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Choose Your Mindset Before Addressing Employee Behavior
Before having a candid conversation with a difficult employee, choose your mindset to optimize the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Read More5 Signs You Are A Controller …
This blog is the second of a multi-blog series addressing how events during family upbringing affect your conflict pattern and business relationships. 5 Signs You Are A Controller … 1. My way or the highway You have a vision of how things should be done and if things deviant from your…
Read MoreDeliberate Practice: The Key To Building Your Expertise
As a child my mother wanted me to take piano lessons. I wasn’t crazy about the idea but I didn’t have a choice, both my sister and I were expected to take lessons. As with learning any new skill, taking the lesson is one thing, practicing so the lesson sinks in is another. Any skill…
Read MoreA Ritual for the Holidays
Ask these 3 questions at your holiday gatherings Rituals. They are the practices that we have as part of holidays that give us comfort and stability. Rituals can be special foods, practices, or most simply “just how things are done” that provide meaning and significance. In the workplace, rituals such as starting each staff meeting…
Read MoreHow To Build Inner Resources, Resolve, and Resiliency
What inner resources help you cope with demands, distractions, and disappointments? “We are expected to do more in less time” “Leadership doesn’t get how unrealistic their demands are.” “I hold everything inside – I don’t sleep, I am depressed” “We are constantly on – even on sick days and vacation, we are expected to to…
Read More10 Questions to Move from Avoidance to Intervention
“Depending on who Margie is talking to, she is friendly and helpful. To some of us, she yells and speaks down to us when we ask her a question. Sometimes she even throws darts at the door after people leave her office. From day to day, you never know what kind of mood she will…
Read MoreThis Leadership Approach Accelerates Change
This is a four part series of blogs addressing the question “Can abrasive employees really change?”. Part I addressed the importance of the manager working through their own anxiety before intervening with the abrasive employee and staying calm. Part II outlined key elements of a proven change process. Today in Part III, we discuss a…
Read MoreWhen Your Purpose Is Taken Away
Seventeen people arrived for the interview, nervous yet determined. You see this wasn’t your typical interview. It was an audition for a chorus line. The 17 people soon learned that only eight would be chosen, four women and four men. Then tension mounted. As the audition continued with the dancers learning more dance steps and lyrics,…
Read MoreWhat behaviors do you create or accept on your work culture?
As Sal walked into the front door of the ABC Company of where he worked, he immediately felt the tension. He sensed a familiar knot in his stomach as he walked through the halls to his office. While many co-workers were friendly, he dreaded interacting with one co-worker in particular who is known by his…
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How One Woman’s Internal Peace Saved Her Life and Hundreds of Others
We handle external conflict well when we have internal peace. On August 20, 2013, Antoinette Tuff was a shining example of this concept. She started out her typical work day at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy Elementary School, where she was suddenly met with a gunman who entered the school stating, “We are all…
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