We’ve all walked out of a meeting and thought “Wow, that was a waste of time.” Perhaps the meeting had no clear purpose, the participants strayed off topic or the issues weren’t adequately resolved. Regardless, you left the meeting feeling frustrated. This time-wasting experience could have been avoided if the person preparing for the meeting knew how to write an agenda that … [Read more...]
Resources: Managing Negativity Now and Later
Most people right now are feeling the full weight of the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re anxious or scared. They may be feeling frustrated with the stay at home measures. Some are experiencing financial problems. Some may have even lost a loved one to the virus. Most of us are dealing with emotional highs and lows, and that can affect even the most positive people’s attitudes. To … [Read more...]
The Remote Working Survival Guide: 4 Tips
If, for the first time, you are managing employees who now must work from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, or you have been managing at least some remote workers for a while now, Jono Bacon, management strategy consultant, speaker,and author, shares some insight for doing so successfully in this guest post. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, 70% of professionals worked … [Read more...]
Figuring Out What Motivates Employees
Two questions I often hear from coaching clients during workshops and consulting engagements are: "How do I work with an unmotivated person?" "How do I motivate someone to work harder?" Here are the quick answers: There is no such thing as an unmotivated person. Everyone is motivated to do something. Therefore, everyone is motivated. You cannot motivate … [Read more...]
Reducing Conflict in the Workplace Starts With Common Courtesy
I was recently reading about strategies for managing high-conflict people in both the workplace and in your personal life, and it got me thinking about conflicts, in general. Conflicts are often not the result of some huge problem. Of course, people can do terrible things to one another, and that creates conflict, but when it comes to our day-to-day activities, our fights … [Read more...]
4 Signs You Might Be a Micromanager
What does it mean to act "like a boss" in your opinion? Does it mean managing your employees every move or empowering them to find their own way? Does it mean setting a process you expect everyone follow implicitly or working with your team to find a system that works for everyone? Honestly, no one wants to admit to micromanaging employees’ performance. Yet you may have … [Read more...]
Integrity Is Not Optional
“It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.” —Will Rogers These days, we're hearing so much about the integrity of our political and corporate leaders. But what does integrity mean? It means being honest, moral and ethical. It means doing what is right for the common good, not fulfilling some personal agenda. It means putting others … [Read more...]
Improve Team Productivity With 3 Attention Management Strategies
This is a guest post by Maura Nevel Thomas, an award-winning international speaker and trainer on productivity and work-life balance. As a new team leader, you’re faced with a challenge. Employee productivity is now at least in part, up to you. How will you increase your team's productivity so you can continue to drive value at your company? As a first step, I encourage … [Read more...]
Get Comfortable With Employees’ Mistakes
One of my favorite leadership anecdotes involves my daughter when she was just learning to drive. Several years ago, my daughter and I had to drive about thirty miles on county roads through rural Indiana. Snow was not falling on the day we made this drive. However, there was plenty of snow in the fields on either side of the roads and the wind was blowing. Under these … [Read more...]
Coaching is More Than Just Sharing Your Knowledge
You have likely risen to your current role because you have some expertise. That expertise could be in the technical nature of your team’s work, for example, you were a great sales person, so you were promoted to sales manager, or you were the top engineer so you were promoted to chief engineer. You may have proven to have superior leadership skills so you advanced, or you may … [Read more...]