Cool, Clear Water

Feel and Function Better by Dramatizing Your Ideas

Julie, Office Assistant for an electrical contractor in Battle Ground, WA, told Session 9B of Turbo's Leadership Development Lab:

"Drinking my daily quota of water has always been pretty important to me. I know I feel and function better when I remember to adequately hydrate. After a couple of months of my two co-workers telling me why they NEVER drank water, I was horrified. They are both 50-year-old ladies and I know they care about their bodies, so enough was enough. I decided to use Leadership Principle #9 of Turbo's 15 Leadership Principles, 'Dramatize Your Ideas.' I went online where I knew there was a picture of the human body with the header 'Got Water?' that I could print off. I printed out a color copy on 11x17" paper to make it as big as I could. Then I hung it on the wall next to our portable filtered water stand. I used this image to help me explain all the benefits to the body, our joints and organs, of drinking lots of water. Much to my joy, the other office ladies started drinking lots of water, even challenging each other to see if they could be sure to get their daily quota of 8 8-ounce glasses of water a day.

"The lesson I learned from this experience is the importance of dramatizing any idea I want to sell, to get a behavior change or the results I want from others.

"The action I call you to take is to stop begging, worrying or complaining and start selling and persuading by dramatizing your ideas when you want people to do something new and different.

"The benefit you will gain is people will listen to you, they will stop their old ways and they will follow your recommendations :) ."

One of my all-time favorite quotes is Ralph Waldo Emerson's "do nothing ordinary." The positive expression of this thought is "dramatize your ideas." Where can you follow Julie's call to action?

• Safety meetings - stop preaching, start dramatizing your ideas
• Skills and crafts training - stop telling, start showing, dramatizing your ideas
• Paperwork requirements - stop begging and threatening, dramatize your ideas
• Production targets - stop criticizing and complaining, start dramatizing your ideas

When you start dramatizing your ideas, you may be amazed at how much easier it is to get the changed behavior you desire.

Make your next team meeting a launching pad into 2017
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How to Turbocharge You, 5 Steps to Tap Your True Potential - A 50-minute workshop designed to make your last team meeting of the year a launching pad into 2017.

This program is based on our success in working with hundreds of senior management teams over the past 30+ years. This is a way to capture and harness the natural optimism of the New Year. You will create immediate breakthroughs in key performance areas, and you will sustain this vision of victory frame throughout the year.