Twins - Destined for Greatness

An email I sent this morning to the parents of a team I'll be coaching this spring:

Parents:

Yes, there might be snow on the ground on this first day of spring, but warmer, sunnier days lie ahead.  As evidence, I deliver you the following exciting news from Pelham Little League baseball: 

Your son or daughter has been drafted by one of Pelham's elite recreation baseball teams, the American League Twins.  We have an extroadinarily proud tradition.  I have never, ever lost a title as manager of the American League Twins, and this year will be no exception.

Please see the attached official final roster.  No, those are not typos - that's really our team.  Assistant coaches, Dougherty and Zale, and I combed through mountains of data - school and medical records, each player's historical statistics, teacher interviews, and, of course, genetic data  - to find the true gems available in this year's draft. 

When I examined our final roster and saw names like Min, Koff, Tam, Soderberg, Conrad, White and Mackool, I honestly wondered what draft list the other managers could possibly have been choosing from.  I've coached a few of these greats before, most recently on last year's T-Ball Tigers, so I knew we'd get some returning talent.  And, though it might have appeared as though I spent all of last season goofing around on the field, I was taking careful stock of pockets of talent around the league.  From the looks of things, I was able to draft them all.

Please sit tight as I await information about field availability and regular season and post-season schedules from the League.  As you probably know, Pelham field space is at a premium in spring, so we will unfortunately not be permitted to schedule two-a-day practices.  (If I've told Pelham Little League once, I've told them a thousand times: player development needs to be a priority.  Apparently, my message has fallen on deaf ears.)  In fact, most of our practice time will take place right before we play games.  It's a good thing we drafted so well - we won't need much practice.

Most managers these days aim for "fun."  That's all fine and well, unless you want to win championships, which I very much do.  My "fun" happens when I "win."  And, though the PLL rules expressly state, "No score is kept. No wins or losses.", rest assured I'll be keeping score and that we'll be winning.  The trophies that every kid gets at the end of the season will actually mean something to our kids.

By way of logistics:

·         I will need some help coordinating snack time. Last season I had the distinct pleasure of working with Tigers' Snack Czar, Sheri Min, who served admirably.  But I believe I'll be moving in a different direction this year.  See, she's only a doctor--an OB-GYN, to be precise.  Nutrition being as important as it is, I'm desperately hoping one among you is a registered dietician or nutritionist (or a physician with particular expertise in pediatric nurtrition).  If interested, please send a detailed resume.

·         Coaches Dougherty and Zale and I will likely need extra assistant coaches.  (Kindly cast aside any fantasies of actually possessing any control or influence over this team  - I won't even let Dougherty or Zale have that, and you'll technically fall beneath them on the org chart.)  Our drills are incredibly complex, and our secret success sauce can be boiled down to our ability to provide individualized attention. 

American League baseball is a big commitment - at least an hour a week.  Please speak with your first grader today and make sure he or she is committed to greatness.  It will be a wonderful season - it always is.

That's all for now.  Again, I'll send along practice/game information when I receive it.

Welcome to the Twins!

Sean O'Neil, Team Manager

Twins

Let’s Hop on a Call!

Got an idea today when I opened my calendar and saw, horror of horrors, a perfectly clean slate.  My To Do list was long—

1.       complete materials for an upcoming presentation,

2.       finalize a proposal,

3.       follow up with two people who have already received proposals, and

4.       draft a partnership agreement. 

But I had nothing actually booked on my calendar, and like so many others, I gauge my value by how scheduled I am. 

On Judgment Day, they’ll look to my calendar and asked what I did with all my time.  I need to fill a block or two.  Better schedule a conference call: 

·         I’ll draft a “High Importance” email, and add an attention-grabbing subject header to turn heads—“URGENT, MANDATORY, ALL HANDS CALL TODAY!!!!”  That ought to do it.

·         I’ll turn the email into one of those Outlook invitations, so when people click to “Accept,” the call will appear on their calendars too. 

·         I’ll have my assistant send the email (I wouldn’t look very busy if others knew I knew how to do anything so administrative). 

·         I’ll intentionally invite many more people than necessary, which will add to the sense of urgency I’m trying to create and demonstrate how far my span of influence reaches. 

