July 24th, 2010
As a keynote speaker, consultant and business executive, I am often asked how to keep employees motivated. At our PhoneSmart call center, we work on motivation issues every day. Taking hundreds of phone calls a day can wear down even the most self motivated positive thinker. After all the things I have done and heard about to motivate employees, a carry-in lunch is by far the best.
Carry-in lunches are a great way to motivate your people and get them working together on a fun project. We try to have one at least once a month. You would be amazed to see how many excellent chefs you have on staff. People have so much fun preparing their favorite recipes and eating other people’s favorites. People spend a good week getting excited about what they will prepare and talking with everyone else about what they are preparing. The team work and cooperation that surround preparing a carry-in and cleaning up afterwards are very special and bonding moments.
You could not get better food from any restaurant or any caterer. Our carry-ins are delicious. You will be especially pleased if you have a diverse workforce with a wide range of ethnic heritages, because you and your coworkers will get to taste interesting treats you would otherwise never know about. The pride people feel when everyone raves about their dishes goes a long way to making people feel good about the people they work with and their workplace.
We sometimes have special theme carry-ins based on a holiday or a particular style of cooking. It is a lot of fun to see how everyone interprets the theme through their cooking. You’ll find that employees will become famous for a dish or two, and popular demand will mean they bring those dishes often.
Get this tradition started in your workplace and you will love the results. The eating will be great and your people will feel really good about it.
Tags: employee perks, food, motivation
Posted in Management, business speaker, keynote speaker, people | No Comments »
June 18th, 2010
I have been thinking of submitting an essay to This I Believe dot org for a while. So here it is:
This I Believe
I believe I’ll have a nap now
By Tron Jordheim
In the quiet moments that I steal from the events of the day, the responsibilities of career, the joy of family and the stress of the news, I contemplate the things I believe. When I find a way to sneak into a forest to stand below a grand oak tree and feel the wind on my face, I feel many things. I know that love rules out over selfishness and evil. I know that there is nothing more wonderful than nature. I remember the miracles of my life and the people who touched me along the way. Then I think of the challenges at hand: to keep one’s joy in the face of all that would squash it; to laugh when threatened and harassed; to gain prosperity through collaboration and not through domination; to feel young and alive in spite of the weight of the world.
It all seems rather tedious and exhausting. I would rather spend my day laughing with my wife and playing with my children, with a few breaks to toss a ball for my dogs. And I plan to do all of these things for at least a little while today. But in the mean time, there are bosses who expect a high rate of return, bills that need to be paid, nest eggs that need some careful attention and people who depend on me to feed their children. There are street battles raging closer by than I care to know. The haves and have-nots are fighting all around me as I strive to stay out of their way.
It takes a great deal of energy to feel as if one is living just another lovely day in paradise. I tire from the people and events that strain at my view of this beautiful world. I know I can maintain my joy and contribute to my fullest if I can just get a little rest. It feels like time to find a comfortable spot to recline for a while. I believe I’ll have a nap now.
Tron Jordheim is a business speaker, executive, writer and family guy.
Tags: believe, nature
Posted in business speaker, people, personal growth | No Comments »
May 22nd, 2010
You should take a look at the vaccine song on you tube.
My mom used to work in a polio ward before polio vaccine was invented. She told me horrible stories about watching kids die. I don’t doubt that there are vaccine manufacturers who have been less than 100% careful in their production. I don’t doubt that some vaccines have been released before they were thoroughly tested. I imagine there is such a thing as over-vaccinating children. But it is also clear to me that some horrible illnesses like polio, small pox and TB have stopped being the heartbreaking family destroying killers that they once were.
As a business speaker, I would not want to develop some new material about risk management that uses the resurgence of polio as a lesson in disregarding the potential impact of risks we assumed had passed. We do need vigilance and persistence to make sure former risks do not become future risks.
