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,…
DetailsAt the core of The Leadership Circle (360 degree assessment) model are the Reactive tendencies and Creative competencies. If you look at the circle itself, you will see Reactive structure of mind represented by the lower half of the circle and Creative structure by the upper half. When leaders operate from the Reactive mind-set they…
DetailsToday we look at the one or two bottom performing employees you might have on your team or in your company. It could be job performance related or it could be negativity or behavior problems. Can they be ‘fixed’ or should you let them go and move forward with hiring a replacement? An HR Manager…
DetailsAt a gut level we know that leadership is important and necessary. As I think back over the many bosses I worked for, only a small fraction exhibited good leadership skills. And those good bosses… I still think back fondly on how they helped me along my career path. Even the good ones were far…
DetailsDo you have some employees or co-workers who think of themselves as extra special, indispensible and untouchable? Their superior attitude often ticks off the people who work with them. So today we look at the right and wrong way to deal with prima donnas in the workplace. Dealing With Prima Donnas at Work Employees and…
DetailsI was teaching a session to front line leaders this past week on how to coach, confront and correct employees when there is a gap between expected behavior and performance and the actual behavior and performance. Understandably, confronting and correcting conversations are not easy on the leader or the employee which can result in procrastination,…
DetailsGary Ridge, CEO of the highly successful company, WD-40 (the lubrication folks) believes that everyone in his firm should get an ‘A’ in goal achievement. Their performance management process reflects this emphasis…
DetailsIn a previous post we examined a manager who was too easy on his team. In many cases an assignment will come in to work with a manager who has the opposite challenge – he or she is too tough on employees. Often these hard-nosed managers tend to work long hours, do the work his…
DetailsBusy, busy, busy. Rush, rush, rush. Meet with team–call shipping–update spread sheet–check emails–meet with boss–finalize report–make two more calls–work on client presentation–attend strategy update meeting–write up the minutes–analyze production data–read market trend report–and on and on and on. If you are right now saying to yourself this “this is my life,” you’re not alone. But…
DetailsThe Plant Manager was becoming increasingly frustrated. His production manager was struggling to meet plant performance targets and was not getting his team to take ownership of achieving results. The initial diagnosis was that the production manager was being too easy on his team. As with most management problems, only two or three behaviours cause…
DetailsHigh achievers are prone to enter a time in their career where they plateau or stall. Perhaps promotions are not coming as fast and furious as they once did or in some cases, they have achieved every goal they have set and have run out of challenges. Achievers will ask themselves, “Is this all there…
DetailsAccountability becomes mission-critical in challenging times. We need everyone in our organization to take ownership of results and make things happen. Creating an environment of accountability rests with management. Based on our 22 years of experience in organizational development and leadership training, we have discovered that managers systematically remove accountability. As a result the manager…
DetailsHow leaders can impact employee’s motivation using the 4-Drive Theory The 4-Drive Theory of Employee Motivation states that there are four main drives that motivate employees, these are the drives to: Acquire & Achieve, to Bond & Belong, to be Challenged & Comprehend, and to Define & Defend.
DetailsA client organization of mine has a culture that values measuring everything. This makes good business sense. It enables you to monitor, recalibrate and optimize your processes and results.
A manager or supervisor’s job should be easier. After all, as long as you have the right people, the right materials, the right information and the right equipment, everything goes smoothly. For most of us this fairy tale scenario only happens on occasion. The rest of the time we are scrambling because one or two…
Details
