Today I’m excited to be a guest on the popular blog talk radio show, Drive Thru HR, hosted by William Tincup and Bryan Wempen. Things are pretty free-flowing on their show, so it’s anybody’s guess where our conversation will take us. We’ll start talking HR and the “people equation”‘ but who knows where we’ll end…
Workplace Dynamics
15 Ways to Be Nice at Work
This week is Be Nice Week at my kids’ school. It’s part of an anti-bullying program designed to “promote the old-fashioned value of being nice”. Today the students and teachers will wear “Be Nice” t-shirts offered by the The Mental Health Foundation of West Michigan. I bought a t-shirt too and will be wearing it today…
Leadership and Positive Social Contagion
Are there any positive leadership stories out there anymore? Anyone? Anyone? Sometimes, I feel like Ben Stein’s economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, casting about for any story that sheds a positive light on the ability to lead with character. In the last week alone, I’ve personally heard three stories of leadership failure: …
Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries
Earlier this week I presented a session on Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries to the Western Michigan chapter of the Project Management Institute. The session was so well-received that many people asked for copies of the Power Point presentation. Well, you know how that goes—a Power Point without the corresponding speaker commentary is a bit flat….
Tag-Team Workplace Coaching
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…