Tags: illness, polio, small pox, TB, vaccine
Posted in business speaker, health care debate, people, politics | 1 Comment »
April 29th, 2010
On of the things a business speaker likes to talk about is the moment when someone changes his or her mind. We all have opinions. Some are better informed than others. Some are just other people’s opinions that we regurgitate. But if we are lucky, we come across a time in our lives when we look at an opinion and realize that it is “off”. If we stand strong, we change our mind.
I am not so interested in the little changes, like when you might decide you really do like guacamole after having avoided it for years. I am more interested in the big changes, like when you decided that the invasion of Iraq really was a stupid thing, or when you decided that acquiring more parks and open space really are good things to do for the next generations.
It sounds like Governor Crist of Florida has had one of those moments. After taking an airplane tour over the massive oil spill that is uncontrollably taking over the Gulf of Mexico and after thinking about the people who died in the explosion, he said that he had changed his mind about off shore drilling. Crist is now convinced Florida does not need it or want it. After seeing how much damage can come from an accident, he has set aside one of his party’s biggest mantras: “Drill, baby, drill!”
Now Crist might be heard saying, “No drilling near Florida!”
As a business speaker, I would find a way to use this turnaround in a speech about leadership. Sometimes you have to take the right stance, even if it is opposite of the mantra of the day.
Tags: crist, drilling, florida, gulf of mexico, oil spill
Posted in Management, Travel, alternative energy, business speaker, history, people, personal growth, politics | No Comments »
April 14th, 2010
I rent a lot of cars traveling around as a business speaker and a corporate leader. I am usually unimpressed with what I drive. Granted I always rent the least expensive cars, so I don’t expect much. I have driven a few hybrids i really liked. I enjoyed the Prius. I thought it drove well, was comfortable and handled nicely. But the other day i rented a Volkswagen Jetta. I had two different Beetles back in the day and I loved them, so it was a sentimental moment. I really liked the Jetta. It was comfortable and it was zippy. I drove it in Dallas, which is one of the towns where you have to drive fast or get blown off the road. I was able to run with the big dogs and fly like the wind. I had no idea the Jetta was a sports car. I’d have to say it was a treat to drive.
Tags: dallas, hybrids, prius, volkswagen
Posted in Travel, business speaker, people | No Comments »
April 13th, 2010
I was looking at CNN for a little while last night while the commentators Roland Martin and Anderson Cooper were discussing the recent tendency by politicians in the South to honor the Confederate States of America. I certainly understand honoring your ancestors.
Some of my ancestors were the Vikings who traded and raided all across Northern and Western Europe and the Scottish/British/Irish Isles. I feel some pride in the amazing sailing skills and the courage and tenacity of my people. I can’t say I am proud of the raping and pillage that the Vikings apparently practiced at every opportunity. I am sure there are Irish, English and Scottish people who are still bitter about the havoc my ancestors spread. History and people are just not so simple.
Some of my other ancestors fought for the German Army in World War One. Although I am awed at their fortitude, their courage and their ability to survive, I can’t say there is a damn thing admirable about The Great War.
The War Between the States was one of those wars that had no good guys. The idea that the Confederates fought for their freedom is quite ironic, as one of the major ways they expressed their freedom was to enslave others. The Unionists began the war with no noble goal. The only goal was to preserve the Union.
I am sure there were individual acts of perseverance, persistence and heroism. I am sure there were Confederate soldiers who snuck food to the starving prisoners at Andersonville. I am sure some of Sherman’s troops snuck food to the women and children who were left homeless and destitute by the March to the Sea. I am sure there must have been a slave owner who helped his slaves evacuate to a safe and remote area like the Gullah Coast where they could live in relative seclusion and safety while the war raged in other areas. I am sure there must have been a Pennsylvania farmer who hid, nursed and fed a wounded Confederate boy-soldier until it was safe for him to sneak back home to Virginia.
