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Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval: An interview by Bob Morris

Linda Kaplan Thaler And Robin Koval: An Interview By Bob Morris

 

Linda

Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval are CEO and President, respectively, of advertising agency The Kaplan Thaler Group, responsible for such pop culture icons as the Aflac duck and the “Yes, Yes, Yes” Herbal Essences campaign. They have also co-authored three national bestsellers: Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World, The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness, and their latest collaboration, The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference. You can read their blog at http://www.thepowerofsmallbook.com/index.php/pos/blog or follow them on Twitter.

Here is a brief excerpt from my interview of Kaplan Thaler and Koval.

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Robin

Morris: For those who have not as yet read The Power of Small, please cite a few of examples leveraging that power. Of “going the extra inch,” for example.

Koval: Yes, in The Power of Small, we share several “Small Changes” that we all can make on an everyday basis. For example:

GO THE EXTRA INCH: When you’ve completed a task, a memo, a quarterly budget – anything that you’re just glad to be done with — stop and tell yourself you still have one minute left. Spend just those sixty seconds rereading a troublesome paragraph, or adding up the numbers again.

TAKE BABY STEPS: Instead of making a list of big, difficult-to-achieve goals, create an action list and reenvision those goals into “mini-tasks” you can actually accomplish on a day-to-day basis. “Mini-tasks” – successfully completed – can accrue to significant success.

MAKE IT BIG BY THINKING SMALL
: Make molehills out of mountains. If you have a huge problem that seems too big to solve, chances are you’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Instead, tackle a smaller problem first, and slowly the huge, knotty dilemma will begin to unravel, one thread at a time.

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Morris: By now I have become convinced of what I call “the invisibility of the obvious.” It seems to me that all of us, each day, have dozens of opportunities to be “nice” and to appreciate what is “small” if we recognize them. How can people become more alert?

Linda Kaplan Thaler

Kaplan Thaler: We all can do a better job of appreciating the little things in our lives. For example, try each night to tally up the things that went right today. Did your daughter call to say thank you for helping her get an “A” on her test? Did a client compliment a member of your team? Make a list of five positive things that happened in the course of a stressful day. Appreciate them, and try to do more of those things tomorrow.

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If you wish to read the complete interview, please click here.

Kaplan Thaler and Koval invite you to visit these Web sites:

http://www.thepowerofsmallbook.com/index.php

http://www.kaplanthaler.com/#/home

Bob Morris is an independent management consultant based in Dallas who specializes in accelerated executive development. He has interviewed more than 100 business thought leaders and reviewed more than 2,200 business books for Amazon. Each week, we will add to the Networlding Business Bookshelf abbreviated reviews in which he discusses a few of his personal favorites. You can contact him directly at interllect@mindspring.com.

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