Issue No. 176 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features the perfect gift book to thank a team member for going the extra mile or to thank a donor for giving above and beyond. With 350 quotations, you’ll enjoy posting many on your staff bulletin board, like this one from Adelaide Anne Procter: “Dreams grow holy put in action.” And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Oxygen to the Soul
Yikes! You’re on deck to inspire your team at your weekly staff meeting. You need a short story with an encouraging point. A memorable quotation could transform the routine into something extraordinary. A good one-liner for the PowerPoint or the handout would help it sparkle. How about this zinger from Will Rogers?
“I would rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sold it.”
Or this reminder from Russ Reid, “Once you lose your enthusiasm, you lose your integrity. And once you lose your integrity, you’re a con man.”
I’ve got 348 more quotations for you and 25 one-page stories—the kind you can still remember to tell your spouse or friend several days later. When you’re not plumbing its depths for the right quotation for talks, newsletters or even board reports, this gorgeous coffee table book will inspire visitors in your reception area or friends and family in your home.
The quotations are organized around 25 uplifting topics: Make Integrity Your Watchword, Try Something New, Greet Change as a Friend, Be Prepared, Never Give Up!, Never Let Failure Stop You, and my favorite, Explore the World of Books. (After Charlie “Tremendous” Jones watched potential customers toss his business cards away, he gave away books with his name and address written inside them.)
In the quote collection on Keep Asking Questions, William Wister Haines cautions: “Don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions. They’re more easily handled than dumb mistakes.” And this wisdom from Peter Drucker: “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”
If your team (or your board members or major donors) need a bucket of encouragement, this book delivers. “Remember,” writes John C. Maxwell, “man does not live on bread alone: sometimes he needs a little buttering up.”
George Matthew Adams captured it in one poignant phrase when he wrote, “We should seize every opportunity to give encouragement. Encouragement is oxygen to the soul. The days are always dark enough. There is not need for us to emphasize the fact by spreading further gloom.”
I could go on and on and on…because if you love quotations, buy this book and you’ll feel like a kid in a candy store. “People have a way of becoming what you encourage them to be—not what you nag them to be,” says Scudder N. Parker. Ella Wheeler Wilcox says it memorably with this: “A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.”
My friend Bob Kelly, co-author of this gem, doesn’t just love quotations, he’s collected them—well over 1.5 million in 425 published volumes, perhaps the largest collection in the English-speaking world. For more on Bob, or to receive his monthly eNews, The KellyGram: Wit and Wisdom About the Wonderful and Often Wacky World of Words, visit his website at www.wordcrafters.info.
This book is sold exclusively by the publisher, Simple Truths, and can also be ordered in a handsome leather gift box for donor gifts or special encouragement and recognition events. To order, call 800-900-3427 (in the U.S.) or click on this title: The Best of Success: A Treasury of Inspiration, by Mac Anderson and Bob Kelly.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) William Arthur Ward wrote, “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end street.” Let’s discuss this. Does our corporate culture celebrate failure as a stepping stone or as a gravestone?
2) Football great Roger Staubach observed, “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” Think back over the last 30 days, who went the extra mile for you? Have you thanked this person yet?
Mediocre Media - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Printing Bucket, Chapter 19, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to religiously use a stylebook and a style sheet. Elton Trueblood once said that “pious shoddy is still shoddy.” When the writing and editing in your newsletters and on your website lean more toward mediocrity than excellence, it impacts your brand.
A stylebook and a style sheet—and a tough editor—will help. For more resources, read Chapter 19 and visit the Printing Bucket on my website.
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