Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. – Helen Keller A story is told of a young Greek artist named Timanthes studied who under a respected tutor some 2,000 years ago. After several years the teacher’s efforts seemed to…
DetailsGoogle, I’m sure you will agree, is a business built on metrics and analytics. Well, they recently completed an comprehensive, rigorous internal study about what made great managers…at Google. The New York Times article says that Google wanted to build better bosses. Now, that certainly strikes a positive chord for me and boy does it…
DetailsA number of years ago my wife and I attended a workshop on how to facilitate dialogue. The session was led by our colleagues Will Stockton and Marjorie Herdes of Mobius, Inc. They do tremendous work, especially facilitating large group and community dialogue sessions, using a “roadmap” they’ve evolved over the years which they call…
DetailsPeople finally matter at work. Lip service be damned. – Marcia Conner A story is told in The Book of Business Anecdotes about marketing whiz Stanley Arnold working at Young & Rubicam in the 1950’s. He was asked to help with a marketing campaign for Remington Rand. Its chairman at the time was retired General…
DetailsProductivity is becoming more important every day. Fundamentally, it means doing much more with much less. And to be sure, there is scope for making, not only workers, but also the environment in which they work more efficient. You’ve probably noticed, for example, just how many organizations in both the public and private sectors waste…
DetailsWhat’s your social capital? If you’ve been through job interviews recently, or have been considered for a promotion or a big account, I’ll bet you’ve been asked about “your social capital.” Employers, clients and prospects want to know what and how much social capital you have to improve their connections, word-of-mouth advertising, potential partnerships, resources…
DetailsIf the world is cold make it your business to build fires – Horace Traubel In a recent Gallup Business Journal feature, Scott Simmons and Christie Fraser reported on the state of customer service in the hospital industry. Notable in their findings: hospitals try to deliver the best healthcare outcomes and good customer service, but…
DetailsA Vice President I worked for years ago, reflecting on her rise to the C Suite, stated that she thought it was more stressful to be a middle manager than an executive. The difference, she said, is the senior leader has more autonomy over things than do managers further down in the hierarchy. We know…
DetailsOrganizational culture and theoretical entities like electrons have some important things in common. First, the actual entities themselves are in principle invisible to the naked eye so while their “reality” has often been debated and doubted, the affects they have on things that can be seen and measured are very, very real – only a…
DetailsThe endless assortment of messages, feelings and attitudes we bring from our past into our present influences how we see ourselves. It also directly impacts our ability to relate to others. Your self image serves as a sieve, filtering every experience and interaction and creates a running inner dialogue. You talk to yourself constantly about…
DetailsCould laziness be the most powerful motivator of all? And if it is, how can you use this to your advantage? As a people watcher have you ever noticed that the majority of people gravitate to the easiest way of accomplishing a task? Instead of being aggravated as a manager or supervisor, perhaps you should…
DetailsCompanies like to think of themselves as having up-to-date thinking. They assume they are of the 21st century ilk because they’ve flattened their hierarchies, removed unnecessary levels of management, and empowered their employees. The truth is that many of them are just as traditional as they’ve always been. They still think about how to manage their…
DetailsSummer is almost here which means if you’re a member of a professional association there is a good chance you will have an opportunity to attend your annual convention or conference in the near future. Even companies who cancelled their annual meetings last year due to the poor economy are back on track this year…
DetailsManagers typically are more competitive than average employees. So it’s natural for managers to want to create a competitive spirit between employees, shifts, divisions and locations. And some employees respond really well to this competition. It can even get carried away to include gaming the system to improve your score over your colleagues, and other…
DetailsI recently attended a presentation by Shannon Deegan, Google’s Director of People. Now, a lot has been written about this company and how it is up there in the stratosphere of “best places to work,” as decreed by Fortune magazine and others. Not surprisingly, Google received around 2 million resumés last year and filled 5000…
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