Unique Ground Rules for Effective Meetings
Handling meetings effectively today means that you spend only as much time as is necessary on the agenda, making decisions, and then adjourning. The best result from a meeting is full engagement, enhanced creativity and commitment to action from the team. Here are five unique rules we use among the other basic ones (e.g., issuing and closely following an agenda, providing data prior to the meeting) to ensure you get the most from your time. ELMO: this is not the […]
Executive Coaching and Leadership Team Development
  The truth is there is no BEST way.  Regardless of the type of training, there is no one way to do it and one size definitely does not fit all.  Each of us has an overwhelming need to be understood.  When it comes to teaching people and you desire learning and communication to occur,  we have found that working from the inside out and utilizing all styles of learning is the most rewarding and is critical to achieving the […]
Leadership Coaching for Change Management
What do college athletes, Olympic gold medalists and smart business leaders have in common?  They rely on coaches to help them reach their greatest potential and teach them to overcome challenges.  Yet a study by the Stanford Business School found that nearly two-thirds of CEO’s and nearly half of senior executives do not receive any executive coaching or leadership development.  Almost all of them (69%) said they would like coaching to enhance their development. Imagine your college coach working with […]
Business Meeting Itinerary and Change Management
Meetings can cost a lot of money if they are not productive.  If your manager has put you in charge of leading an upcoming meeting, ensure it goes well by using these guidelines: Goals: have specific, tangible SMAART Goals for the meeting, as well as sub goals. Transform the goals into questions. Questions: ask questions that get them thinking about the whole organization. The objective is to get them to see, think about and consider the entire map and not […]
Change Management Process for New Managers
When my friend John moved downstate to take a new position, he was nervous. He was coming into a totally unfamiliar organization as a manager. Most of the people he would be managing were 20-30 years older than he was. There was an established culture with prevailing relationships and time-honored routines, yet part of his job was to shake things up. He and I both worried about his ability to tackle these challenges. How could he, a much younger manager, […]
Employee Retention by Building a Culture of Sincere Appreciation
During college, I worked in a used bookstore close to campus. The pay was low. The hours were often inconvenient. And yet, we were dedicated to our jobs. The only time a job in the store came open was when a former employee graduated and left town. (If they stuck around after graduation, they’d keep working at the bookstore.) I was lucky and stumbled into a job there my first week of freshman year, and I stayed. I worked overtime […]
Workplace Safety Topics for Skeptical Managers
When my brother-in-law started applying for jobs in our home town, everyone had advice and recommendations. “I know someone at the car factory!” “Don’t forget the cabinet company!” “The rolled aluminum plant is always hiring.” There was one piece of advice that he heard over and over. “Don’t work at the foundry. We’ve heard it’s risky over there and we don’t want you getting hurt.” The foundry paid well and had great benefits, but its safety record was lacking. Managers […]
Preserving Your Organizational Culture During Company Growth
I’d been a dedicated customer of a local food company from the day they opened. Lily had started out as a small-scale gardener and baker, selling her vegetables and sweetbreads at area farmers’ markets. That’s where I discovered her, and I made her table a regular stop on my Saturday morning rounds. As demand grew, she hired a few friends to help her expand her garden and bakery. After a few years, she had requests from local restaurants, a regular […]