The first step in building better work relationships is to become aware of the differences among people and to be willing to accept these differences as a positive force within your organization or team.

By becoming a “conscious communicator,” you will be better able to build constructive and beneficial work relationships by learning how to analyze situations and consciously select and use productive communication strategies.

Learn new techniques for results-oriented communication and why successful work relationships help build successful careers.  Think about the following as you strive to build working relationships:

1. How do I build rapport and achieve trust?
2. What fundamental competencies are needed to achieve solid work relationships?
3. How do I avoid communication mistakes such as misinterpreting others or ineffective listening?
4. How does understanding emotions translate into workplace emotional intelligence?
5. How can I become a more effective team member and leader by using polished and conscious communication?
6. What are keys to excellent communication:  Do I observe, listen, analyze, plan and communicate?

If you want to build better work relationships, maximize impact, increase productivity, and drive results by applying effective communication and relationship management, it is important to take a look at your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities in your organization or team relationships.

What steps will you take to build better work relationships?

With so many simultaneous demands on your time, sustaining focused energy is no longer an option.  It’s a “must-have” skill for doing your job well and keeping your position viable.  Are you “hard-wired” to stay focused on a situation or task in spite of distractions, fatigue and boredom?  What practical tools and techniques can help you make the best of your innate strengths, mitigate your challenges, stay focused and spend more time and energy on what you like doing best – while still getting all your other work done?

Are you expected to deliver maximum productivity and results despite interruptions, an excessive workload and other obstacles?

Try instituting the following to help you stay focused and engaged:

1.    Assess your “hard-wired” strengths and weaknesses
2.    Implement behaviors to help you stay energized and engaged
3.    Identify the three most important factors for getting instant clarity and focus
4.    Set up your environment to work for you, not against you
5.    Implement techniques for eliminating your worst interruptions
6.    Identify the “resistance” (i.e. Skype, checking emails) in your systems that throw you out of focus
7.    Minimize negative energy that saps your strength
8.    Utilize the right sensory tools for you:  auditory, visual or tactile
9.    Understand why you experience attention and focus challenges
10.    Slow down so you can speed through your day’s work

Let’s face it.  We CAN’T DO IT ALL, even though we think we can.  So, what steps are you going to take to help you stay focused and engaged?

• Readers – These participants commit to reading books, posting updates in their blogs or the other readers’ blogs or leave comments on the Read-a-Thon site. Your updates can include what you’re reading, how many pages you’ve read since your last update, and how much time you’ve spent reading since your last update. Keep a running total of time spent reading and the number of books/pages read. Offer book reviews when you have finished another book. You may want to choose short books, light reading, humorous books and graphic novels that will hold your interest. You may not have the attention span for really dense nonfiction. Be careful about drinking too much caffeine. It may cause you to crash. You may want to drink something lightly caffeinated like green tea throughout the day. Switch reading spots, positions and locations in your house every hour or so to keep it interesting. You will find a list of books here. Keep in mind it was written in 2008 so you have an additional wide variety of choices that have been published since then. Keep in mind that e-books count, also.
• Cheerleaders – This role requires a commitment of one hour minimum during the 24 hour period. As a Cheerleader, you will visit the blogs of other readers and encourage everyone. You will keep Readers from feeling isolated as they spend their day reading.
• Mini-Challenge Host – Mini-challenges are something that bloggers host so that Readers can take a break from their reading. They are optional, but add a fun element to the day. Readers are eligible to win prizes by participating in mini-challenges.
• Prize Donor – If you are interested in donating a prize, just send an email to DeweyReadathon@gmail.com and let them know what you would like to donate. They will be in touch with you, and appreciate your support.

If you are interested in volunteering to help with one of the committees for the Read-a-Thon, fill out the form here. Don’t forget to email Jaclyn@CroftVS.com after you have signed up to participate at their website.

To sign up for the Read-a-Thon, click on this link and fill in the form at the bottom of the page. Then send an email to Jaclyn@croftvs.com to let her know you will be participating. After the Read-a-Thon is over, you will need to send her another email with the total number of minutes you personally read and how many mini-challenges you participated in during the 24 hour period. You might win one of the prizes! If you would like to be on a team with other Virtual Assistants, let Jaclyn know that, too, and how many hours you will be able to participate.

