Leadership / Management
Why Most Founders Never Escape the Job They have Created
In 2023, there were 5.5 million new small businesses launched, according to the US Chamber of Commerce. Most of them will fail because the owner cannot ...
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Management
Sounds Like a Recipe for Overwhelm. Find Out How to Regain Control of Your Life
“Its quicker and better if I do it myself.” Sounds like a recipe for overwhelm to me.
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Achieve Remarkable Success With Good Delegation
Mastering the art of delegation can be the stepping stone to greater and greater advancement in a career. Yet delegation is not as easy as saying, “do this”. Successful delegation requires trust, time, and patience.
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A Powerful Way to Improve Your Teams with Continuous Development
As leaders, we want our teams to be tip-top with skill sets and mindsets. That requires an investment, at least of time. In some cases, money. ...
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That Difficult Conversation – How to have a Feedback Conversation
I often hear from client managers that feedback is difficult because employees don’t want to hear it. And I hear from team members that they don’t ...
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Do you want your meetings to be more productive?
One of the most common complaints I hear from my clients is the length of time that is taken up in meetings. According to an article ...
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Make Time for What is Important
If you are like me you have lots of people you know telling you how busy they are and how they don’t have enough time in ...
Read MoreBusiness Culture / Leadership / Management
Is This How You Earn Trust?
Recently my mother in law accepted an update from a software company who will remain unnamed. But they link their name to a cup of Joe. Wink..Wink.
As a result of this update she had also taken on a new task bar that she was unfamiliar with and that she did not want. You see this software company whose name rhymes with lava had already checked
the “opt in” box so that my mother in law would have to "opt out" versus "opt in" to receive the tool bar.
...
Business Culture / Leadership / Management
Leaders Never Blame
I cannot count the number of people I have worked with (myself included) who thought they wanted to be the leader. They wanted to be respected ...
Read MoreBusiness Culture / Management
The Chicken and the Pig at Breakfast a Story of Commitment
If you are like me at some point in your life – perhaps several; you’ve heard a boss or a coach give the commitment speech. You ...
Read MoreLeadership / Management / Personal Development
How to Achieve Balance (If you want to)
I often read varying points of view on balance. Some say balance is the key to a happy fulfilled life. Others say that if you are ...
Read MoreBusiness Culture / Management
Wondering about Employee Engagement
Most employees come to work and are eager to do good work. They also want to develop mastery, according to studies reported by Daniel Pink in his book Drive. Yet, often we see managers stifling the
engagement of the employee.
One way we do this is by delegating too specifically. Suppose I want the employee to rearrange the shelf of product on aisle 3? If I tell them that I want the larger cans on the bottom and the
smaller on top they leave with the idea that I don’t trust their ...
Business Culture / Management
Is your attorney client privilege really confidential
I love my mobile device. It helps me stay connected, it gives me a chance to keep up on emails and it is convenient. It is also
dangerous. We can become complacent with them and reveal information we don’t want to.
I am sitting in the Des Moines airport waiting for my flight when a young attorney sits down and fires up his phone. He is calling back to the attorney of his client. There are about 45 people
...
Business Culture / Management
Who is Managing the Business of America: The Market, or the Business Leader
It is with ironic interest that I see the media hyperbole regarding the market and investors. It seems investors are our bell weather for the state of the economy. If the market is up everyone is
happy. If the market is down we all get nervous. Yet I ask myself why?
Today’s Wall Street Journal whines that investors are worried. Well pardon me, so is the business leader. They want to build a business. They have customers and ideas. They can’t get financing
because the investors are worried.
...
Business Culture / Management
Keep your friends close…
I have been exploring and really enjoying Social Media for some time now. I have reconnected with old friends and made new ones through the most unlikely of channels (Twitter). And yet as this
political season ramps up and the lingo gets hotter I see friends calling friends idiots, scumbags and liars. (Are you really my friend?)
I recently sat through a webinar by Claire Riley of Boulder Community Hospital. It was about communication and specifically it was about conflict resolution. Specifically she spoke about the
difference between Acknowledgement and Agreement. There is ...
Leadership / Management
Passing the Buck
I am talking to a consultant who was hired to help an organization convert their Customer Relation Management system (CRM). Everything went well. About 90 days after the conversion they called him
back and asked him to work with one of their employees who was just having a hard time with the system.
They said, “Steve is a valuable employee. He has been with us for more than twenty years. We really want him to get on board”.
The consultant sat with Steve for two weeks. When ...
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Business Culture / Leadership / Management
Esprit de Corps and Culture
I am reading the book, War Fighting, published by the United States Marine Corp, in 1989. I was struck by the following phrase, “Leaders should develop unit
cohesion and esprit and the self-confidence of individuals within the unit. In this environment, a Marine’s unwillingness to violate the respect and trust of peers can overcome personal
fear.”
This speaks to the value of Culture in an organization. When there is a strong culture, ...
Business Culture / Customer Service / Management
Is it about Trust or Utility
I belong to a number of groups on LinkedIn. It is a useful way to stay connected with some of the conversations in the marketplace and my areas of interest. Today I took a survey sponsored by
Business Roundtable, Institute for Corporate Ethics conducted by the Catholic University of America. Here is a link to the survey tinyurl.com/3knmr5e
I had my awareness raised in how I make decisions about trust and economics through the process of taking the survey. What I found was that Integrity mattered a lot to me. ...
Management
Are Your Employees Under Attack?…From Whom?
In order to be successful organizations need to have goals and destinations. The paradox is that when we manage so tightly to the interim steps – when
we get attached to the interim goals we often lose sight of the bigger picture and our team can come under attack …FROM US!
If you think about a sea voyage or plane trip, the vessel is off course most of the time. (Missing the interim goals) The Navigator makes adjustments and pulls ...
Management
How to Recapture Some Time
I have recently begun working with an organization where much of the communication is conducted via email. People are expected to be on, and connected. As I look around this is increasingly a
challenge. Many of us have multiple accounts where we interact with the world electronically; Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linked In, company email, private email, and that is just scratching the
surface of how many get and share information.
I have a colleague that likes to have his smart phone ring when he gets an email, while he is with his colleagues ...
Business Culture / Management
Everyone Wins
Everybody Wins,The following is a true story. And it demonstrates how everyone can win when you do the right thing; even competitors in the same game. ...
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How Do We Sustain and Thrive as Remote Teams
I’ve Been Reading from Sonja Lyubromski’s work on Happiness we see that people become capable and self sustaining in the presence of role models. In other ...
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Emotion or Logic??
Recently I was intrigued by an article in a Fast Company magazine. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/136/made-to-stick-hold-the-interview.html He was talking about how we spend so much time interviewing for the ...
Read MoreBusiness Culture / Communication / Leadership / Management
Do You Really Need To Be Right?
We all know him or her. They are smart, and they know it. More importantly, they want to make sure you know it. They are the ...
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