·         I’ll include people across many time zones, which will allow us to fill any beginning-of-the-call awkwardness with surfacey questions about the weather in other parts of the world (an international call, of course—I’m big time, baby), and how early or late it is there or here.

·         As the call initiator, I’ll arrive late, so others will be forced to sit in isolated, hold-music-filled virtual chambers, anticipating my arrival with frantic texts to each other—“is anyone else on?”, “it’s 2 EASTERN time, right?”

·         When I arrive, I’ll sound breathless and apologize profusely that “my 1 o’clock ran over” and apologize again that I have a “hard stop at 3” and thank everyone for making the call on such short notice and add “but I think we all agree that with all the emails flying back and forth, we had no choice but to get the relevant parties on a call ASAP.”

·         I’ll begin with, “We have a lot to get through, so let’s get started.”  I’ll state firmly the “purpose for this call,” and list out “today’s jam-packed agenda” and “our desired outcomes.” I’ll pretend I’m throwing these together on the spot, but I’ll have them carefully scripted so I come off as coherent, well-organized, and solid on my feet.

·         I’ll take this call from a conference room so I can put attendees on speakerphone and talk over them and pretend I don’t hear them when they’re trying to talk.

·         Also, I’ll have people from “my side” in my conference room so I can periodically mute our phone and make classic witty jokes at the expense of the rambling dopes from “the other side.”  We’ll all laugh like crazy.

·         I’ll exert my authority periodically and strategically: “Who’s going to take ownership of that?” and “Can we hear from someone over in engineering?  You guys have to weigh in on this, and you’ve been awfully quiet.”

·         With all we have to get through, and with so many people on the call, and with all my witty muted jokes to colleagues and strategically-timed authority exertions, we accomplish little.

·         Promptly at 2:56, I'll say, apologetically, “Hey, I’m going to have to run to my 3.  As I indicated, it’s a hard stop.  Looks like we’re going to need to hop on another call tomorrow to tie up the remaining loose ends.”

·         We'll agree on a time.  I'll tell them I’ll have my assistant “shoot out another invitation” and add that “we can use the same bridge.” 

I'll leave the conference room in a hurry, but pleased.  While we will have accomplished little, we have a plan to move closer to accomplishment tomorrow.  Best part is that I will have taken no ownership of anything other than setting up tomorrow’s call, and now I can actually get to my To Do list.

I’m very busy, you see.  But don’t just take my word for it… take a look at my crowded calendar.

About Sean O'Neil

Sean O’Neil is an expert in workplace and team dynamics.  He is also Principal and CEO of One to One Leadership (www.one2oneleadership.com), a sales and management training firm with clients that include the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, News Corporation, First Data, ADP, Xerox, the Oakland Raiders and the New York Knicks.  Sean and John Kulisek co-authored Bare Knuckle People Management:  Creating Success with the Team You Have – Winners, Losers, Misfits and All, which is due to be published in May 2011.  Sean has contributed to or been featured in, among others, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Selling Power Magazine and Incentive Magazine.  He can also frequently be seen pacing the sidelines of a youth team he’s coaching.

Got beat by an 8-word email

Yep, 8 freaking words completely altered the course of my day.  I was sailing along, feeling 100% bullet-proof, when all of a sudden the little zinger pinged my inbox.  I clicked it open, read the 8 words, and my good spirits washed out of me in a nanosecond. 

No, the 8 words were not: “Your wife was killed by a great white!” or anything calamitous like that.  (And no, Erin dear, this wasn’t an email from you, so close your Sent folder and keep reading.)

The day-wrecking email, whose sender shall remain anonymous, was this:

“Still no explanation and no statement for February!”

I know, it means absolutely nothing to you—and knowing the sender, I can make an honest case that he didn't send it to harm—but it completely shut me down.  

The sender’s 8 words have been haunting me all day: “Hello?! Anyone home? You’ve completely failed me on two fronts, Sean.  You’ve greeted my completely reasonable requests with silence. What, too busy blogging and promoting your stupid book to tend to your clients? Huh? Stop diddling and get this done.  Ahhhhh!” 