I live in Missouri, which was a particularly nasty place before, during and right after the War Between the States. There was so much brutality on all sides, that it is just impossible to declare any side the good guy. The bitterness still survives at some level. If you have ever seen the Clint Eastwood movie, “The Outlaw Josie Wales”, then you know a little bit of the Missouri story. Even today, the Kansas KU sports team is called the “Jay Hawks”, which was the name the Kansas border raiding militias went by. Talking about not being PC. This is certainly as offensive to people with Confederate ancestors as it must be for Native Americans of the Northern Plains to see a team named the “Custers”.
It was just a few years ago that Kansas and Missouri decided to change the name of their college sports rivalry from “The border war” to “The border showdown”.
Even so, Kansas and Missouri seem to have mostly forgiven each other. Outside of the sports rivalries and away from the battle field memorials, there is not a lot of talk of the bad old days.
It might be a good idea for all the ancestors of The War of Secession to just admit it was an ugly time and forgive each other.
Forgiving old enemies is not easy. I lost some of my family to the German death camps in World War Two. But in my days as a dog trainer, I had dog training buddies in Germany who had been SS officers in the war. I traveled to Germany frequently to train dogs and to buy dogs in the 1980s. It was pretty weird training dogs, drinking beer and sharing a few laughs with the guys who might have shoved my great grand mother into a crowded, foul smelling railroad stock car and locked the door behind her. My dog training buddies and I never talked about the bad old days, except to acknowledge that they played a role and that my family paid a price. We shrugged and agreed it was a long time ago. We agreed to focus on the present and focus on trying to move on. The fires of hate and ignorance had long burned out.
I lived in New York during a very racist and dangerous time in the 1970s and 1980s. My family was on both sides. The white side of my family tried to deal with it as best they could. The black side of my family tried to not get killed. It was an ugly time. So we all try to forgive the people who stoked the fires of hate and ignorance, while we try to move on.
But the fires of hate and ignorance still seem to benefit the scammers and the charlatans who find wealth and power in the fear and anger they fuel. Forgiving is not enough. How to we help people feel the futility of hate and vengeance? How do we help them see how they are being used as patsies in political scams to help charlatans rise to wealth and power?
I am tired of having to forgive people for their unspeakable acts of cruelty and foolishness. Let’s move on to something else, please. How about something a little more constructive and forward looking?
Tags: anderson cooper, cnn, confederate, jay hawks, roland martin, seccession, the great war, vikings
Posted in history, people, personal growth, politics, war and peace | 4 Comments »
April 13th, 2010
A business speaker is generally a noun or a pronoun. You get some information from the speaker or you have an enjoyable time listening to the speaker. But when someone becomes a verb, you have impact. As an example, I had the honor of training sales people to go door to door placing free trails for bottled water coolers and bottled water service. I did not invent the methods I found most effective. I did work hard to perfect the talk, the actions and the responses. The routine developed a name. It was called “Troning”. I didn’t name it, but I ran with it.
Becoming a verb helps people understand and internalize what you are trying to teach them and help them mimic and repeat your successes. So how can you become a verb?
Tags: bottled water, noun, speaker, training, verb
Posted in Management, business speaker, marketing, people, personal growth | No Comments »
March 23rd, 2010
As a business speaker, I am always amused and sometimes appalled at hearing legislators, board members and committee members speak their minds. Clearly the nation’s health care system needed big changes. Did we get the changes we needed? Do we even know what we needed? Will the issues of quality of care and preventative activities get the prominence they deserve?
If you listen to what the people say who did not support this bill, we have just thrown our nation and our collective futures to the dogs. That seems a little over-reactive to me. My impression is that the party out of power tends to spend more time posturing than anything else.
It reminds me of playing street hockey back in Brooklyn when I was a kid. There was this one guy from a few blocks over who liked to play hockey against my block. He was always starting fights and being a sore loser. One time he skated hard at me to try and check me against a parked car. You see the cars parked in the street served as our “boards”. He missed me because I moved out of his way. He slammed into the car and crashed all over himself, falling to the street. He jumped up and started yelling about how he hit me hard and I went down and I was a sore loser. I had to laugh out loud. But after a few minutes of his speech, a few kids thought he had actually checked me to the street, even though they saw what happened.
