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Mike McAllen of Grass Shack Events & Media interviews John Baldoni of Baldoni Consulting
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/baldoni/2009/01/dont_cancel_that_meeting.html
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Transcripts:
Mike McAllen: Welcome back to Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen with the Grass Shack Events & Media and today we have John Baldoni on the phone for Baldoni Consulting. Hi, John.
John Baldoni: Thank you Michael, happy to be here.
Mike McAllen: And I’m sorry you’re feeling a little sick, that’s sucks.
John Baldoni: Oh, it’s just something – I’ll model through this and I apologize for cocky voice at times, so thank you for putting up with me.
Mike McAllen: Yes, I know the allergies are hitting me right now here and I’m sorry, I don’t know where are you located?
John Baldoni: I’m in Ann Arbor Michigan.
Mike McAllen: Ann Arbor Michigan and I’m on California, San Francisco and we’re just getting hit by the allergy season.
John Baldoni: Indeed.
Mike McAllen: So, tell me and the audience a little bit about yourself and how you got into the leadership and communications field.
John Baldoni: Well, I am a leadership communication and a consultant and I work with organizations and executives to help men and women become more effective leaders. Areas I work on are communication, coaching and helping organization succeed. I’ve been doing this for about 25 years now, so I’ve had the opportunity to work for with folks at all levels of an organization from CEO’s to entry level work and everyone in between.
Mike McAllen: Very cool, very cool and so we discuss earlier about how your role fits in this podcast and I came across a really great article you wrote called, Don’t Cancel That Meeting for Harvard Business Online and I think we had talked about it on the show with – because we – obviously it’s huge topic for us almost every week now, is to keep, keep meeting and it’s great article, you tell us a little bit about that.
John Baldoni: Yes, I believe now, especially in times of recession, it is time for organization to come together and unfortunately as a very meeting planner know is in times of recession cut backs are happenings, so meetings are often cut or scaled back and I think that’s really a mistake, I think organizations need to find ways to bring their people together because what happens at organization – what happens in meetings, it’s not so much the presenters is making the presentation, is the inner connectedness that people achieve with their stakeholders, I mean executive meeting with customers, customers with each other, customers with the people who service their accounts or whatever the nature of the meeting is. It’s important for people to come together and in times of crisis you want your people to come together because you want them to share their best practices or share their ideas and also share what’s going on in their world and here’s the downside of it, when you cancel meetings like that, it really sense – it sense a negative signal to an organization. Yes, they know they – you want to save money but sometimes people get the feeling that, well I’m not important and the company doesn’t value my ideas enough. So, bringing those people together in some way, in some fashion is essential, so I think that’s why it’s important for folks to come together in meetings.
Mike McAllen: Yes, it is important. Also that, that face to face it’s just time to spend together because there’s so many other little things and inflection and you find out so many things about what’s going on specially when this companies are so spread out.
John Baldoni: Absolutely, the face to face time is essential and in our desperate world each communication are vital that they are here, virtual we can achieve much through that but once in a while we need to touch – see and touch one another. We are after all human beings, we crave connectedness and virtual connectedness has it’s merits but sometimes we need to come together and see each other face to face and there’s also an opportunity to just, you know, kick back and have a good time with one other once in a while and that’s not just – that is not an excuse to have a good time or have a party, it’s also a time just so that people know each other better and when you can socialize with people, it’s a – you learn more about then and when you learn more about them, you learn each other strengths and weaknesses and how people can best serve each others needs.
Mike McAllen: Yes because they do even in those just those little moments where they are maybe having a couple drinks in cocktail party, they’re kind the let their guard down and actually they can really find out a little bit more about each other.
John Baldoni: Absolutely.
Mike McAllen: Especially when they’re doing these sales things, you know, the sales – with a lot of sales groups that come together and this people are all off on their own little territories and this is the onetime they can get together and really talk about things that …
John Baldoni: Absolutely and most important, this are learning session, folks learn about, I’m doing this in my territory, you’re doing this in your territory, that’s a good idea that might work for me, I have an idea that might work for you or conversely I will – may know what doesn’t work, so I won’t waste time and try it in my own district. So, there’s a shared learning experience as well.
