Articles

We often hear two schools of thought in business centered around our people – if we grow this organization it will show how much we care about our people.  Or, if we care about our people the result will be growth for the organization.  We believe either version demonstrates that we care about our people, that they are the priority.  Afterall, a growing organization often results in higher pay, job security, more benefits and a Read more…

Passive-aggression is a behavior pattern than can have huge toxic fallout. This can often happen when someone chooses not to address an issue or situation directly, but through passive and often destructive behavior. In this edition of Tips for Transformative Leadership, I want to share an article from Inc.com that provides a great overview of this toxic behavior pattern known as passive-aggression. 5 Tactics Passive Aggressive People Use to Get Under Your Skin (and How Read more…

For any business, the key to success is to get the people who must do the work to be fully committed to that work the largest majority of their time. The motivation to be committed and to do any work ebbs and flows. How much that motivation flows towards the necessary work will depend on the amount of energy those workers receive from the various sources that exist in their lives. For a business owner Read more…

We often talk about the importance of understanding your natural strengths.  But it is equally as important to understand your blind spots or blockers.  We all have them.  No one is exempt.  Blind spots or blockers are those patterns in our behavior that we do not always see, but can have a big impact on our relationships and career. Blind spots are a funny thing.  Sometimes we see them, sometimes we don’t.  They can often Read more…

In today’s busy workplace environment, there is a never-ending opportunity to be overwhelmed by the tasks at hand.  Our to-do lists far outweigh our ability to get it all done.  Many of us are so used to working at such a fast pace that when we finally get to the weekend our down time adds up to virtually zero.  Not only is it difficult to wind down, the reality is that just because it’s the Read more…

People are always looking for the magic bullet.  That one thing that makes something stick.  Magic bullets are usually not magic bullets at all, but just common sense put into practice.  They’re not always easy, or at least easily sustainable.  If they were we wouldn’t be looking for them, now would we? In our line of work we are always asked, “How do I get ___________ to do what I want?”  Is there a magic Read more…

In a world of high performance goals, monthly, quarterly and yearly targets, rarely do we slow down long enough to celebrate the wins that we have along the way. In most organizations today the company initiatives far outweigh the number of hours in a day to get them done.  In Franklin Covey’s wildly popular Four Disciplines of Execution, in the initial surveys that were conducted only 15% of the employees could name even one of Read more…

Understanding what the people you supervise truly value will give you real insight into why they do what they do.  You can assume that those in our charge are lazy and lack a connection to the needs of the company, but that will get you nowhere with respect to making the progress you’d really like to make.  Once you understand where your employees are coming from you can reframe your thought process so that you Read more…

It goes without saying that the biggest and most common issue our clients have, regardless of the industry, is communication.  More often than not it is at the top of the list. One of the pitfalls in communication we’re going to talk about today is responding to communication from others.  Regardless of the form of communication, there is nothing more frustrating than needing an answer and waiting for a response from someone.  The potential to Read more…