Politics, like street hockey, has some odd moments.
Tags: brooklyn, business, cars, dogs, health care bill, hockey, legislators
Posted in Management, business speaker, dogs, health care debate, marketing, people, personal growth | No Comments »
March 6th, 2010
The cab driver’s kids.
As a business speaker, I love to talk to people about their businesses. After the end of the Inside Self Storage World Expo, I jumped into a cab to take me to McCarran airport and home. I had been gone from home for what seemed like a very long time. The cab driver was playing a CD of music that sounded East African and had a nice beat and an endearing melody. So I struck up a conversation.
I said, “I am enjoying this song. What language are they singing in?” “Ethiopian”, he said proudly. So we chatted about music and we chatted about how busy Las Vegas seemed this week. He asked me if I had ever been to Africa or to Ethiopia. I said I had not, but that I had heard that Ethiopia was a beautiful land.
The cab driver’s kids live in Ethiopia in a small town outside of Addis Ababa. He hasn’t been home to see them in a year. When he can go, it takes him 19 hours to fly from Las Vegas to Washington-Dulles, where he has a four hour layover before flying to Rome to connect to the flight to Ethiopia.
Last year he was home to see his kids twice. One time a few years ago, he flew through Frankfurt on Lufthansa and saved two hours of layover time.
The can driver sends his wife $300.00 a month. That is enough to support the cab driver’s wife, the cab driver’s two kids and his brother’s family. They don’t live in style, but they manage to get by. There is little work in Ethiopia and even less cash. So a few American Dollars become significant.
The cab driver used to live in California, but the cost of living was too high. In California he had to drive a cab 16 hours a day, six days a week in order to be able to send home $300.00 a month. In Las Vegas, he can make more money, spend less money and save a little money driving 12 hours a day, six days a week.
He lives in a cheap apartment he shares with three other cab drivers who send money home to their families every month in Ethiopia, Somalia and Iraq.
He is saving money to bring his family over to the U.S. He just finished getting his US citizenship. It took him three years and about $2,000 to make it happen. There are no opportunities for his children in Ethiopia. His oldest child is a ten year old boy. At 14, the army will come and take him away. He doesn’t have a lot of time to get his children out.
He hopes his kids will get a good education in the US. He hopes they will not fall in with a bad crowd of kids when they get here. He hopes the corruption and inconsistencies in the Ethiopian system won’t prevent him from getting his family here before his boy is conscripted. In the US he can have some hopes for the future.
As we pulled up to the curb at the American Airlines door, I told him I would complain less about being gone from my kids when I travel for work. I wished him luck. And I wished his kids luck, too.
Tags: africa, american arilines, inside self storage world expo, kids, las vegas, lufthansa, McCarran
Posted in Management, Travel, business speaker, marketing, people | 1 Comment »
February 19th, 2010
A business blogger is a business speaker
A speaker has more than a few ways to let his voice be heard. Standing in front of a group trying to make a point, teach a lesson or motivate some action is certainly one way. Writing a story around a point is another. Writing a blog post works too.
There are so many voices competing for people’s attention that sometimes people do not have the time or the interest to listen to a business speaker. Some times people only have a few minute to devote to skimming a blog post. So how do you get your voice heard in a short post? Get to the point.
Make a point worth making. Prove your point. Then let the reader go. You said your piece. Your voice was heard. Now let the reader go. If your point was interesting or useful, the reader will come back again.
So when a business speaker cannot get in front of a big group for a long period of time, he can get in front of a small group for a small time in a blog. Now that you are in front of me, I feel like I may have made my point and I will let you go now. I hope you come back.
Tags: blogger, motivation, speaker, teaching, writing
Posted in Management, business speaker, people, personal growth | No Comments »
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