Hello Pele team

To reflect on my Stagen experience.

I had the opportunity to go from the Advanced Execution class directly into the ILP which has affected my life both personally and professionally.

Personally I have a made my family a priority over work, which has made my family happier which has led to me being more focused when at work, not distracted about what I did not do at home or should have done.  It is so much easier for me to travel for work knowing I have a strong relationship with my wife and that our love has only grown since 16 years ago when we were married.  I use active listening with my wife almost every day, I let her talk and I listen, no phone, no trying to outdo her I just listen to listen.  We are back to doing projects together, whether shopping, house chores, kid events and it has been more fun.  I have even changed customer meeting dates when I can to support my wife when she needs me. I check with her every day to confirm what time she needs me to be home and when I cannot I let her know as soon as I know I can't to help her plan her day/night running kids from event to event.

Personally I have grown my relationship with my family and friends about keeping commitments which I was terrible about before, knowing now that if you blow someone off or an event you are telling the person that they are not important to you.  I had an event at work come up over a two day golf trip planned out with my friends, brothers and my dad.  I almost cancelled but I thought through what I was telling them and I cancelled the work event instead.

Work wise - I have become more direct and not beating around the bush (I think this is good) I want people to know where they stand and when an error is made doing SBI right away instead of putting it off.  When good events or issues occur I try to do the same and not wait. I know I don't do this all of the time but I do it a lot more than 2 years ago.  I feel more confident that I am working on the right things and helping to lead my team in the right direction to get us growing again, we are wrapping up our fiscal year and we will grow by 15% over last year which the board was blown away.   This is not due to me, but as a company we are learning to say no and trying to continue on the right things.

I loved the book 5 Dysfunctions of a team, I had two direct reports read it as well and I am excited about implementing this with my team.  I also met with our management team to implement the same, we have done the trust survey and concluded that we need to make this a priority and it is on this year's 2x2.

I appreciate the team dinners, where we got to spend time together over a drink and relax, same with the lunches and break time.

My biggest take aways for the two years were:

*       2X2's which I use for myself and my team, which tie into our company 2x2. This has been outstanding for me personally and at work.  I know my team did not love the 2x2's but now are asking about giving input for 2020 which we are beginning to work on now.  I love that they want to participate knowing that what we agree to is what we are going to accomplish.

*       Personal time blocks - I put more of these on my calendar than was needed because of the Stagen work load which ended up not being as bad as I had heard from other who took the class before me.  I used this time for my weekly focusing, reflection and game filming the week.  It continues to keep me focused on what needs to be done.

*       Active listening - I think it was Thea that said we listen to talk, I constantly find myself butting into conversations when I am supposed to be listening, but I realize it and I stop.   I am good at this with my wife, but need to continue to improve with others.  At least I catch myself doing this now and as we begin to roll out the Stagen training internally I expect it will help me even more if people are letting me know when I do it.

Thank you and I will see everyone on Thursday!
Jim Wilhelm
Director of Sales
Phone: (859) 538-8113
Cell: (513) 702-6554
Email: jwilhelm@galerieusa.com<mailto:jwilhelm@galerieusa.com>
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