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 […]
Overcoming A, B, C Employee Ratings: Response to Wall Street Journal Article from 2/21/07
The Wall Street Journal article is greatly appreciated because it highlights what occurs when an employee rating system is poorly implemented and used in organizations.  However, it was an incredibly simplistic perspective.  The perspective was that of someone who has only taken a cursory look at this approach, and we see this from newer employees and rookie leaders who have not thought through ratings systems properly in the past.  It did not explain how powerful this approach can be if […]
Employee Accountability In The Workplace
The mind and heart can envision and feel great things, but so many times there is a disconnect in where we are today vs. where we desire to be. While there are many necessary pieces to bridging that gap, one of the key girders is accountability:  the willingness to do what one says. Part of this is holding others accountable. There must be both individual and team accountability for a business to work effectively. I am reminded of Peter Block’s […]
Poor Communication Skills in the Workplace is Costly
Poor Communication costs you, both professionally and personally. One source estimates employee misunderstandings cost organizations $37 billion per year.  “Misunderstandings” are defined as: actions or errors of omission by employees who were misinformed (or misunderstood) company policies, business processes, job functions or a combination of all three.  Additionally, communication barriers resulting in productivity losses had a cumulative cost of $26,041 per year per worker.  Leaders must make a conscious decision to improve. Eighty five percent of our success in life […]
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 […]
Turning Around a Corporate Culture of Complaints Before It Entirely Kills the Company
My first work experience after graduation was in a departmental office at my university. In most ways, it was a pretty nice job. The pay and benefits were good, the work was interesting, and most of my coworkers were nice people. There were only two problems: Rick and Martha. Our office only had 10 people, and these two were bringing it down. Their main hobbies were griping and complaining. Whenever a new project came up, they fretted and revisited things […]
Take Time to Assess the Quality of Your Business Meetings
  Meetings can be a powerful tool for your business. If poorly run however, they can be a tremendous waste of time and energy and actually cause more harm than good. There are a few key elements that every meeting should contain to make them worthwhile. As a leader, one of your biggest jobs is to ensure information exchange. Meetings are a huge part of that task. We encourage you to take a closer look at the quality of your […]
Deftly Dealing with Criticism and Activism Toward Your Company in a New Community
I used to live in a small town with a fairly depressed economy. Over the previous two decades, they’d lost the farm machinery plant, the appliance plant, and the industrial restaurant equipment plant. Good jobs were hard to come by, people were hurting, and most young people left town as soon as they turned eighteen.   When a new plant announced it was moving to town, you might have expected the local community to be overjoyed. After all, it was […]
Six Different Approaches to Bonus Programs
The goal of a bonus program is to motivate employees to achieve results in valuable way for everyone. In other words, they should be designed to get everyone from the receptionist to management to leadership to owners all “rowing the boat in the same direction”. Sometimes though, bonus programs are poorly set up, measure the wrong results, set people against each other and/or do not communicate what is happening until after the fact Below is a brief history of bonus […]