4 Steps to Effective Performance Management

The Institute for Corporate Productivity recently came out with four recommendations for putting in place an effective, robust process for managing and recognizing individual performance. Focusing, as is their wont, on the practices of high performing organizations, their research found that:

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4 Steps to Building a Culture of Respect

Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners – Laurence Sterne In surveys conducted by Weber Shandwick (http://bit.ly/ieo5oz) in 2011 it revealed what many already know or experience – incivility in the workplace is on the rise and the many place the blame at the feet of workplace leadership. The online…

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4 Reasons Why You Need Patience…Right Now!

It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience. – Horace Bushnell A recent story in Business Management Daily about the success of online shoe retailer Zappos brought my attention back to one of leadership’s most needed and personally challenging virtues – patience.…

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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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4 Keys to Building Instant Rapport

The foundation for building rapport is based on the exchange of a few basic communication signals. Here are 4 key ways to build instant rapport. This is based on the book, Get Along With Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere by Arnold Sanow and Sandra Strauss.

4 Blind Spots Every Leader Must See

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision – Helen Keller Max Lucado shares a story about Bob Edens. For 51 years he was blind and could not see a thing. His world was a black hall of sounds and smells. He felt his way through five decades of darkness.…

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4 Attitude Choices Every Leader Must Make

Your attitude, not your aptitude, determine your altitude – Zig Ziglar An observation was made of how both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat because that is what they are looking for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead…

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3 Ways to see Life as a Leader

  Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile – Albert Einstein In a column for Success magazine (http://bit.ly/ZeyOzV) , John Maxwell shares a story about a picture of his son taken with Mother Teresa. Maxwell had sent him to India for a month so he could see the world as it was,…

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3 Things I Learned from My Subordinates

Some days I feel like I’m on walking upward on a down escalator — my 25 years of supervising and managing experience isn’t getting me the results I want.   This past few weeks, the managers in my own department have been teaching me a few things: 1)  Know the “style” of the decision-makers in…

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3 Things HBO’s ‘Persona’ Got Wrong About the MBTI®

HBO Max’s new documentary is an all-out attack on how personality assessments, like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®), are being used throughout talent management at companies — hiring, developing, and placing employees. A great deal of what Executive Producer Merve Emre is reporting is true: The wholesale abuse of personality tools occurs throughout organizational life.…

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3 Simple Leadership Lessons

I am often asked about the keys to leadership. Of course, there are core characteristics that we can list and quantify. Most often, however, I hearken back to sound advice. The best bosses I have had assisted my career development through very human interactions. The strategy book is thrown out the window and you talk to one another…

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3 Rules of Employee Engagement

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention. – Jim Rohn Dale Carnegie Training recently released new findings on employee engagement (http://bit.ly/12GBqXI) and the results proved to be quite intriguing. The first and most dramatic finding shows that if an employee is dissatisfied with their immediate supervisor, there…

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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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3 Options for Handling Difficult Situations

We have the power to choose what we do when situations are difficult and connections fray. Knowing that we always have choices gives us the power to take control. Throughout our lives, we’ll mix and mingle with plenty of people- the outraged and the obstinate, the belligerent and the bothersome, the annoying and the agitated,…

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