Was it the email’s exclamation point that stung me?  Perhaps.  In email, I am particularly sensitive to:

·         exclamation points,

·         ALL CAPS (stop yelling at me!), and

·         “Please advise.”  (Am I the only one who hates “Please advise.”?  It so smacks of condescension that I literally wince every time I read it.  “Look, schmuck, you screwed this up and now you better fix it.  It’s entirely on your shoulders.  God help us.  Please advise.”  Ugh!) 

Or was it what the sender didn’t say that got my little panties caught in a bunch? 

“Dear Sean, I’m sure you’re slaving away on so many earth-moving and monumental things.  But when you get a moment in your busy life, I'd love to know the answer to my relatively unimportant question.  Oh also, I'd like to see the February statement.  Love you! Me”

Now look, nearly everyone who’s ever emailed me anything has faced a question or two from me about the (real or imagined) message behind the message.  Among my friends and associates, I am notoriously thin skinned, and routinely read into emails and agonize over, among other things:

·         what’s written and not unwritten,

·         punctuation,

·         subject headers, and

·         where I fall on the sender’s distribution list. 

For the record, I realize I’m crazier about these things than most, though check out this reinforcing clip from Stephen Colbert:

This post has three cautionary messages for you, dear reader:

1.       When emailing me with a call for action:  Be careful what you write and don’t write, how you punctuate, and how your subject header reads.  And always be sure to put me near the top of your distribution list (otherwise, I’ll be convinced I was added as an afterthought, burst into tears, and stop reading).  For what it’s worth, I still haven’t provided the explanation or February’s statement.

2.       When emailing others with a call for action:  Think about whom your sending your emails to, and think carefully if they’re remotely as paranoid-afflicted as I am.  If they are—or even if they might be—wrap some love into those emails.  It’ll only take a second longer, and it’s likely to keep your audience feeling bullet-proof, and keeping them focused on getting you what you need.  This isn’t about doling out warm fuzzies for the sake of doling out warm fuzzies.  This is about managing the many and varied personalities in your world, and reducing the drama so you can get your message across and get your requirements met.

3.       If you’re the Anonymous 8-Word Emailer, and have been willing to put away your selfish needs long enough to read this post:  I am paralyzed by the trauma you inflicted on me.  The next time we speak (which might not be for weeks, because I’ll be actively avoiding your calls and follow-up emails), I will consider forgiving you, but only if you first apologize to me without me tipping off to you what I’m so upset about.  In the meantime I’ll consider giving you an explanation, but don’t even think about getting your February statement. 

About Sean O'Neil

Sean O’Neil is an expert in workplace and team dynamics.  He is also Principal and CEO of One to One Leadership (www.one2oneleadership.com), a sales and management training firm with clients that include the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, News Corporation, First Data, ADP, Xerox, the Oakland Raiders and the New York Knicks.  Sean and John Kulisek co-authored Bare Knuckle People Management:  Creating Success with the Team You Have – Winners, Losers, Misfits and All, which is due to be published in May 2011.  Sean has contributed to or been featured in, among others, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Selling Power Magazine and Incentive Magazine.  He can also frequently be seen pacing the sidelines of a youth team he’s coaching.

Talking Much, Saying Nothing

Coaches are the biggest culprits.  Why do they answer the simplest questions with cliché-laden paragraphs packed with tons of words that manage to communicate nothing at all? Don’t know what I mean? Here’s a classic clip involving Seattle Seahawks head coach, Pete Carroll, talking endlessly and saying absolutely nothing. 

From what I gather, coaches use coach babble for one of at least three reasons:

1.       Fishing for Words.  Coaches often ramble because they are unable to find the precise set of words to answer a question briefly.  Legendary coaches like Knute Rockne aside, most are not widely regarded as word connoisseurs, so they’re forced to expend extra words while circling around the point they wish to slam home.  I refer to this as the “we won’t run into them at a MENSA meeting” reason for coach babble.

2.       Mimicking Others.  This is the one that burns me the most, and I think it’s the biggest cause of this coaches’ epidemic.  Who wrote the coaching manual that coaches are required to read before taking the job?  Coach speak includes:

·         “we just need to take this one game at a time”

·         “we just need to take care of what we can control”

·         “we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves”

·         “we’re just going to approach this game like it’s any other” 

The only explanation for the incessant use of throwaway phrases like these is that coaches think you have to say them to be considered a real coach.  Coaches also pace the sidelines, animatedly holler at referees, and publicly debase their players on national television.  They do as the other coaches do.  Ever hear one of those over-the-top mic’d up pre-game locker room speeches?  Please.  (Incidentally, is there any reason why more coaches don’t mimic John Wooden, arguably the best coach that’s ever lived?  Who was at one point, notably, an English teacher!)

