Communication

Office Politics CAN Be Positive

March 14, 2011

Later this week I’ll be speaking with the Grand Rapids Area Professionals for Excellence on the topic of Office Politics. It’s sure to be a lively event, as nearly everyone I encounter with has a story about colleagues maneuvering in some Machiavellian way to gain power, recognition or some form of “currency”. We love to [...]

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Doing Things the Hard Way

March 8, 2011

Workplace Interactions Aren’t Always as “Easy” as They Seem When was the last time you faced a tough choice when deciding how to respond to a co-worker? Chances are it wasn’t very long ago. Tricky interpersonal situations crop up all the time. As you consider your options, no doubt some choices seem easier to make [...]

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Supervisory Transition: Roles, Relationships and Remarkable Principles

February 15, 2011

A Conversation with Guy Harris on His New Book “From Bud to Boss” Last week I talked with Guy Harris, co-author of the new book From Bud To Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership. In the book, Guy and co-author Kevin Eikenberry craft a comprehensive treatment of the topic. It’s a practical [...]

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Discovering Pez

December 30, 2010

What An Interactive Candy Teaches Us About Leadership and Coaching Christmas time always provides many fun memories and this year was no exception. Santa left Pez dispensers in my kids’ stockings—for the first time. My daughter was very excited to try out her new Pez “toy”. With my background as a corporate trainer, I’m a [...]

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Black Friday and Employee Burnout

November 26, 2010

Early in my career I was a Human Resources Generalist for Marshall Field’s department stores. Autumn was a busy time for the HR department as we ramped up the hiring and training for the seasonal staff. Black Friday was the official start to our industry’s busiest time of year—a fiscal “make it or break it” [...]

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How To Accept an Apology at Work

November 16, 2010

Recently I wrote a post encouraging professionals to have an interpersonal “disaster recovery plan” for those times when they wish they could take back an unfortunate choice of words. After all, I reasoned, if you’re truly a professional then you’ll have some sort of plan for the (rare!) times you let your emotions get the [...]

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Leaders Help People Connect the Dots

November 5, 2010

It was a typical day for Pete, a division manager who oversees the work of 1200 employees for a large multi-national enterprise. Like many others, the day was full of meetings, deadlines and urgent tasks, when one issue rose above the rest: rumors had surfaced that the company was planning on selling off one of [...]

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Don’t Let Nostalgia Impede Progress

October 27, 2010

Back in the day when I was a branch Human Resources Generalist for a department store chain with nineteen locations, communicating with employees was pretty straightforward. We received messages from the corporate offices in Chicago and our store manager decided how to deliver the message—via all-store meeting, department managers or newsletter. Newsletters were my responsibility. [...]

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Tasty Salsa and Avoiding Snap Judgments

September 8, 2010

If you’ve been a People Equation reader from the start, then you know that last year, I taught myself the hot-canning bath method of preserving food and learned a few things along the way. This year, I used the Labor Day weekend to do some late-summer canning. At my request, Mr. People Equation obligingly stopped [...]

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