Gilder Group International

Welcome to Our Blog!

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Welcome to our blog! Gilder Group International (GGI) is a Dallas-based consulting firm that specializes in learning, human performance and organizational development (OD) services. We partner with organizations that use continuous learning to empower their people to grow themselves and grow the business. Founded by Michelle Y. Gilder, with her passion for empowering people, GGI’s team of Experienced Practitioners have collectively devoted 100+ years to sharing the timeless principles of Mastering Leadership.

The meaning of the word Mastery as defined by Art Kleiner, “Mastery, as we use the word today, reflects maître. It means the capacity not only to produce results, but also to “master” the principles underlying the way you produce results” – -from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Peter Senge, et. al.

In his book, The Servant, author James C. Hunter defines Leadership as “the skill of influencing people to work enthusiastically toward goals identified as being for the common good”.

We present this blog as an interactive learning forum to inform, invite open dialogue and present guest blog entries from interesting voices, authorities and experts. We invite YOU too, to become a guest blog author, contribute your expertise as a post and hope you find it engaging and transformative.  Leadership is the primary focus, additionally, we offer 4 areas of mastery for leaders.

(To become a Guest Blog Author, please contact us via our email address in the Contact section, for further details.)

Remember a Name: Make Someone’s Day!

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By Guest Blog Author, David Reed

I was just watching one of my favorite movies, Pretty Woman. (Don’t laugh) There are a couple of scenes that I wanted to reflect on for a minute. Early in the movie, the hotel manager is finishing a conversation with Edward Lewis (played by Richard Gere) and as Edward turns to walk away the manager mentions that his name is Bernard Thompson. It appears that Edward ignores the manager.

At the end of the movie, there is a scene when Edward is again talking with the hotel manager. Edward asks the manager to return some jewelry for him. The conversation ends with Edward thanking the manager by saying: “Thank you Mr. Thompson.”

You can see the pride in the face of Mr. Thompson. He had thought that the important Mr. Lewis did not know his name, but being called by name made him feel special.

Regardless of who you are and your position in society or within a company, work on remembering the names of people to meet. Calling someone by name is a sign of respect and a great secret to delivering exceptional customer service! Work on it! Develop a method to help you recall someone’s name. You never know when you will make someone’s day by simply calling them by name.

David Reed is President of Customer Centered Consulting Group, Inc. His firm provides speaking, training, and consulting services for a wide variety of clients. Contact David at info@cccginc.com.

Is Your Team High Performing?

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Our Building High Performance Teams learning events  begin with the question, “Is your team high performing?” Answers range from yes to don’t know. Crystal clear roles – how we design and divide tasks – is one of the six elements of a high performance team,  and is one of the top 3 areas that prevents high performance.

To demonstrate the concept of roles we ask participants to think of a high performance  automobile and they always choose a make/model of sports car. Each group chooses a part on the sports car they want to represent. Most groups really have fun with this by creating a drawing or even building a model of the represented part. They then discuss the role of the part, how the part contributes to the sports cars’ high performance, and what happens to performance when the part functions as designed and what happens when it doesn’t.

We use the sports car example successfully to facilitate participants understanding of the concept of roles and how crystal clear roles help build a high performance team.

Mastering Leadership question(s): Are your team members crystal clear about their roles? What barriers prevent the high performance of your team?

How to Gain Cooperation, Buy-In, and Ownership

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Our success as leaders, managers, teams, or even in life will ultimately depend on how well we communicate. Communication  is the common thread throughout our learning events, performance coaching, process improvement projects, and mediation’s. Leaders, managers, and people of influence typically ask “how do I get cooperation, buy-in, and create ownership on my team or work group?” From our experience in many, many organizations, domestic and international, we have found that one of the three ways to attain cooperation, buy-in, and create ownership is to ask people what they think versus telling what to think or what you think. Asking questions is a powerful communication strategy, because it demonstrates you care enough -about the thoughts and opinions of others- to ask.

Mastering Leadership question(s): How do you get others to cooperate? What do you do to get buy-in on an idea? Is creating ownership important to getting things done on your team or work group?