Smartbrief

Praise and Feedback Aren’t the Same Thing

February 28, 2019

As a foodie, I love all kinds of mash-ups. From bacon apple pie to mac and cheese quesadillas it’s stimulating to creatively pair ingredients in unexpected ways. But when it comes to leadership communication, combining certain types of information within the same conversation is a recipe for disaster. To illustrate, let’s use a fictitious member […]

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Leading the 50+ Employee

January 7, 2019

The workforce is getting grayer, and it appears that business practices have yet to catch up to the trend. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that workers 55 years and older are the fastest growing segment of the working population. Pair that with the fact that less than 6% of companies have a specific […]

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New to Your Company? 5 Things that Will Help Sell Your Ideas

December 17, 2018

Imagine this scenario: About two months ago, you landed a new gig as a leader at a respected company. You’ve done all the right things to set yourself up for success by priming the pump with these activities before Day One on the job. For the first month, you listened, networked, took copious notes and […]

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1-1 Meetings Getting Stale? Make this Change for Better Results

October 8, 2018

Acknowledging team success via a “Friday Wins Meeting” like this one at content marketing tech firm Percolate has become standard practice at many companies. Many teams also informally share wins at their daily huddle meetings. There’s something exciting about celebrating a win with members of your team that can start the day off right, or […]

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4 Low-Cost Ways to Develop Your Team’s Soft Skills

August 27, 2018

Leaders are often reminded “what’s inspected gets done.” While this adage is typically applied to measurable task-related behaviors such as productions goals, it’s also relevant for human elements of the workplace like interpersonal skills. As artificial intelligence makes further inroads into your daily work as a leader, you need to pay attention to soft-skill development […]

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Here’s What AI Means for Your Leadership

August 6, 2018

Will artificial intelligence change the way you lead? Yes, and probably in ways that were unthinkable even a few years ago. There’s a lot being written right now about how AI will affect the white-collar workforce. Jobs once thought immune to automation due to their extensive need for human analysis are now seen as AI’s […]

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Want to Improve Your Leadership? Get Inside Your Head

July 9, 2018

As leaders, you’re often told to that in order to stem overthinking, you need to “get out of your head.” And while it’s true that too much introspection causes either oversimplification or excessive rumination, a new leadership book suggests that you should consider what’s going on in that noggin of yours. Want to improve your […]

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3 Communication Tips to Help You Be a Better Leader

June 28, 2018

Do you have a colleague that irritates you with his “ahs,” “ums” or protracted silences? Leaders are taught that strong orators remove superfluous words and awkward silences from their presentations, so it makes sense that you might take a dim view of these speech patterns. But even though Sam from Accounting might drive you to […]

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Leaders Who Know When to Shut Up Get Better Ideas from the Team

February 26, 2018

For many years, I worked with a highly effective (and very respected) leader named Jack, who at the time was a senior executive at a large insurance company. After working together on a few corporate projects, Jack asked me to lead a three-day strategic planning session for his team. About two hours into the first […]

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Renewing Your Leadership Purpose with Compassion

February 19, 2018

Years ago, when I was a 23 year old assistant human resources manager at a department store, one of our sales associates suffered a heart attack and died while at work. At the time, I was out of town, attending my grandfather’s funeral. Upon my return to work, my boss Mary told me what had […]

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