3 Questions You Must Ask to Build a More Positive, Productive, Profitable and Joyful Organization

One of the key ingredients necessary to build stronger customer and workplace relationships involves keeping your employees engaged, motivated and happy. If your employees aren’t happy; employee engagement, productivity, and customer satisfaction will be diminished. In my teambuilding workshops one of the first things we do is to find out what employees want. Below is…

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Most Common Change Management Mistakes Companies Make

We are occasionally asked about mistakes that we see companies make related to organizational change management. In reflecting back over several years and many client engagements, below are the most common mistakes that we have seen. 1) Not Seeking Outside Expertise Rarely do companies have deep change management expertise, though some are seeking to build this…

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Remembering the 7 Habits

I am sure Leaders Beacon will be afloat with memorials to the Great Stephen Covey. For those who are unaware, Mr. Covey author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, has died in a cycling accident outside of Provo, Utah. I was introduced to Stephen Covey in my leadership class at Arizona State University. I…

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Why Your Smart Phone Makes You Anti-Social

Much of my business advice involves the following: Show up!  If we can focus our attention on the others we are meeting with, much more can be accomplished. That’s why I like to turn my smart phone to non-vibrate silent when I’m having meetings.  I don’t want to know about the outside world, because it…

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Are Your Expectations Serving You Well?

Oft expectations fails, and most oft there where it promises – William Shakespeare A story is told of a young psychology student serving in the Army who one day decided to test a theory. Drawing kitchen duty, he was given the job of passing out apricots at the end of the chow line. He asked…

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"Sync" into others to build connect-ability and rapport

Boost your “connect-ability” with others by being synchronized, or “in sync.” This is the ability to tune in to others, to create a rhythm of similar movements and behavioral cues that orchestrate a wonderful harmony. Being in sync means having rapport; it means playing up your similarities to establish a stronger connection, to create that…

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Business Lessons From Gotye

Gotye’s smash hit, “Somebody That I Used To Know” is everywhere I go. Jacqueline introduced it to me months ago, when its stunning video made it’s way around the web, and I knew it was going to be the song-of-the-year.  At this point, you might be getting tired of it, like you did with James…

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Let’s Tackle the Skills Gap at 3 Levels

We are hearing so often these days that there are tons of well-paying jobs for which companies simply can’t find qualified people. Of course, skilling up alone won’t solve the unemployment and underemployment problems we face. But we do need to skill up as an adult population. I think we all have a part to…

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Leadership Lessons from Sheriff Andy Taylor

Barney! You beat everythin’… you know that? – Sheriff Andy Taylor Last week we lost a beloved television icon – Andy Griffith passed at the age of 86. Griffith starred in numerous television shows over the years but is best remembered for his role as the folksy Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry on The Andy…

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Don’t Stink At Email

If you lose readership of your email, your influence wanes at work.  If you misuse it enough, you’ll turn partners into detractors.  If you mismanage it as a resource, you’ll force everyone to do more work and they’ll despise you for it.  To quote TechStars grad and Vanilla founder Mark Sullivan, “Don’t suck at email.”…

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The Best Teams Communicate in 3 Critical Ways

Research reported by Alex Pentland in the April issue of Harvard Business Review has revealed some interesting new information on effective teams. He and his group deployed “sociometric badges” in teams in 21 organizations. These devices are able to monitor on individual team members’ tone of voice, body language, frequency of initiating and responding, plus…

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Giving Purpose to Passion

We all face challenging personalities on a daily basis. It could be that customer who has great expectations, maybe it’s the channel partner who takes but does not give, and sometimes our greatest challengers are on our team. Some call them “problem children”, but I do not recognize that label. Leaders Beacon is the Holy…

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4 Leadership Lessons from the Founding Fathers

          The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world – James  Madison In the book, Resources, by Kenneth L Dodge, he writes of the experiences of the Founding Fathers after the Declaration of Independence was signed. As…

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Momentum by Mistakes

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement. – Henry Ford I came across some interesting statistics recently that underscored what could happen if 99% were good enough: 12 newborns will be given the wrong parents daily 2.5 million books will be shipped with wrong covers 315…

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