Leadership requires dealing with others, and many leaders are therefore extroverts. If you find yourself with a boss who is an introvert -- energized by being alone, and drained when dealing with others -- you may have to make serious adjustments to your normal style in order to help that boss be effective. On his Open Loops blog, school principal Bert Webb suggests:

• Give your introverted boss time. Introverts need to collect information about situations, and then need time to analyze it before slowly coming to a conclusion. It's only afterward that they are comfortable sharing. So when approaching an introvert with a project or problem, give them the information and offer to check back later.
• Take the responsibility to follow-up. Introverts are notorious for analyzing things but not following up. Be prepared to follow up with your supervisor -- multiple times if necessary.
• Offer to take the lead in presentations or work with groups when it doesn't undermine the introverted boss's authority. Introverts want anything they say or do to be perfect and procrastinate when it comes to standing in front of a group to share information. Help by offering to take the lead role. But there are times when the troops need to see the general and you must help the boss at those points to move out of his or her comfort zone.
• Offer to work as a team to resolve corporate or interdepartmental conflicts. Introverts need help expressing themselves in conflict situations.

If your meeting has an agenda -- and it should -- effectiveness may depend on how good you are at keeping people focused on those items when they are inclined to scurry down some time-wasting rabbit trails. Here are some transition lines from the Productivity Café blog to regain focus:

• We seem to be off the agenda at the moment. What you're talking about is important and it should be the topic of a separate meeting. Let's get back to the point where we got off the agenda. We were on item #4….
• That discussion seems to involve just the two of you. Let's take advantage of everyone being together and get back to the topics on the agenda that concern everyone. Would you two take that off-line and summarize your conclusions in an e-mail?
• We are taking a bit too much time on this topic if we're going to wrap the meeting up by 11:30.
• If anyone has something they feel compelled to add, please take a few seconds to do so now. Then, we're going to move on.
• You guys are making me crazy with all this technical detail - I thought we were going to discuss the topic from a higher level. Am I missing something?
• Excuse me, I seem to have lost my place following the conversation and seeing how it meshes with the agenda. So that I can stay with the program, would you help me make that connection?

Advertising guru Roy H. Williams says most women can tell at least one funny story about a hideous first date in which a misguided man spent the entire evening talking about how wonderful he was. That first person perspective, he argues, is why most people also detest mainstream marketing, where the company glowingly talks about how wonderful it is. To avoid such AdSpeak, he recommends in his Monday Morning Memo:

• Limit self-reference in your marketing. Reduce the number of times you refer to your company or your product in your ads.
• Don't say how good you are -- let your customers say it. For example, instead of telling how honest you are, say something that only an honest person would say. Then the customer will respond, "Wow, that's honest."
• Admit the downside. That makes the upside easier to believe.

Show jumper and horse whisperer Kelly Marks has had to learn about people whispering as she runs her business.

"Horses respond to body language. You have to act confident, even if you are not, otherwise you will send out the wrong message. If they don't see you as a leader, they can become even more anxious," she told Management Today.

"And you're crazy to get angry with horses. You have to get on their wavelength. People are the same. But horses couldn't care less if someone is the boss or the secretary -- their response is all down to how you do the job."

• Marketing consultant Jay Lipe recommends including a section in your business proposals called "Cost Of Not Doing Business" that outlines the costs the prospect firm will incur by not doing business with you, such as sales lost to competitors, lower awareness, or lost momentum.
  (Source: Smart Marketing newsletter)
• If you're nervous about a forthcoming presentation, consultant Ann Miller suggests thinking it's a conversation, not a presentation.
  (Source: www.annemiller.com)
• Label the purpose of every regular or recurring activity on your quarterly calendar and highlight those activities that are connected to your top five priorities. This simple exercise will reveal where you are squandering your time.)
  (Source: Harvard Business Online)
• You can't change a whiner, but when customers whine make an effort to embrace the whining. When they ask for something, put on your biggest smile and say, "Of course!" That will be a welcome change from the treatment they normally receive.)
  (Source: Winning At Work Newsletter)
• Gen Y employees live in an instant messaging world. They often need constant gratification and instantaneous positive feedback.
  (Source: SystematicHR.com)

Each case is decided according to what you're branding and what it means to the audience involved.

Brands are always defined in terms of specific audiences, just as you might mean slightly different things to your spouse or kids, your boss or neighbours or friends on your soccer team. Similarly, you may have a single brand, but it can have many faces.

Sometimes you have two closely related but distinct brands, with one in the foreground of attention and one in the background. For example, take a pie-eating fundraiser for children in need. If supporters are coming because the children's program is a good cause, the case for support is the foreground brand. If they're coming for the pie, however, the event (and the pie) should be the primary brand, with the cause kept in the background as an association.

Finally (and we frequently encounter this), you may have a family of brands. Think of a family known for having a certain character -- but the siblings all have distinct individual identities. The umbrella "family" brand stresses what the members have in common. The member brands emphasize what makes each one different and special.

One example might be a group of hospitals branded around shared features of, say, compassionate care or research or serving the same catchment area. As sub-brands, they are distinctive individually because of their different sites or types of clinical programs. For another example, think of Microsoft Office -- the "family" brand for Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and other software.

Some brands don't mix in a family -- can you imagine an oil company trying to brand its own wine, or a diaper-maker launching a chocolate bar brand? In that case, you need two separate and distinct brands.

Perhaps it's the time of year, but recently we have encountered several management teams and boards of directors taking a close look at the concept of a charter.

Team charters are simply documents that function as roadmaps -- defining the purpose of the team, how it will work, and what outcomes the team hopes to achieve. They are especially useful at the beginning of a project, but have value for any team that needs to regroup or make course corrections for a new phase of its journey. The benefit is that all team members involved are clear about where they're heading, what they expect of each other, and the extent of the team's authority and responsibility.

8020Info advises on and facilitates effective team decision-making processes. We would be pleased to discuss your needs and welcome enquiries at (613) 542-8020, or by email at watercooler@8020info.com.

"Even the winner of an argument has trouble sleeping."

   - Takashima Gyokutoro