Penguin Speakers Bureau

Speaking Topics — Sheila Murray Bethel, PhD

Leadership:

• Inspirational Leadership: What Keeps People Engaged and Moving Ahead
  Have you ever wondered why people will walk through fire for some leaders or follow them anywhere just to see where the heck they are going? What do Kenneth Chenault, CEO American Express; Oprah Winfrey, CEO of Harpo Productions; and Christopher Cowdray, CEO of the Dorchester Collection hotels, teach us about inspirational leadership? What sets these leaders apart? What gives them that special competitive edge? The answer is they have developed the ability to inspire others to do and be their best. They have the insight and wisdom to connect with people in ways that turn a team into a community, accountability into trust, and language into people-bridges. It’s about giving followers the tools and skills they need to fulfill their inborn desire for achievement and contribution.
   
• What is your obligation as an inspiring leader? It’s to motivate, challenge, guide, and train your workforce for productivity and sustainability. Dr. Bethel helps clarify and identify the essential twenty-first century leadership qualities of competence, accountability, openness, language, values, perspective, power, and humility. These qualities are a fixed beacon giving direction and purpose to every member of your organization. When you inspire others by leading with these qualities, they are more engaged, productive, and committed, which in turn grows your business, benefits your customers, and strengthens your brand. There has never been a time when inspired leaders have been needed more. Leadership is not something conferred upon only the highly educated, the rich, or the powerful. You can be an inspired leader who makes a difference.
   
• The Quantum Leap from Manager to Leader
  What’s at the heart of the difference between a good manager and a great leader? Does your organization live by and sustain this deeply critical competence? Do you understand the single overriding factor that is the transforming element necessary to move from the job of manager to the power of being a leader? It is not rocket science, but without it you cannot lead effectively. More organizations and leaders have failed because they lost sight of this one factor more than any other cause. Once it is firmly in place, all else is possible—you can move mountains.
   
• Dr. Bethel demystifies the seemingly magic component—the DNA—that great leaders and great organizations possess. Using her experience working with over three thousand organizations, Dr. Bethel explains and demonstrates how to capture, understand, and apply the how and why of this single element in everyday situations. She uses real-life examples your audience understands. They’ll see that the crew of Apollo 13 had it, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both have it, and Andrea Jung, CEO of Avon, has it. Dr. Bethel shares these rich insights on how to earn trust, loyalty, and respect by discovering the one concept that allows people to make the quantum leap from manager to leader.

Motivation:

• Lemons into Lemonade: How to Get—and Stay—Motivated in Tough Times
  What are the enduring personal strengths needed to stay motivated and inspired in tough times? Can you really motivate yourself into a better life, satisfying job, and fulfilling relationship? In this reassuring and timely presentation, Dr. Bethel gives you a set of powerful life tools, step-by-step actions to build resilience, staying power, and enthusiasm for surviving and thriving even in the worst of times.
   
• Dr. Bethel deepens your understanding of the extraordinary Five Secrets to Happiness. Every day we see examples of people who have embraced these compelling principles to survive and conquer hardships. Michael J. Fox, the late Christopher Reeve, many cancer survivors, and the “come-back people” of Hurricane Katrina all discovered these eternal insights and wisdom. You will see that when used daily, they can literally turn your life around.
   
• You will learn to avoid the “negativity trap” and turn pessimistic responses and attitudes into positive actions. You will reexamine how to tap into your inner strengths, values, belief systems, and commitment so you have a fresher, better perspective on both your business and personal life. The bottom line is that you can live purposefully, improve your relationships, and be in control of your surroundings as you design the rich, fulfilling life you deserve. Lemons into Lemonade is all about common-sense skills that help you do and be your best, especially in tough times.

Team-Building:

• The Art and Skill of Creating and Leading Dynamic Teams
  Is your organization using all the team-building tools available to chart a course for the future you want? More than any other leadership quality, the art of team-building encompasses all of your other talents. It is the catalyst for all you want to accomplish. Times have changed and so has the concept of team-building. In a world where people feel increasingly disconnected and isolated, collaboration, trust, and camaraderie become more valuable every day. Technology gives us excellent tools as aids for team building. However, in the process of using these tools, we have become technologically excellent and humanly challenged. We must make sure that we continually make those human connections, no matter how far flung we are—across the office or across the world. We all want to be a part of something larger than we are and to feel that we can make a difference.
   