3.       Withholding Info.  Giving coaches the greatest credit possible would be to position their  babble as a strategic way of not revealing game plans or team-specific secrets.  Ok, stop laughing.  Mike Krzyzewski and Joe Torre appear to deliberately reveal very little about what goes on behind their proverbial curtains during their interviews, and yet they answer every question at length.

Costs of Talking Much, Saying Nothing

Who cares, right?  What about corporate managers who do the very same thing?  Are there costs to those who lean too heavily on coach—or manager—babble when communicating with their teams? (Click here to see a great list of classic manager babble phrases.)   Here are a few:

1.       Diluted Message.  The more words you say to get your points across, the less likely it is that people will actually get the message you’re trying to communicate.

2.       Employee Tune-Out.  If you regularly fly into predictable manager babble, employees will inevitably turn their focus somewhere else.  It’s not personal.  They’re acting efficiently!  If you’re delivering a same song and dance routine they’ve heard countless times, your people will find ways to make better use of their time.  They know they’re not missing anything substantive if you’re talking but saying nothing.

3.       Disconnectedness.  In my company’s employee surveys we conduct with clients, among the most sought after qualities in a leader employees list is “realness.”  Tough to be real when you’re constantly recycling other people's words and trying to be someone other than yourself.

Your team doesn’t need you to be Knute Rockne.  But a little forethought about what your core message is and how you plan to say it—in your own words!— can go a long way toward tightening your message, keeping your employees engaged and focused, and connecting with them in a real and meaningful way.

About Sean O'Neil

Sean O’Neil is an expert in workplace and team dynamics.  He is also Principal and CEO of One to One Leadership (www.one2oneleadership.com), a sales and management training firm with clients that include the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, News Corporation, First Data, ADP, Xerox, the Oakland Raiders and the New York Knicks.  Sean and John Kulisek co-authored Bare Knuckle People Management:  Creating Success with the Team You Have – Winners, Losers, Misfits and All, which is due to be published in May 2011.  Sean has contributed to or been featured in, among others, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Selling Power Magazine and Incentive Magazine.  He can also frequently be seen pacing the sidelines of a youth team he’s coaching.

Herding Tigers for Life

When my wife Erin told me that she signed me up to coach our daughter Olivia’s t-ball team last spring, an audible “oh no, please no” escaped from my lips.  Olivia and her would-be teammates—the Tigers—were 5 years old.  Ever coach a team of 5 year olds at anything?  No?  Envision yourself as a perfectly skilled shepherd completely at peace with yourself and your role and your lot in life.  And then imagine someone suddenly swaps out your sheep for baby tiger cubs.  Right. 

“Now, now,” Erin said, “You owe this to Olivia.  She’s watched you coach her siblings for years, and it’s finally her turn.  She’s really excited.”  So I vowed to suck it up and make the best of this…um…opportunity to herd tiger cubs. 

I began the season with one major objective:  make these Tigers have so much fun that all 10 would want to continue playing baseball the following year.  (Some would consider this goal unambitious, but I would tell them to just chill – they’re 5!)

Out of the gates, I actually tried to teach baseball skills.  Silly me.  I didn’t want to do that, so why on earth would my Tigers?  They were cold and bored and rambunctious.  There might have been one future major leaguer among them, but I couldn’t for the life of me determine who it could possibly be.

So I abruptly changed course, and we spent our time together growling like tigers and running relays and playing keep away and growling some more.  Before each game, we’d circle up, put our hands in the middle, and growl to intimidate our opponents.  And it must’ve worked, because we finished each and every game in a Tiger pile at home plate, after the last batter rounded the bases and we “won” by 1 run in the bottom of the ninth (in our league no one kept score, no one got out, and every player batted every inning).  The kids learned very little baseball, but no one other than a couple of the most psycho-competitive parents (whose kids didn’t need to learn much baseball anyway) cared.