After you have signed up online, you will receive more information from the Read-a-Thon itself, and also information from us as we get closer to October 22.

Be sure to write a blog post in your own blog about the upcoming Read-a-Thon. You can get buttons from their site to add to your posts or to your website. Just attach a link to their website. Let’s get the information out there. If you have children, be sure their schools know about this and push the Read-a-Thon to their students. As your neighbors, family members and friends to donate to Reading Is Fundamental (www.RIF.org)

You may be wondering how you can participate in addition to being one of the Readers. Or perhaps you don’t want to be a Reader at all, but you’d still like to give something toward the Read-a-Thon. There are few types of participants in the Read-a-Thon – Readers, Cheerleaders, Mini-Challenge Hosts, and Prize Donors. We will be giving you more information about each of these types of participants later in the week.

Do you love to read? Most Virtual Assistants do; I think it’s part of our nature.  Here at VALeague, we are passionate about literacy. We’d be willing to bet that you are, too.

That is why we are passionate about Dewey’s Read-A-Thon, coming up on Saturday, October 22. You can read more about it at http://24hourreadathon.com. What is a Read-a-Thon? Simple. For 24 hours we read books, post to our blogs about what we are reading, and visit other readers’ blogs or the Read-A-Thon’s blog to encourage and cheer other readers on. We also participate in mini-challenges throughout the day. These mini-challenges will be posted on the Read-a-Thon website on a regular basis throughout the 24 hour period. The most important part of the Read-a-Thon is that we will be soliciting donations to Reading Is Fundamental or to your local literacy program.

The idea is for everyone participating, all across the globe, to be reading during the same 24 hour period. Listed on he Read-A-Thon’s website are the start times for every time zone. You can check out the start time for your time zone here http://24hourreadathon.com/start-times/. Here in the CST time zone, for instance, we will be starting at 7:00 am on Saturday, October 22 and reading for 24 hours until 7:00 am on Sunday, October 23. Now I know what you’re thinking – “How in the world can I read for 24 hours straight? I need to sleep. I have to eat. I have ‘stuff’ to do.” The answer is simple. We create teams. You may read for the first four hours, then pass the virtual baton to the next team member who reads for the next four hours. That team member then passes the baton to the next, etc. Your team can have as many members on it as you like. Do you have kids? Perfect! What an opportunity to instill into them the love of reading. Try reading their books to them during your reading time. Your entire family can be a team. Wondering where to find a team? No problem. Send an email to Jaclyn Croft at Jaclyn@croftvs.com and let her know you want to be on a team and how much time you think you will be able to read during that period. We will put you on a team of other Virtual Assistants who also want to participate. How awesome would it be to have several teams of Virtual Assistants participating in something like this?

Want to up the ante a little? Great. How about a contest. We will be offering a prize to the person who reads the most minutes AND another prize to the person who does the most mini-challenges. All you need to do is comment here AND send an email to Jaclyn at Jaclyn@croftvs.com by no later than Wednesday, October 26. Let her know how many minutes you read, how many mini-challenges you participated in, and how much money you were able to donate to your organization of choice. Jaclyn will track the information and we will announce the winners right here on our blog. What are the prizes? Well, what else but Amazon gift cards, of course!

You may just be learning about the Virtual Assistance League, but for all the people who’ve been putting it together behind the scenes for the last year or more this day has been a long time coming! What started out as a silly idea for something entirely different twisted and turned itself into what you see today.

We know you have a lot of choices when it comes to your membership budget each year and we hope you’ll give us a shot. Heck, we even offer monthly memberships for those that just want to dip their toes into the water.

There’s a reason that our little catchphrase is “Building Relationships, Building Businesses” around here. We truly believe that in order to build your business you absolutely must build relationships. This is just a casual, informative and downright fun way to do just that.

We’re a little nervous and a lot proud of what we’re doing. Check out the site and let us know in the comments what you think!

Let’s play ball,
Candy & Lanel