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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I’ve spoken to hundreds of people in the last little while, and they all say some variation of, “We tried to get people to come back to the office, but we’ve compromised and now work hybrid.” None of them sounded excited about it. Just for fun, I looked up the word compromise. Now I understand

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What is the best approach for learning new skills when you don’t work in the same place as your boss and colleagues? Should I rely on e-learning and asynchronous tools? As a leader, is it worth the expense of pulling people together for training events? Are lunch-and-learn webinars more cost effective than instructor-led training, or

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One of the stressful parts of leading a team is sharing company news with your team. It’s never easy – especially if you have questions or concerns about the new direction or policy coming from “upstairs” yourself. You can feel caught between your people and the company. Still, you have a job to do. It can

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No matter what you do for a living, there are days when you can run on autopilot, and days when you have to buckle down, focus, and work without distractions. The challenge when working remotely is that we have so many things clamoring for attention that it can be difficult to pay attention to what’s

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On April 30, 1993 something happened that changed your life forever. The World Wide Web burst into existence.  While the Internet technically existed, it wasn’t available to the average human being until all the rules we take for granted took place. It changed the way we work forever. Since that time coincides almost precisely with

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Odds are you’ve daydreamed of either improving your company or team culture in some way. Maybe you even believe it needs a major overhaul. But does your company or team aspire to the same things you do? As we return to office and reorganize (is anyone out there NOT going through a major re-org?) now

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