Knowledge or office workers spend 70% of our workday involved in either reading or writing. It’s not a surprise that poor writing is a major complaint. In fact, 81% of executives blame poor writing skills for at least some of their productivity problems. It’s easy then, to say “We need to improve our business writing.”

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If something consumed most of your day, you’d want to be good at it. If something was one of the top-three barriers to productivity, you’d do something about it. Yet few people have gotten any coaching or training on their business writing since they left school. Seventy percent of business communication today takes place in writing.

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When you work remotely, or have flexible hours, you have a great deal of control over your schedule. That’s the good news. It’s also the cause of stress and lost productivity. How can you create a “to-do” list that is thoughtful and effective? Too often, we confuse productivity with task completion. If that seems paradoxical, you’re

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Encouraging people to return to the office is an ongoing struggle. Some organizations are navigating these uncharted waters better than others. Instead of cooperative negotiation, many are now resorting to scare tactics. Reports stressing the awful damage work-from-home (WFH) is doing to our bodies, our families, and society in general.Some ExamplesFor instance, if you keep

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A lot of companies are trying to figure out new standards for remote work. Here in the US, it’s largely up to each company or each jurisdiction (because, State’s Rights.) As a result, there isn’t a coherent set of rules to follow. We thought we’d look at what other countries are doing about remote and

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In the conversations about returning to the office, there’s an assumption that it’s “the dinosaurs in the C Suite” who insist people come in as much as possible. But there’s another group that is clamoring for more time together. It’s your youngest, newest employees. An article in Forbes highlights some of the reasons. There are many reasons

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One of the most common sayings in business (at least in the dark ages, when I was becoming a manager) was, “People will do what you expect and what you inspect.” In other words, your employees need to know what you want, and if it matters enough to have metrics that measure success. This is

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Has going back to the office been more work than you expected? Did you think it would lead to a “new normal” that would allow you to quit stressing about things you can’t control and just get back to work the way it was in the Before Times? One of my coworkers pointed something interesting

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By far the most common concern of senior leaders is developing a corporate culture that creates great work and engages both customers and employees. While those are critical characteristics, the secret to any successful culture is the answer to the question: how will work get done. In our book, The Long Distance Team, Designing Your

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What does being the leader of a hybrid team have in common with canning fruits and vegetables? They both are excellent ways to preserve things for a long time. They also come with potential problems. Stick with me. Unseen dangers When I was a kid, my mother tried canning peaches and making her own pickles.

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