Are Your Employees Truly Engaged?
Engaged employees are more likely to be high performers, drive action, and participate in achieving the organizational goals.  Find out what your workers are thinking and how to motivate them, in addition to avoiding costly turnover in the year ahead. Consider this: 34% of employees say they plan to leave their current role in the next 12 months (Mercer) 51% of the U.S. workforce is not engaged, costing organizations between $450 and $550 billion annually (Gallup) 68% of the human […]
Are You Ready For The Homerun?
Each of us has an opportunity every day to live each moment to the fullest and make each and every interaction one that is memorable and impactful.  In order to do that you must make a concerted effort to make each interaction a homerun. Once you make up your mind that this is how you want to lead your team, drive your organization forward and live your life to the fullest, here are a few tips that can help. Review […]
Taking Action, Killing “Joe” and Meetings vs Movies
Written by:  Don Hadley The Primary Problem In organizations, there can be too much talking and not enough doing.  Vision without action (or talking without action) is simply wishful thinking or hallucination. When this sort of behavior is occurring, some leaders tell me “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink”.  This statement implies that we cannot get employees to take action. That is a cop-out!  The reality for great leaders is that we realize […]
Effective Communication Skills for Business Success
  In this “Drive Through With Don”, he discusses two different teams and the effect communication had on the success of the businesses. One team was struggling and frustrated and they communicated very poorly with each other.  Poor communication damaged relationships, created mistrust among the team members and any efforts to turn this around were either blocked or given very little effort.  Once a team becomes ineffective it bleeds over to customers and suppliers and before too long, the problem […]
Effective Communication in the Workplace
  A clear, effective communication skill is one of the best attributes a person can develop. It equips you to be successful professionally and personally.  By communication, we mean stating your needs clearly and listening to others with the intention of fully understanding what they are trying to say. It is a “two-way” street. Can you identify with this example?  It is the job of leaders to go to the unknown and find out what’s there.  Asking employees for honest […]
Employee Retention by Building a Culture of Sincere Appreciation
During college, I worked in a used bookstore close to campus. The pay was low. The hours were often inconvenient. And yet, we were dedicated to our jobs. The only time a job in the store came open was when a former employee graduated and left town. (If they stuck around after graduation, they’d keep working at the bookstore.) I was lucky and stumbled into a job there my first week of freshman year, and I stayed. I worked overtime […]
Create and Cultivate Great Culture to Secure High Performance
Company culture seems to be a widely circulated term, but one that few people clearly understand. Culture is the ‘good stuff” in an organization that makes individuals work harder, more enthusiastically, with honest direct communication, which translates into peak performance. It may be defined as: a company’s values, practices, beliefs, language or simply the way of thinking that exists in an organization.   If you want to be a truly successful and innovative company, culture must be a daily focus in […]
Empowering Employees to Speak Up: Why Raleigh’s Red Hat Meritocracy Is Effective
It should have been an easy meeting. Management at all levels agreed on the path for the new initiative. It wasn’t really a time for discussion; it was a time to explain plans and to set goals. And then, a lowly associate asked to speak. Point by point, goal by goal, the associate tore into the agreed-upon solutions. Management was taking the wrong direction. The new program would fail without key changes. He could see the flaws in their plan, […]
Critical Aspects For Creating A Successful, High Performing Team
Have you ever been a part of a TEAM, a true team? Whether it is in your profession, an athletic team, or in your community, chances are that if you have, you remember the experience fondly and it is or was  one of the most rewarding in your life. What is the definition of a team? In the book, “The Wisdom of Teams”, it was defined as “a small number of people with complimentary skills who are committed to a […]