Mike McAllen: Yes, exactly. So, you go to meetings and you do some keynoting and you want to …
John Baldoni: I speak a great deal and one of my lead keynote right now is leading in hard times, so wonder where I got that title, huh? So, one of the things I talk about a lot is resilience and we’re being tested very sorely tested right now and so now it – at public gathering, it’s up to leaders to put their stand button organization and stand tall for their people and be seen and heard and what better opportunity that in a meeting for leaders to do that, so I have an opportunity to go folks and go events and talk to folks about what their needs are, what they expect to happen and it’s great time for folks to come together and I find it when I speak as organizations like this about hard times it’s a great sharing and there’s a great outpouring of feelings of how people feel about the organization and what they want to do, you know, we’re on that a culture that likes to sit back and take things. We want to do – what can we do to, how can we be mobilize and so one of the themes I think of my keynote is how you can take charge of your organization, what you can do to help your organization succeed. So, that’s – that can do spirit is very resonant in our society right now and it’s something I see a lot of and speak about when I talk to organizations.
Mike McAllen: Yes, it sounds like a great opportunity for companies, actually because of that, that a lot of them are not sure of what’s going on themselves …
John Baldoni: Well, I mean …
Mike McAllen: … somebody really knows, so …
John Baldoni: It is not a cliché but it use often that crisis provoke opportunity but you have to take advantage of that crisis and you don’t want to waste this crisis. What are the best things you can do and sometime executives will tell you that a crisis, I mean crisis such are these are good thing for an organization, they focus thinking into what are we really doing, how can we serve our – the needs of our customers more effectively. What can stop doing? Sometimes when times are good or organizational – should takes over and we spend a lot times doing non-value add things. We feed the monster as suppose to helping our customer grow and develop and add value to our organization. So, when we are face with cut backs now, it’s a time to stop and prioritize, what is it that we really need to do, what is that we really need to focus on and that’s one of the things I talk about.
Mike McAllen: Very cool, very cool. So, it’s that the main one you’re doing now a day?
John Baldoni: Well, I talk a lot about motivation as well, I speak of course on communication and how you get lead – how leaders achieve results, one of my – it’s based on one of my books and I need to go from vision to alignment to execution and promoting courage to achieve genuine and lasting results so.
Mike McAllen: Very cool, so tell us a little bit about you – you have like six books don’t you?
John Baldoni: I have seven with an eight coming up in fall.
Mike McAllen: Seven books, oh fantastic.
John Baldoni: And my – all of books are on leadership, many of them have a theme of communication because that is my original background and I’ve done a lot of speech writing and I work with folks helping them organizations refine and develop their messages and then I help executives puts those into words that reflect their message and how they want to come across a best of their organization on how they can ignite their people. My newest book is called, Lead By Example which is actually the framework for my leading in hard times and it’s talks about the behaviors that leaders need to in act to get people to follow their lead and it’s all about setting the right example about handling tough issues and about putting the team first and this are all things that leaders know intuitively but sometimes we become so busy, we sort of forget to do this things, so the book is been doing very, very well, selling well and it’s nice reminder for the kinds of things that we need to be doing.
Mike McAllen: And where can people get that book?
John Baldoni: Well, all of my books are available online through Amazon or Barnes and Noble, there are also in bookstores and or at my website which is name johnbaldoni.com.
Mike McAllen: And I was going to say, I really enjoyed your website, it’s really, it’s really great. I mean there’s a lot – it’s very interactive and fantastic.
John Baldoni: Excuse me, that website is been up for about 10 years and it’s evolved overtime and I’m trying to add new and different things all the time and readers or excuse me listeners are welcome to visit anytime and they’ll find my newest video there but there’s also a lot of podcast, I do a lot of coaching and I’ve got, just still do lesson on things that managers can focus on to help encourage followership and build team spirit and get things done the right way in their organizations and I also write a regular column for Harvard Business Online with a link to that is through my website and you can also find it at harvardbusiness.org and that’s a great opportunity for me to reach and new audiences and it’s a wonderful site for, just a treasure trove of leadership and management advice. I’m only one small contributor, there are many, many great minds and thinkers who contribute to that site, so and it’s free, so I welcome podcaster or listeners to visit it.
Mike McAllen: That’s fantastic. Well, how can people get a hold of you if they want to, I guess your website and do you have a – I’ll put a link up on our site to you of course.
John Baldoni: It’s simply John at johnbaldoni.com.
Mike McAllen: And then your phone number or someone to call?
John Baldoni: 734-995-9992.
Mike McAllen: Fantastic. All right, John, thank you very much and would love to talk to you again someday, do another podcast down the road to see what …
John Baldoni: That be fine, I appreciate the opportunity and best wishes for you and I much to success to your audience and all the meeting planners out there keep doing what you’re doing because organizations need you and I think at some ways need you more now than ever, so help focus come together and shared their best ideas and listen and learn from each other.
Mike McAllen: Great, thanks John. Talk to you later.
John Baldoni: Thank you.
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Email us at meetings podcast@gmail.com
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