I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find it fascinating to listen in on other people’s telephone conversations, at least the half of the conversation I can hear. I was sitting idly in the office recently when my partner took a phone call from a salesperson. I knew it was a salesperson because after…
DetailsMost salespeople don’t know when to quit. They don’t know when to quit talking… when to quit selling… and when to quit trying. They talk too much, sell too long and give up too soon. What’s worse, not only do some salespeople give up too soon, they often don’t even get started! In a survey…
DetailsWhen you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it’s best to let him go. – Abraham Lincoln A well-known story in some sectors of coastal communities such as where I live is that of the crab mentality. It is used to describe selfish or short-sighted people…
DetailsDo you remember the last time you attended the initial meeting of a new task force or project team at work? No one could agree on the goals. A couple of people complained about all their other work demands. Someone was pushing a personal agenda to become the team “leader.” After a couple of hours…
DetailsAs we increasingly live in the fast lane, a few road signs might be useful to guide us along the way-words warning us when good connections are being overlooked, threatened, or endangered. Some possibilities might include: Yield to Connection, Stop to Connect, or Use Caution … Relationships at Work! Following these signs could make the…
DetailsIn a recent survey titled, why do people give up on your company? it was noted that 68% quit because of an attitude of indifference toward the client by the owner, manager or employee. This indifference comes about because we tend to forget that to stay employed and succeed in our business or organization we…
DetailsIt’s been a smart idea for years. When good employees leave your organization for greener pastures and the departure is amicable, why not keep in contact? You never know, some may find that that grass isn’t, in fact, greener and that your firm was a pretty good place to work after all. A recent WSJ…
DetailsIn the hurly burly of meeting deadlines, doing more with less, and achieving performance goals, it is easy to forget to keep up the dialogue with each of your staff about: How they are doing vis-à-vis their performance How they are doing vis-à-vis their well-being Their continuing development and growth
DetailsBy Dennis W. Bakke PVG, 2005 ISBN #0-9762686-0-4 Reviewed by Ian Cook In 1982 Dennis Bakke co-founded the energy company AES and led it, by the year 2000, to $8.6 billion revenue, over $33 billion in assets in thirty-one countries, 40,000 employees, and an energy provider to over 100 million consumers. He resigned in 2002,…
DetailsIt was one of those business trips where I was going to have to be on four planes and deliver the opening keynote for a conference all within 24 hours. In an effort to conserve energy, I hunkered down in the seat of my first flight, turned on my ipod, opened my computer and entered…
DetailsMy alma mater, the Industrial and Labor Relations School of Cornell University recently hosted a conference on “The Quality of Jobs.” They looked at how trends in what they call the “intensification” of work, the restructuring of jobs, and classic downsizing have impacted the quality of jobs and the levels of satisfaction employees (who are…
DetailsThis week, I’ve had several scary job reference requests. Three out of four had an unhappy ending. So do job references really make a difference? Listen to 4 stories and decide for yourself….. In my own experience, the two worst mistakes made during hiring are:
DetailsThe bigger we get the smaller we have to think. Customers still walk in one at a time. – Sam Walton A story is told of how many years ago a man conned his way into the orchestra of the emperor of China although he could not play a note. Whenever the group performed, he…
DetailsEveryone 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…
DetailsThis post was triggered by a great post in the HBR Blog Network by Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman. This essence of their article is that most of the behaviors of so called “bad bosses” are, in their words, sins of omission, not commission. In other words, it’s more what the boss fails to do…
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