A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit. – Arnold H. Glasow John Killinger tells a story about the manager of a minor leader baseball team who was so disgusted with his center fielder’s performance that he ordered him to the…
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. – Zig Ziglar In Valladolid, Spain, where Christopher Columbus died in 1506, stands a monument commemorating the renowned discoverer. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the monument is a statue of a lion destroying one of the Latin words that had been part of Spain’s…
In today’s fast-changing and competitive environment, excellent customer service is not only nice but essential for success. In fact, the only way to differentiate yourself and to become less of a commodity in the marketplace is through outstanding customer service. The strategies for keeping customers for life can be honed down to some basic steps…
Adam Bryant writes a column in the New York Times called The Corner Office. He has selected 70 of the over 200 interviews he has done with CEO’s for his column and put some core insights from these into a book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEO’s and How to Lead and…
Whether you are a sales pro, marketing whiz or entrepreneur, business is a fierce compeition. You’ll never win unless you understand the milestones that stand between the prospect stage and the finish line. Even the most impulsive purchases follow the mental path I’ll reveal in this post. In fact, done right, businesses can elicit more…
The early bird catches the worm. I hate that phrase. I find it irritating because of the origin behind it, the idea that in order to succeed, you must wake up and get to work early. I’m going to have to disagree with this concept. I’m a night owl. I have little desire to be…
Last night I gave a talk to a group of donors about generosity. The point of the talk was that giving is an area of excellence in our life, just like any other activity. Some people are great givers, and others are sporadic to inappropriate. It’s critical that we approach giving with a Good-2-Great mindset…
In his short, wonderful book, Helping, Edgar Schein presents us, whether we are a professional coach or a manager playing a coaching role, with three ways to respond to a request for coaching/mentoring help (or, for that matter, advice with a problem on the job). We can be: an expert resource who provides information or…
The name and work of Carol Dweck keeps coming up in discussions among experts in cognitive development. I wrote a review of her important book, MindSet. In it she talks about two fundamental mindsets in people (and, therefore, of course, in employees): Fixed and Growth. Someone with a Fixed mindset believes they can’t get any…
Everyone gets stuck in a rut. It happens to us all whether we are presidents, students, managers, baseball players, or stay-at-home parents. We might have days, weeks, or even months, where we feel like we’ve lost our focus, take longer than necessary to achieve goals, or simply become disconnected from our work. It’s not a…
What do you do with an employee who thinks she deserves a raise or a promotion but there is one thing holding her back – her attitude? Frequently the entitled employee is in a state of denial. Any attempt to confront and correct the attitude is met with contempt. In her own mind, she thinks…
Most of us have had the experience, at least once in our career, of working for a boss who loved his/her role because it was all about: I’m special (after all, they made me the boss) I deserve extra respect (because I’m special, of course) I have real power (try opposing me and you’ll feel…
By Carol S. Dweck Random House, 2006 ISBN #1-4000-6275-6 Reviewed by Ian Cook John McEnroe reached great heights in the world of professional tennis but, by his own admission, he did not fulfill his potential. Whenever he lost, it was not his fault. Even his defeat at the 1984 French Open he blamed on sound…