The Importance of Thinking Outside the Box

These are all of the best practices of leaders and opportunities that have been coming up decade after decade. And a lot of this stuff has been in practice for more than 20 years, 30 years and beyond. And what we're learning is a lot of these folks that are remaining in business today are having to think differently. And to share a quote from one of my CEOs that I've worked with in the past, he told me all day long he can hire folks, but what he needs more of are people who think outside the box https://youtu.be/tIp0F9mZlB4 https://youtu.be/3Xe4s6dKMnQ https://youtu.be/nkPtgFqvNgU https://youtu.be/sf1i0waKNts https://youtu.be/4RROnc7d5Vs Richard’s journey in the center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. The Power of Clarity Breaks I love what you said about self-reflection and that being one of the best learnings that we can have is taking that time to pause and reflect. And I very often it clarity breaks. And I emphasize to my clients to just take, in the beginning, I said, just take five minutes. And they're like, five minutes? It's five minutes to do what? I said, nothing. Just sit there and just take five minutes. They're like, do you know how long that takes? It's like, it's five minutes out of your entire day. And then if they do try it, they come back and they actually share that this is working and they can actually gain thought and traction and planning. And there's just this kind of aha moment that they're starting to experience. I'm like, okay, if you can do five, what can you do next month? And just keep challenging them. To be able to take that time and have that self-reflection and allow themselves to grow and not to constantly respond, respond, respond, react, react, react, because I think we have too much of that out there. The Power of Pausing for Better Decisions If there is no time sensitivity, and you want to say something, if you're allowed to sleep on it, walk away from it, write a draft, and then the following day decide to send it or make that phone , do it. Because if you don't need to make a decision right, right, right, right now, even though they might be offended you didn't respond, the best thing to do is absorb it, take it, take it, When you have a moment to be able to walk away, to separate it, prioritize it, get rid of the fat because why do we want to go there? Address what needs to be addressed, figure out a way in a calm and cool way to reiterate it, to make your point because you might've overextended or not done enough in the moment. And then as generals do with Intel, they bring it back. And even Sherlock Holmes, he needed clues to solve the case. Give me a little bit of Intel. Let me process it, sleep on it, eat on it, work out on it, play pinball on it, drive to work in the convertible on it. And then when I'm at the office, forget about it. I'm going to solve this thing before my first cup of coffee. And that would be much more effective for me than getting Philadelphia angry yesterday and saying something that I would be regretting. Business Vitality podcast guest Richard Blank Costa Ricas Center.