To Be The Best

“To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. That’s all there is to it.” –   Adam Vinatieri As a writer I expound on certain events to bring metaphorical significance to different walks of life. Such is the extended purpose of the media. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people with a lot of…

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Learning Curves and Frustrations

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young – Henry Ford In a recent Sports Illustrated article, Lars Anderson writes of the learning curve and challenges of rookie NASCAR driver Danica Patrick. A former IndyCar driver, Patrick is not new to racing but is new to…

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Why Lunch Is A Bad Setting For Real Business

One of worst techniques you’ll pick up in business is “let’s do lunch.” It sounds like a great device for conducting business, be it a pitch or project work.  Often, your offer is accepted, after all, we have to eat!  It sounds less ominous than, “I’d like to setup a meeting to come talk to…

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50 Key Ingredients to Enduring Connections

In my workshops and training sessions over the last 20+ years on improving customer and workplace relationships  I have found that there are 50 key ingredients that play a major factor in everything from employee engagement, leadership and  team building to customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and sales. To establish excellent customer and workplace relationships and…

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Are You Building a Leadership Culture?

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.  – Jim Rohn Last week, for the seventh year, the Hay Group released their findings that identify which organizations have the best leadership practices and what we…

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The Senior Leader’s Role in Driving Transformation

The latest issue of McKinsey Quarterly contains a case study titled Developing Better Change Leaders. Using the backdrop of a multi-national operations improvement initiative, it addresses leadership development and organizational change and highlights the factors that make it possible to drive and sustain profound transformation. The case study underscores a number of important change leadership practices. Below, we touch on…

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Influence by the Numbers

Influence – “the action or process of producing effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of another or others.” – Random House Dictionary Jeremy Lin, Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffet, Adele, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Tim Tebow, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and Stephen Colbert; what do these people share in common? These individuals are on the Time magazine…

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Healthy Work Boundaries are Not a Myth

By Derek Murphy Facebook made headlines once again, and it was not due to another layout change. Apparently, the company’s second-in-command, COO Sheryl Sandberg leaves work every day at 5:30 p.m. so she’s home for dinner with her kids. If you’re wondering why this has any sort of significance, think about all the advancements in…

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Great By Choice

The Great Jim Collins is at it again. The author of “Good to Great” and “Built to Last” has brought us another installment in his collection of business and leadership development owner’s manuals. In “Great by Choice”, Collins takes us through the development of ambition and its equated value to 10x Leadership. With the support…

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Service-based Leadership

You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service that you are now being paid for. – Napoleon Hill In his book, Waking the American Dream, Don McCullough relates a story about Winston Churchill during World War II. England decided to…

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How to Resolve Complaints

“As a speaker, trainer, coach and consultant helping companies and organizations to improve customer and workplace relationships one question I always get is, “What are some ways to deal with complaints?” The word “complaint” is loaded with negative connotations. But in fact, complaining does offer an opportunity to set things right. According to Sandra Crowe,…

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Sitting Is The New Smoking

The above image is taken from a great infographic on Techcrunch. It’s message is simple: The more you sit, the worse you’ll feel.  Recent studies suggest that of all of our bad contemporary habits, sitting all day is a killer.  With the rise of the information age, more of us earn a living sitting down,…

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Leading Through Barriers

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. – Christopher Reeve Sports Illustrated columnist Kostya Kennedy wrote a moving tribute recently in honor of Rachael Robinson, the widow of the late baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson. Now 93-years old, Rachael Robinson remains very…

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