Category Archives: Team / People

10 Ways to Really (and Truly) Be Organized

With all the meetings, E-Mails, objectives and communications in a typical company, staying organized is a never-ending task. Yet, there are a few fundamentals to follow to ensure that you stay organized and focused on the most important tasks each … Continue reading

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2 Second Lean: How to Make Your People and Your Business Better Every Day

I summarize some of the key concepts from the excellent book: 2 Second Lean: How to Grow People and Build a Fun Lean Culture. Written by Paul Akers, 2 Second Lean is a quick and easy ready that will help … Continue reading

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The 5 Fundamentals of an Innovative Company

The world and the customer are changing rapidly.   To keep up with these changes and to truly differentiate themselves in the marketplace, companies need to innovate. Yet, too many companies still rely on small updates, upgrades, or makeovers of their … Continue reading

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Getting It Done: Achieving Twice as Much in Half the Time

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Three ‘Cheats’ of the Ethical Leader

An ethical leader is someone dedicated to always doing the right thing for the employees, the business, and all stakeholders.  Alas, this ideal for the selfless and driven leader clashes with the reality of who most of us really are. … Continue reading

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We Need to Create Time For Our Teams

Many of us aspire to personally be as productive and effective as possible.  We read articles and blogs (including some of mine – How to Be 10X More Effective…) and take classes to learn how to get more done in … Continue reading

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The Power of Active Follow Up

To make change happen effectively (for our companies and for ourselves) requires daily attention and regular follow up. People don’t get better without follow up.  So let’s get better at following up with our people.  The quote above is from … Continue reading

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The ‘Crack Cocaine’ of Leadership

Crack Cocaine has three distinguishing features: It gives the user a short – lived, intense high It is highly addictive It inevitably leads to the user’s downfall These exact three characteristics are found when business leaders feed their egos. Let’s … Continue reading

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Critical Thinking Skills

I just finished listening to a Great Courses series entitled Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills by Professor Steven Novella. This excellent course offers insight and reminders invaluable to all business leaders trying to think critically … Continue reading

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Coaching and Developing Great Salespeople

Wanted: Great Salespeople! All of us are looking for great salespeople to close business, grow revenue, and help drive our companies to success. What are some of the qualities of great salespeople? Professional and personable Responsive and lives up to … Continue reading

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Lead With Questions

As leaders, we often have an employee come to us with an issue or problem. As “make it happen” managers, we then focus on getting the problem solved and getting it done as quickly as possible. Thus, we take charge, … Continue reading

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How Not to Waste Time In Meetings

In his book, Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations, Paul Axtell gives a strong argument in favor of meetings. Meetings are at the heart of an effective organization, and each meeting is an opportunity to clarify issues, set … Continue reading

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Get to the Front Lines

Undercover Boss has become a hit TV series by showing big corporate bosses going undercover and discovering the reality of the work lives of their employees. As leaders, we do not need to go undercover; we just need to get … Continue reading

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Calm the Rhetoric…Make Molehills

Today, exaggeration and hyperbole are ever-present. Listen to any sports event… tune into any news program…Speak with many of your friends and/or employees… What do you hear? Amazing… incredible… unbelievable The meeting was a disaster…this is crazy… what a collapse … Continue reading

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New Year Resolutions for First-Time Managers

Happy New Year! For first time managers struggling to move their business units forward in 2015, now is the time to take a step back and focus unwaveringly on the fundamentals of managing and leading others. As such, I offer … Continue reading

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We Need to Spend “Alone Time” With Our Skip Levels

As leaders, we need to spend time on a regular and consistent basis with our skip levels.   What is a Skip Level? As we move up in our organizations, we become ‘managers of managers’ with both direct reports and … Continue reading

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The Advice Not Taken

Lose Weight…Eat More Fruits and Vegetables…Exercise More. We all know what we have to do in order to improve our health. That is easy. The difficulty lies in taking this advice and actually following it. Likewise in business, there is … Continue reading

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Empathy – A Crucial Leadership Skill

Henry Ford said it well: If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own. This … Continue reading

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We Need to Deal with Our Non-Performers Today

Dealing with non-performers is likely the most uncomfortable (yet necessary) task in building a winning team.  Truth be told, few of us enjoy disciplining, remedial coaching, and terminating employees, especially those that we may work with on a daily basis. … Continue reading

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Building Accountability

A dirty little secret in business is that most organizations lack accountability at all levels from the leader to front-line management to individual employees: Assignments are not completed as promised Problems are left half resolved Phone calls are not returned … Continue reading

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