Unemployment rates are holding firm at 3.7 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. While that's great for the country, if you are an employer looking for talent, not so much. It makes it even harder to find exceptional talent to hire. Dan Iny, author of Leveraged Learning: How the Disruption of Education Helps Lifelong Learners and Experts with Something to … [Read more...]
Be Ultra-Productive This Week
Make this week your most productive week this year. Josh Davis, Ph.D., author of the international bestseller, Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done and Director Research at the Institute for Personal Leadership offers his advice for drastically improving your productivity. He advises "Adapt to the fact … [Read more...]
Friendship at Work? How to Make it a Benefit, Not a Problem
Eighty-two percent of people feel they have friends at work, but only 15 percent see those friendships as "real," says research conducted by Olivet Nazarene University. The survey of 3000 people across 21 industries sheds some light on how people perceive their coworkers. You can see more results here, but here are a few highlights: 71% don't consider any coworkers "best … [Read more...]
Avoid These 7 “Flowbreakers” That Are Killing Your Productivity
If you're concerned about your own or your employees' productivity, you may be dealing with one of the following flowbreakers, say James Manktelow and Julian Birkinshaw, coauthors of Mind Tools for Managers: 100 Ways to Be a Better Boss. Keep reading to learn their advice for managing distractions so that you all can be more productive: Personal technology Smartphones and now … [Read more...]
Ensure Your Employees Don’t Quit YOU
Unemployment rates are low, and your employees have options. What's more is that employees are more likely to quit because of you, their manager, than anything else in the workplace. So if you want to avoid the high financial and productivity costs of turnover, guess what: You play a key role in keeping them from jumping ship. In fact, you have a hand in every aspect of … [Read more...]
Reboot a Struggling Team With These 3 Exercises
This is a guest post by Andi Simon, author of On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights. As a team leader, you are the first defense against a toxic culture. If you sense that conflict is becoming the norm, that employees are no longer working well together, that employees are overwhelmed and burned out, or that performance is slipping, act … [Read more...]
8 Questions Every Leader Should Ask Before Letting Someone Go
This is a guest post by Piyush Patel, author of Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work. There are plenty of studies to put numbers behind the costs of letting someone go. The Society for Human Resource Management, for example, indicates those costs to be as high as 50% to 60% of the employee's annual salary. What you won’t find as easily are stats for how it affects the … [Read more...]
25 Strategies for Conflict Resolution
This is a guest post by Dan Rockwell, leadership and management expert and author of the popular Leadership Freak blog. Sometimes it is the simplest actions that can help you resolve a conflict quickly, or avoid one all together. When you sense things are heating up, use one or more of these strategies: 1. Don’t focus on winning or losing; focus on achieving … [Read more...]
Actions are Louder than Words: Simply Responding to Controversy Won’t Make You a Strong Leader
This is a guest post by Vishal Agarwal, author of Give to Get: A Senior Leader's Guide to Navigating Corporate Life. Much of the news run over the past few weeks has focused on what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not do once the Cambridge Analytics information came to light. Much of the anger has tied him to the billions of dollars of wiped out stock value. Yet, little … [Read more...]
4 Hacks Successful Leaders Use to Overcome Resistance
This is a guest post by Martin Lanik, author of THE LEADER HABIT. When you propose a change or new strategy to your team, do people openly resist your ideas? Do you have trouble articulating the improvements the change will bring? Are you unable to come to an agreement with particular team members? As a leader, you must be able to bring your people on board to make … [Read more...]