After the last game – against the only town team loaded with future major leaguers, and against whom we nevertheless taunted with a Tiger pile at home plate at game’s end –  I gathered my Tigers around and delivered some version of the following hammed up (as much for the surrounding parents and myself as the kids), impassioned post-game speech:

Team, we became Tigers this season…each and every one of us.  When we first met, I had no idea what kind of baseball team we’d make.  But right now, I can’t imagine ever being part of another.  In fact, if I know anything at all in this world, I know that I am a Tiger…for Life.  And team, this is a tiny little town we live in, so while our season ends today, we will see each other in the years to come.  On the ball field.  In the grocery store.  At school.  And each and every time I see you, I’ll growl…not because I’m angry with you, but to remind you that you too are a Tiger for life.

To this day, I occasionally encounter a Tiger out and about our little town.  CJ or Alec or Oliver or Samantha or Viren.  And, each and every time, we exchange a growl and a smile.  They're six now, and not a one has a baseball scholarship in hand.  But we were part of something special back then…and we're Tigers for life...and we won’t let each other forget it.

About Sean O'Neil

Sean O’Neil is an expert in workplace and team dynamics.  He is also Principal and CEO of One to One Leadership (www.one2oneleadership.com), a sales and management training firm with clients that include the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, News Corporation, First Data, ADP, Xerox, the Oakland Raiders and the New York Knicks.  Sean and John Kulisek co-authored Bare Knuckle People Management:  Creating Success with the Team You Have – Winners, Losers, Misfits and All, which is due to be published in May 2011.  Sean has contributed to or been featured in, among others, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Selling Power Magazine and Incentive Magazine.  He can also frequently be seen pacing the sidelines of a youth team he’s coaching.

Miami Heat Need a Player, Not a Badass

In his NY Times article, Harvey Araton makes the case that the Miami Heat won’t right themselves until they have someone “who has enough courtside juice on a nightly basis to help [LeBron James] grasp the axiomatic logic that everyone will eventually be better off when less of [James] becomes more.”  He with the juice, insists Araton, is Pat Riley, “who, in most cases, outranks the King.”

Araton suggests that the Heat situation comes down to a matter of inserting a coach with more “clout” than LBJ.  I respectfully disagree. 

Riley is a classic Badass—one who leads like an alpha dog, and aggressively takes on anyone standing between him and a complete hold on power. 

Araton presents James as an accidental recipient of his go-to guy role who, because he hasn’t yet played for a coach with clout, has been forced to assume the ball in crunch time.  There seems to be an implicit assumption that Riley, as head coach, would finally be the one to look LBJ in the eye and tell him he’s just not good enough in last-second shot situations to warrant the ball…and that LBJ would acquiesce.

Mr. Araton…how much NBA have do you watch these days?  The NBA is a league driven by its stars.  And in spite of his ludicrously staged “Decision” last summer (or, perhaps, because of it), LBJ is the NBA’s brightest one.  We recently saw a (relatively speaking) second-rate star in Deron Williams drive out head coaching legend, Jerry Sloan, because of their season-long battle for supremacy of the Utah Jazz. 

Sure, LBJ might give up the ball to D-Wade or Bosch, but not because some Badass coach comes out of retirement and so insists.  LBJ will give up the ball when and only when he comes to terms with the fact that it’s in his team’s (and his!) best interest.  And he’ll only come to terms with that fact when and only when he has a say in the matter.

The Heat don’t need a Badass for a head coach, they need a Player –one who cajoles and collaborates and strokes egos and pulls strings while he discreetly gets his needs met.  A Player needs to bring LBJ and Wade together and help them reach a consensus about how to fix what’s not going well.  If a Player can get LBJ and Wade to come up with the “new plan” then they are more likely to own it, and it is therefore more likely to succeed. 

Look, current Heat head coach, Erik Spoelstra, might just be that Player.  Let’s face it, he’s had a tumultuous season, but each time it appeared as if the wheels were coming completely off, he managed to get the team back on track.  More precisely, he allowed D-Wade and LBJ to assert their authority on the team and come up with a new plan of attack.

The cure for the self-entitled superstar is not a Badass who will struggle for authority – that’s the sure way to abruptly end this latest Big Three experiment.  The cure lies within Spoelstra’s Player, who can pull the right strings to get his stars to scrap their current end-of-game play and come up with one with a new ending.

