Tag: leadership

Do You Train Managers to Lean Forward?

Koehler/Society for Human Resource Management), explains the concept of skiing with your weight forward. In his introduction, Janove evokes the image of a beginning skier. Frightened of going too fast, he or she likely obeys the instinct to lean back on the skis. The truth is, however, that keeping the weight forward steadies the skier […]

Use Summer to Motivate Employees

McBean, author of The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows That You Don’t (Wiley, October 2012,), encourages employers not to wait until fall to review and adjust company directions. Especially if changes will involve employee training and/or hiring and training new employees. Most business owners probably look at the summer as […]

Are You Taking Advantage of Summer’s Learning Opportunities?

McBean, author of The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows That You Don’t (Wiley, October 2012,) says the reality is that the season is actually a great time to do a half-year review and make some smart moves for your business, rather than indulge in the summertime lull. Take summer’s opportunity […]

The answers are easy!

by Dan Oswald Have you ever faced a problem at work that seemed so overwhelming, so insurmountable that you struggled to even know how to begin to resolve it? And the more you studied the problem, the more convinced you became that the solution must be equally as complex. Your exercise in problem solving became […]

Cooperation is crucial—but not always easy

by Dan Oswald Webster’s defines cooperate as “to act or work with another or others . . . to associate with another or others for mutual benefit.” It sounds simple enough, but in practice it’s not. Nothing is more important in an organization than interdepartmental cooperation, yet it’s so difficult to achieve. Why is that? […]

Do you need an attitude adjustment?

by Dan Oswald Years ago, I heard a story about a couple of salespeople that left a lasting impression on me. The story went like this: A British shoe manufacturer sent two salespeople to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential. The first salesperson reported back, “There is no potential here—nobody wears shoes.” […]

2 More Offenders to Train Your Leaders to Avoid

To recap: Without even realizing it, most leaders do and say things that send employees into their “Critter State” where every decision they make is driven by fear, says Christine Comaford, author of the new book Smart Tribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together (Portfolio/Penguin, June 2013). And the consequences are more dire than you might […]

Employee engagement begins one worker at a time

by Dan Oswald If you read the Harvard Business Review, you might have noticed a recent article proclaiming “The New Employer-Employee Compact.” The article, like all the other articles and books written on the subject, reminds us that the days of lifelong employment with a single company are over. (Thanks for that news flash!) Then […]

Do You Train Leaders to Avoid These 3 Scary Offenders?

Without even realizing it, most leaders do and say things that send employees into their “Critter State” where every decision they make is driven by fear, says Christine Comaford, author of the new book Smart Tribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together (Portfolio/Penguin, June 2013). And the consequences are more dire than you might realize. Most […]

What are your limitations?

by Dan Oswald As a manager, you’re tasked with finding and evaluating talent. You need to know which people will fit on your team. You must determine who has the right skill set to make the necessary contributions. And you must decide what blend of talent and personalities will allow the team to achieve its […]