Posts tagged as:

Team Effectiveness

Tag-Team Workplace Coaching

November 3, 2011

Sometimes, a person’s boss just isn’t the right person to do the coaching. Consider this story, as told to me by my client Pete: Pete was part of a new product ideation team tasked with creating a proposal for the company president. On the day of Big Presentation to the president Liz, the team gathered [...]

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The Golden Rule of Listening: How to Speak Loud and Clear without Opening Your Mouth

June 24, 2011

  About a month ago, I read an excellent guest post on Great Leadership by Tim Eyre. I liked his writing style so much that I asked if he’d be willing to share some thoughts on The People Equation. He said “yes” and what follows is an insightful observation about the power of listening. Guest [...]

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Announcing the Leadership Development Roundtable Challenge

June 15, 2011

Dan McCarthy, host of the blog Great Leadership is trying out something new. This month, he launched the Leadership Development Roundtable Challenge and I think it’s something you’ll want to check out. This is how it works: Once a month, a leadership blogger will host a “challenge” question that highlights a typical dilemma or challenge [...]

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Driving with Values

March 22, 2011

Today’s post comes to us courtesy of leadership consultant and author David Burkus. His new book, The Portable Guide to Leading Organizations explores 39 different theories related to leadership, management and strategy.   By Guest Author David Burkus   I recently worked with a coaching client who had stalled out. This mid-level insurance broker had [...]

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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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Employees Can’t Get No Satisfaction

January 14, 2010

With a clumsy nod to the Rolling Stones’ classic tune, it appears to be true: since 1987, workers have become steadily less satisfied with their work.  This is according to research results released last week by The Conference Board.  What’s more, it’s not a generational thing: satisfaction is decreasing amongst all ages groups.  While the [...]

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What’s It Hurt To Ask?

October 16, 2009

I just returned from conducting on-site meetings for a new client.  The CEO of this company hired me to help his employees make the transition to a new organizational structure. We’re doing a series of input meetings, SWOT analyses and informational interviews.  Something that one of the employees said this morning is really sticking with [...]

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The TMI of Leadership

September 29, 2009

The other day, I was having a discussion with a training manager named Sally.  Her staff designs training for her company’s field sales force. Sally works for a large organization that has a reputation for promoting from within. Here’s what we were discussing: Leaders higher up in her organization have noticed that when the sales people [...]

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Boo or Yay Manager?

September 20, 2009

One of my favorite experiential activities for management training is an oldie but goodie called the “Boo/Yay” exercise.  In it, two volunteers separately try to guess a per-determined task such as walking to the front of the room and picking up a marker. The audience is instructed to give the volunteers feedback to help them [...]

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Book Review: The Sharp Employee

September 18, 2009

In preparation for reviewing the Marcus Buckingham’s soon-to-be released book Find Your Strongest Life, I decided to pull some of Buckingham’s earlier books off the shelf and give them a second look.  This review is the first of a three-part series. Now, Discover Your Strengths Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton The highlights: In the [...]

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