About Sean O'Neil

Sean O’Neil is an expert in workplace and team dynamics.  He is also Principal and CEO of One to One Leadership (www.one2oneleadership.com), a sales and management training firm with clients that include the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, News Corporation, First Data, ADP, Xerox, the Oakland Raiders and the New York Knicks.  Sean and John Kulisek co-authored Bare Knuckle People Management:  Creating Success with the Team You Have – Winners, Losers, Misfits and All, which is due to be published in May 2011.  Sean has contributed to or been featured in, among others, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Selling Power Magazine and Incentive Magazine.

Hold My Hand

In my house, I proudly refer to myself as the Kid Closer.  As long as I was home at kiddie bedtime, my role was to put my four kids away.  I became the Mariano Rivera of bedtime.  My wife, Erin, would argue that Mariano was a more visible bullpen presence than I ever was in our house around bedtime, but I’ll leave that debate to her blog…should she ever start one.

One day, after a particularly brutal business travel stint, I was immediately ushered back into closer duties to assist with my daughter Julia, who was 4 at the time.  Closing Julia was no small task, as she was notoriously clingy and afraid of the dark – it had been a growing problem for Erin.  I was exhausted from travel, but Julia needed someone to close her.  Erin made a call to the bullpen.  Enter Sandman.

After reading Julia one of the many dreadful children’s books parents are forced to read their children, we chatted, as was custom, and then had the following exchange: 

Me:        Ok kid, 2 minutes, 30 seconds until lights out.

Julia:     Wait, Dad, didn’t you hear the new rules?

Me:        Rules?  Mom made rules for the closer?

Julia:     No, not Mom’s rules…My rules.

Me:        Oh.  You made rules for the closer?  No, I haven’t heard.  What are they?

Julia:     One, no minutes, no seconds.  Two, tell me when you’re leaving—don’t just kiss me—tell me AND kiss me.  And three, hold my hand so I know when you’re leaving.

Let’s breakdown each of Julia’s rules and their intended message:

Julia’s Rule	Julia’s Message to the Closer
1.       No minutes, no seconds.	Guy, enough with the countdown.  I can see what you’re doing.  When you need to leave, just let me know.  The countdown only adds to the stress of your leaving, and I can’t take it.
2.       Tell me when you’re leaving—don’t just kiss me—tell me AND kiss me.	You think I’m asleep, and then you slip out of the bed hoping not to wake me.  Honestly.  How cowardly of you.  I want you to man up and tell me when you’re leaving.  You at least owe me that, dammit.
3.       Hold my hand so I know when you’re leaving.	You’re my father.  It would be nice if you acted like it sometimes.  Hold my hand, for God’s sake.  Would that kill you?  (Oh, and it also let’s me know if you’re leaving in case you mess up Rule #2.)

I was taken aback by Julia’s boldness, but I vowed to give the new rules a try.  And, what do you know…they worked! 

It’s nice when people tell you exactly how they plan to solve a problem and what they need from you to participate in the solution.  First, it arms you with direct-from-the-source information about what will make them happy. You can use it to sculpt a winning strategy for dealing with them – for this problem and others.  Second, and perhaps more important, they take ownership over the solution, so if it fails, they’re not pointing at you and telling you how much you screwed it up!

With Julia, we more or less follow her rules to this day, and bedtime has become infinitely more pleasant.  Sure, we have made some tweaks (for example, I have to open and shut her closet doors each night), but by and large, the bedtime routine runs like clockwork.

It’s been nice for Julia, as bedtime isn’t as tortured as it once was.  But it’s been nice for the Kid Closer too, as he’s getting on in years, and can’t be relied upon to get out of the same jams he once did.

About Sean O'Neil

Sean O’Neil is an expert in workplace and team dynamics.  He is also Principal and CEO of One to One Leadership (www.one2oneleadership.com), a sales and management training firm with clients that include the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, News Corporation, First Data, ADP, Xerox, the Oakland Raiders and the New York Knicks.  Sean and John Kulisek co-authored Bare Knuckle People Management:  Creating Success with the Team You Have – Winners, Losers, Misfits and All, which is due to be published in May 2011.  Sean has contributed to or been featured in, among others, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Selling Power Magazine and Incentive Magazine.