Benefits of Blogging

April 22, 2010

We’re closing in on nearly a year of blogging here at The People Equation. It’s been a fantastic journey, one that Alexia Petrakos (aka The WPChick) recently chronicled in a case study. (Thanks, Alexia, for helping launch the blog!) Blogging has opened up my professional horizons and increased my visibility within the online community. It’s led [...]

Read the full article →

Author Interview with John Spence

April 20, 2010

  Earlier this year, I discovered the book Awesomely Simple and wrote a book review on it for this blog. I admired the book’s down-to-earth approach and wanted to learn more, so I reached out to its author, John Spence. John agreed to sit down with me last month for an interview.       [...]

Read the full article →

Roles Plays Are OK

April 19, 2010

Over at the HR Bartender, Sharlyn Lauby has declared role plays in the training classroom passé, declaring Nobody Likes Role Plays. I agree with her assertion the traditional format in which the trainer announces, “Now, let’s put what we just learned into practice” and calling up two training participants to the front of the room [...]

Read the full article →

Giving Back

April 14, 2010

Miss Mulder greets me at the entrance to the kindergarten classroom. I settle into a child-sized chair at the front of a brightly colored floor rug (“The Pretty Rug” as Miss Mulder calls it) and arrange my reading materials. “Good morning!” I say cheerfully to a group of smiling, upturned faces. “Good morning!”responds the enthusiastic [...]

Read the full article →

Coaching the Reluctant Retail Associate

April 7, 2010

I was out early this morning snapping up some bargains at one of my favorite mass-merchandise retailers. In what appears to be a developing theme with me, I overheard another conversation with Human Resources implications. (See my other HR eavesdropping observation here.)  Overheard:  Employee: “Do I really need to take two breaks and a lunch [...]

Read the full article →

Leadership Carnival Anniversary Edition

April 4, 2010

One of the best things about the blog carnival format is seeing how bloggers employ creativity when summarizing the blog posts.  Each month, I delight in seeing the host’s unique angle. One blogger who always has a unique take is Sharlyn Lauby at The HR Bartender. Sharlyn’s observations about HR, Training and Leadership are always [...]

Read the full article →

Extended Friday Follow

April 2, 2010

Sometimes a 140 character limit just won’t cut it, so today I’m trying something new with the Twitter’s Follow Friday. Here’s my #FF for this week, in alphabetical order and sans the 140 constraint. Roy Atkinson, known for his witty Twitter “Groaner” puns, is as funny in real life as he is in the digital [...]

Read the full article →

Leadership by Design: Intersection of Art and Science

April 1, 2010

Yesterday I was talking “shop” with two colleagues.  We’re all in the business of helping develop leaders and the talk turned to instructional design.  One of us asked, “How do you go about finding an instructional designer who also has deep experience in creating leadership programs for senior-level staff?”   We noodled this idea around [...]

Read the full article →

Boundaries of Fearlessness

March 27, 2010

In his book Linchpin Seth Godin draws a distinction between the words fearless and reckless. Fearless people, he says, are “unafraid of things one shouldn’t be afraid of.” They push through any imagined “threat” to make a presentation to a difficult customer or conduct a challenging conversation with an underperforming employee. On the other hand, [...]

Read the full article →

It’s Only “No”

March 23, 2010

When I was a kid, struggling about going for a new opportunity my mom would say, “What’s it hurt to ask? The worst they can say is ‘no’.”    Same message by Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership in his post Career Advice Part 4: You Have to Ask for It. . .  . . . [...]

Read the full article →