Communication and Clarity
Productive communication is critical in every organization. Some of the essential aspects of communication include: listening, building trust in relationships, being honest in every interaction, and dealing with conflict effectively. Great team communication must be engaging, motivating and authentic. It must help the team to see the path and the destination. The larger the organization, the geometrically more complex communication becomes. With one-on-one communication, we can watch body language, hear tone of voice and create an immediate feedback loop. With […]
What We Need To Succeed
Written by: During the course of my life, as we have studied successful people in all positions, industries and organization sizes, we have noticed certain commonalities of attitude and habit.  These commonalities not only improve current situations and circumstances, but also improve life over time.  These same approaches have value and power in our personal lives, not just in business. The sum total of them cause: Self awareness Maturity Great relationships Ever increasing results But how do you get there?   […]
Are You Ready For The Homerun?
Each of us has an opportunity every day to live each moment to the fullest and make each and every interaction one that is memorable and impactful.  In order to do that you must make a concerted effort to make each interaction a homerun. Once you make up your mind that this is how you want to lead your team, drive your organization forward and live your life to the fullest, here are a few tips that can help. Review […]
Taking Action, Killing “Joe” and Meetings vs Movies
Written by:  Don Hadley The Primary Problem In organizations, there can be too much talking and not enough doing.  Vision without action (or talking without action) is simply wishful thinking or hallucination. When this sort of behavior is occurring, some leaders tell me “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink”.  This statement implies that we cannot get employees to take action. That is a cop-out!  The reality for great leaders is that we realize […]
Overcoming A, B, C Employee Ratings: Response to Wall Street Journal Article from 2/21/07
The Wall Street Journal article is greatly appreciated because it highlights what occurs when an employee rating system is poorly implemented and used in organizations.  However, it was an incredibly simplistic perspective.  The perspective was that of someone who has only taken a cursory look at this approach, and we see this from newer employees and rookie leaders who have not thought through ratings systems properly in the past.  It did not explain how powerful this approach can be if […]
Relationship Coaching: Advice on How to Attain Your Goals
Executive coaching isn’t just for executives anymore.  Every day, we all engage with other people to accomplish things, whether at work or at home.  The principles that apply to business world coaching easily translate to other types of relationships. All relationships come down to a few basic factors, the biggest of which are trust, honesty and dependability.  In other words, each of the parties clearly states their needs and wants, knows the other person will work hard to help them […]
Secrets to Engaging Your Team and Producing Success
Most of us realize that in order for our organization to realize the potential success we know is possible, a strategic plan must be in place.  Common knowledge, right?  According to a recent study of 26,000 start-up companies, 67% had no written plan.  The same study found that businesses that have and use a strategic plan are 12% more profitable than those who have no plan.  Ensuring the commitment of your team to the company’s vision and goals is a […]
Effective Communication Skills for Business Success
  In this “Drive Through With Don”, he discusses two different teams and the effect communication had on the success of the businesses. One team was struggling and frustrated and they communicated very poorly with each other.  Poor communication damaged relationships, created mistrust among the team members and any efforts to turn this around were either blocked or given very little effort.  Once a team becomes ineffective it bleeds over to customers and suppliers and before too long, the problem […]