Summary: Synopsis Any time you hold a leadership position, you face the challenge of getting people to follow the direction you think they need to go. It's important not to burn down the barn in order to roast the pig. There are two sayings that Dr. Misner shares with aspiring leaders, in or out of BNI. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Unsolicited advice is never acceptable. If you are new to a leadership position, talk to the members of a group before making sweeping changes. Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way. You need to learn how to work with people rather than through people. Note that this saying is about collaboration, not manipulation. These two sayings between them form the cornerstone to great leadership. Share your own techniques for successful leadership, or occasions when you've used these. Brought to you by The Global Networking Show. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 378 - Priscilla: Hello everyone and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by the NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloyou by the GlobalNetworkingShow.com, a montly Google Hangout show, hosted by Andy Lopata and Dr. Ivan Misner. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, how are you and where are you? Ivan: Hi Priscilla. I just got back from New Orleans for the US Member Extravaganza trip that we had. Everyone had a great time. We had hundreds of people come, mostly winners of the membership drives in the US. A good time was had by all. Priscilla: Good. Did you eat some great food? Ivan: There is always great food in New Orleans. Always. So today I am talking about two tips for moving people in the right direction. Let me see if I can give you a sense about what this is about. There are always people who are experts and have knowledge and information. The challenge is trying to get people to listen to that knowledge and information. This is particularly true- if you have ever had a leadership team role in any organization or in BNI, if you are on the leadership team, are an educational coordinator or whatever, whatever role of leadership that you have, but frankly, it could apply anywhere. You know, it’s getting people to go in one direction, particularly with business professionals, entrepreneurs, and salespeople, it is more like herding cats. It’s not very easy to get people to follow in the direction that you think they need to go. So I had a person who is a leader in BNI who went to one of the groups and was really appalled by how bad things were being run by the members. She let them know in no uncertain terms what they were doing wrong and what they needed to do to turn it around. What I found interesting later- I wasn’t there but heard about it- was that her assessment of the situation and the solutions that she proposed were spot on. Absolutely correct. But her presentation of the solution was dead wrong. She was so blunt with the group members that she received a really negative reaction from them, leaving the place in a bigger mess than it was when she first walked in. When I met her and talked to her about what she might have done differently, she was furious with me for not supporting her since she was right and the members of the group were absolutely wrong. I kept talking to her about the fact that I wasn’t arguing that she was right because she was. The problem that I had with how she handled the situation in that area- it was the way she handled the situation. It wasn’t whether she was right of wrong, because she was right, but how she handled it. I tried to explain. I shared one of my favorite sayings for a dilemma like this, which is “don’t burn down the barn to roast the pig”. If you are doing something,
