Create a Clear Mission

Share In a November 2009 Fast Company article entitled “How to Write a Mission Statement That Isn’t Dumb,” Nancy Lublin writes, “Mission statements are like corporate Hallmark cards. Often written in a bland cursive font and plastered conspicuously at headquarters, these aspiring epigrams are pretty words in Air Supply-like rhythm.” Need proof? Here’s a fairly [...]

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A Manager’s Biggest Priority is…

If you insist on doing everything, that is exactly what will happen, so quit whining about your employees’ lack of initiative. The team will likely suffer high turnover; employees will tell you they got a better offer, but they really just want to work for someone that will give them a chance to grow and develop. The team will not be innovative, because the “really good” ideas always come from you.

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How Effective Are You at Managing Performance?

Share News flash: In terms of workplace performance, employees aren’t all the same.  Yup…bet you had no idea. Of course, it would be nice if they were all the same – preferably awesome. Unfortunately, we have all seen the employee who has been with the company for ten years but really doesn’t have ten years [...]

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Which Part of “Communication” Don’t You Understand?

Share How important is it for a manager to be an effective communicator in the workplace? The most recent data suggests that, for corporate recruiters looking to hire for management positions, communication skills rank at the top of the list of core competencies managers need in the workplace: Good communication skills outrank other core business [...]

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Should Employee Engagement Even Be a Priority?

Share I recently read a Blog post entitled “Why Engagement May be the Best Management Voodoo Ever.” As I worked through the article, I also worked my way rapidly through a range of emotions – from curiosity to irritation to anger to defensiveness to understanding and, finally, back to curiosity. The author, Wally Bock, posits [...]

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A Sure-Fire Way to Stifle Your Employees

Share In many circles, leadership is seen as stepping up and “getting things done.” Which, by the way, can be true, but in many circumstances is not such a good idea, because stepping in and doing the job for someone is a quick way to stifle learning and creativity. Effective leaders learn when to allow [...]

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“Great Expectations” are Critical to Performance

Share Great Expectations. I’m certainly not much for the book. But, then again, I’m no English major. No one will confuse me with my Ph.D.-to-be daughter, the English Major Extraordinaire (I can’t even read her papers – way over my head.) My memory of Great Expectations was suffering through it in high school English class, [...]

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“Grit”: An Important Hiring Predictor

Share As a manager, I’m sure you could make a list of traits – in addition to applicable job skills – that any employee must possess in some quantity to be successful: things like intelligence, responsibility, initiative, attention to detail, ability to learn – you get the idea. But what about “grit?” Is it important [...]

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Overcoming Resistance to Workplace Change

Share Broad-based competition, a severe economic slowdown, and many other factors have combined to stagger the coffee juggernaut known as Starbucks. Sales are down; profits are down; and analysts, in general, have not been kind to the former Wall Street wunderkind. So, it was with more than a passing interest that I read a WSJ [...]

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Who’s Better: Men or Women?

Share Who makes a better manager – a man or a woman? I suspect that in some quarters just asking that question is potentially career threatening! Can you imagine someone actually suggesting – in today’s culture and political environment – that a man might make a better manager because of his gender? In a recent [...]

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