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...]
You Can’t Control Everything, So Focus More on This
There is a difference between what we can control and what we can merely influence. Sometimes we get the two mixed up, and it leads to major headaches. For example, in several states (California, Montana, Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota) there is a big primary election today. If you live in one of those states and vote (and you … [Read more...]
2 Words You’re Probably Not Saying Enough
Memorial Day is Monday, and we'll honor the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. We'll attend parades, picnics or other celebrations, as a way to remember and show our gratitude to all the soldiers who died for this great nation and to thank the vets and soldiers still with us for their service. It has me thinking a great deal about saying "Thank you." … [Read more...]
5 Steps to More Beneficial Conversations
Engaging conversation with your employees does more than just provide you with something interesting to talk about. Each time you dive into an insightful conversation, you are building rapport, understanding and trust with employees. Your relationship improves, and with it, so does employee collaboration, cooperation, performance, motivation, engagement, morale and … [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...]
Do You Give Your Employees a Voice? If Not, It’s Time to Start
Increasingly employees want to be heard in the workplace, and it goes deeper than simply having someone listen, note their ideas and opinions, and move on. Employees want their leaders to act on what they're hearing from employees. It seems many companies are starting to pay attention. Last year, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology listed “capturing the … [Read more...]
Boosting Self-Esteem is the Key to High Performance
Self-esteem is relatively scarce in the world and in your workplace. If you don't believe that, it's probably because: You have a healthy self-esteem and so you assume others do, or it never crosses your mind. You don’t have it, and are in denial, (or think you are the only one with weak or low self-esteem). Your people seem to have good self-esteem Self-esteem … [Read more...]
Hiding the Cheese (and Tearing Down Other Barriers That Make Change Hard)
I often say that facts dictate the need for change, and emotions create the barrier to it. Changing from one way of doing things (behavior) to a different one always involves loss, and loss triggers powerful negative emotions. You must understand and address those negative emotions to successfully influence change. I've often talked about about the power that having a weight … [Read more...]
Take the Sting Out of Bad News
I'm a huge fan of home improvement shows. One of my guilty pleasures is waking up early on a Saturday (when I don't have soccer mom duties), and catching up on the shows I missed that week while sipping a cup of hot coffee. My favorite show of the moment is HGTV's Home Town. If you like this type of show and haven't already, check it out. The married hosts, Ben and Erin … [Read more...]
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More and Change The Way You Lead Forever
Back in 2016 on the Kevin Eikenberry Blog, I was incredibly excited to share news about Michael Bungay Stanier's brand-new book "The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More and Change The Way You Lead Forever." March 1, 2018 marked the two-anniversary, and the book is now a best seller. The leadership guidance presented in the book and my thoughts on it are as pertinent as ever, … [Read more...]