• How do you create an environment where teams are born and thrive? The payoffs for great team-building are enormous. To build and sustain your team you must concentrate on the five basics of servant-leader team-building: directing, motivating, training, delegating, and reward and recognition. People want to be led, not managed. As leader, you control the environment where teams are born, nurtured, and thrive. Football coaches Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi and business leaders Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo and Ursula Burns of Xerox are classic examples Dr. Bethel uses to think about teams. Dr. Bethel expands thinking, stirs imaginations, and opens minds about being a team builder in an age when working together cohesively has more challenges than anything we could have imagined in the twentieth century. It’s a new world, and we must take a new look at the art and skill of team building in the twenty-first century!

Change:

• Leading Others through the Gauntlet of Change
  Making real change is the hardest process any person or organization ever confronts. It is also one of the most rewarding. Yet some people resist productive change. What causes these barriers, and why are they so hard to overcome? How can you stay sane, healthy, and effective in times of turbulence?

• What are the indispensable ABC’s of personal and organizational change? In her content-rich change program, Dr. Bethel lays out clear, commonsense how-to’s designed to help you and your organization keep up with ambiguity and uncertainty as you move forward into a prosperous future. You‘ll learn how to maintain a sense of humor and balance while gaining more control in any change process. Using her own life of extraordinary change—from the ironing board to the executive board—Dr. Bethel shares a wealth of ideas, actions, and skills that decrease stress, prevent burnout, increase productivity, and make work and life more enjoyable. Discover how Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco, and Donna Shalala, President of the University of Miami, maintain productivity amidst change. You’ll learn how the language of change keeps people and situations in perspective, motivates and inspires a bias for action, builds cooperation and trust, and maintains focus on key issues in our topsy-turvy world. Leading in times of change is like making bread—you are the yeast that helps people rise to the occasion. Whether you lead a small team or major organization, Dr. Bethel fills your toolbox with a strong set of change tactics to lead others through the gauntlet of change.

Customer Service:

• Unforgettable Customer Service Begins with Great Leadership
  What can you learn by examining the shared values and practices of world-class service organizations such as Costco, Southwest Airlines, FedEx, the Dorchester Collection hotels, and Nordstrom? Dr. Bethel has given keynote presentations and conducted seminars for some of the finest service organizations in the world. She carefully explores the compelling evidence of their clear understanding of their reasons for being and their belief in a people-first leadership style. These organizations walk their talk and live an ethic that says “we care as much about our employees as our customers.” They understand that excellent customer service is always trickle down—leader to employee to customer. Sheila challenges commonly held myths about who you think your competition is and why a new perspective is so important. You’ll explore the three steps to move from customer service to the enduring quality of value-added customer focus:

• Customer Servicing, the operations part, doing the task well.
• Customer Relations, the human part, those one-on-one interactions.
• Customer Development, the sales and retention part that brings true satisfaction to every transaction.
   
• Dr. Bethel ties these three concepts together as links in a circular chain that has a single purpose: a satisfied, happy, loyal, referral-generating customer. Dr. Bethel offers powerful and practical ideas to help you convert customers into “ambassadors of good will” whose referrals cement your reputation, support your brand, and set you apart from your competitors. These three strategic tools open the way for you to join the realm of customer service giants and become a trendsetter, not a follower. Unforgettable customer service always begins with an investment in great servant leadership.

• Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Exceptional Front-Line Customer Service
  Would you be shocked to learn that 68 percent of your customers who quit doing business with you do so because they were treated badly? In our increasingly competitive global environment, you cannot afford to be a part of that statistic. Because response matters and caring really does count, it is critical that an emotional connection with your customers be the very foundation of your service ethic. This connection is often the most underestimated and underused service quality. The best front-line people—in person, on the phone, or on the net—are those with not only the standard skills of calming upset customers, asking questions, and being a good listener, but they also have that important emotional connection that says, “we really care about you as a customer and we want to earn your loyalty.” The most successful customer service teams have values and beliefs about serving others that translates into the ability to create loyal customers who become your unpaid ambassadors of goodwill.

• Dr. Bethel‘s ”The 4 A’s of World Class Service” have struck a responsive cord in organizations around the world. This formula has transformed entire customer service departments from mediocre to outstanding. Sheila gives new depth and meaning to the entire concept of customer service as an attitude, not a department. Unintentionally, every organization has a “sales prevention team.” Be sure your front-line people are not inadvertently part of the problem but rather part of the solution. This program is the perfect complement, a welcome addition, to your other customer service initiatives. It will enhance them, deepening the understanding of how and why true service benefits not only your customers and your company but also how and why it adds to the quality of life for your front-line people.