics at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Photo by: Paresh Gandhi

Craig Nathanson is on the faculty at University of Liverpool, Keller School of Management and Corinthian Colleges teaching both traditional and on-line courses. His monthly articles now appear at over 1000 business industry web sites as the career expert for Job Target. He has been a senior manager, trainer, counselor and internal consultant for over 30 years, working in large Fortune 100 companies as well as several internet start-ups, one of which he was an original founder of. Craig also is a visiting lecturer for Benedictine College in Illinois teaching management courses in China and Vietnam. Mr. Nathanson has also been a visiting lecturer for the Academy of National Economy in Moscow, Russia.

Mr. Nathanson is the author of the books, How to find the RIGHT work during challenging times : a new approach to your life and work after 40, P is for Perfect: Your Perfect Vocational Day and his newest book, The Best Manager: getting better results WITH people.

Since 2001, Nathanson has focused on building a private speaking and coaching practice targeted at those over 40. Nathanson is a Ph.D candidate in Human and Organizational Systems.

Craig lives with his family in Petaluma, Ca

For more details, visit http://www.thevocationalcoach.com and http://www.thebestmanager.com

Michael Lee Stallard is a leading authority on leadership, employee engagement and teams.  He is the co-founder, president and CEO of E Pluribus Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in helping leaders create “Connection Cultures” to form strong bonds among the management, employees and customers of an organization. Connection Cultures increase employee and customer engagement as well as productivity, profitability, innovation, employee retention and customer loyalty. In the past year, clients have included Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Wachovia, UBS, General Re and several hedge funds.

Michael is the primary author of the book Fired Up or Burned Out. It has been widely praised by well-respected leaders and thought leaders. Marketing maven and bestselling author Seth Godin wrote, “this is a very big idea. While it's simple, it's not easy to do, but it's important. Hurry!" Frances Hesselbein, Chairman of the Leader to Leader Institute, described the book as "the indispensable leadership guide for leaders everywhere." Russell Reynolds, Jr., founder and former CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates wrote, "An enthralling and impressive work. It shows how to empower people and create great societies, corporations and cultures. I'm giving it to everyone at my own firm." William A. Holstein of The New York Times wrote that Michael’s ideas on connection reflect “great wisdom.” Michael Fitzgerald, who writes for The Economist and Incwrote on BNet, “The soft stuff counts and Stallard's book helps...It's impossible not to find some example that will make you rethink your own approach to other people in your working life." Fired Up or Burned Out has also been praised by executive coach and best-selling author Marshall Goldsmith as a book that contains ideas that help leaders engage knowledge workers. 

Michael’s work has been in the media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Leader to Leader, Leadership Excellence, M World: The Journal of the American Management Association, Perdido, Live Mint (in India), Shukan Daiyamondo (in Japan), Capital (in Dubai), Rotmanormal;"> Magazine of The University of Toronto (Canada in Spring 2009) and Fox Business Now.  He is a regular contributor to India’s largest circulated business daily newspaper, The Economic Times. Michael has spoken at conferences organized by Fortune magazine, The World Presidents Organization, the American Bankers Association, The Corporate Executive Board, the Innovation Council and the Investment Company Institute. He is a guest lecturer on leadership, employee engagement and customer engagement at New York University’s Stern School of Business, The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, and the Center for Creative Leadership.

Prior to founding E Pluribus Partners, Michael was chief marketing officer for businesses at Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley. The programs identified and implemented by the team he assembled and led at Morgan Stanley contributed to doubling the business unit's revenues over a two year period. The practices he and his team developed became the genesis for his approach to elevating the productivity and innovation of individuals and organizations. Earlier in his career, Michael worked as an executive in investment banking, marketing, finance and business development-related positions at Texas Instruments, Van Kampen Investments and Barclays Bank, PLC. Michael’s educational background includes a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Illinois State University, an M.B.A. from University of Texas Permian Basin, and a J.D. from DePaul University Law School. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1991.  Michael is married and has two daughters.

Additional information about Michael can be found at: www.epluribuspartners.com (company website), www.fireduporburnedout.com (book website) and www.michaelleestallard.com (blog).

To learn more about having Michael speak or teach a workshop, click on leadership and employee engagement speaker.