During a recent dinner conversation, I asked a close friend “What is your biggest complaint about work?” Without hesitation, he said “People who miss their deadlines.” Then he went into a 20-minute tirade about how one missed deadline by one person throws everything off. He talked about how it is almost always up to him

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If you are a sports fan, there is always lots of talk about the importance of offense and defense in the making of winning teams. Yet in organizational success, we much less frequently talk about offense and defense. Until now. Think about it this way. Leading defensively is focusing on the problems that inevitably arise

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Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Millennials will be the largest generation in the workforce by the end of 2015. They bring a different bias and experience to the workplace and new ideas to relationships. Dan Negroni, founder of Launchbox and author of Chasing Relevance, discusses how to relate with our colleagues and bridge that

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“Just tell me what to do.” “What is the task list?” “Can you give me a checklist?” “What exactly do you need from me?” Those are all smart questions that you hear from employees from time to time. For the sake of avoiding confusion and misunderstandings, we recommend that you provide employees with specific details

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An evangelist. A zealot. And I don’t know your beliefs, but chances are you have a strong reaction to these words in one way or another. Because while the purpose isn’t questioned and the intentions aren’t out of line, the approach, in many cases, gets in the way of the goal. But today I’m looking

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Most leaders can cop to hiring the wrong person at one point or the other. Perhaps they were dazzled by an impressive resume and overlooked key requirements for the job. Maybe they were tight on budget so they hired someone on the cheap, when much more experienced (and expensive) talent was needed. They could have

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If you have been a leader for more than a week, you’ve asked yourself questions like . . . “Why won’t they __________?” “Why did they do it THAT way? “What are they thinking? “Can’t they just _____________?” In every case, you would like them to change their behavior. I know this all to be

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Only 32% of employees in the U.S. are engaged, according to Gallup Daily tracking, and in the 15 years since Gallup started tracking the metric, it’s barely budged. So despite the general awareness that people are disengaged, companies don’t seem to be doing much to help the situation. Unfortunately as a new supervisor, you can

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Leadership is an ongoing process and great leaders continue to learn because they are curious. They don’t necessarily learn from their experiences but by reflecting on their experiences. Kevin and Wally Bock discuss learning goals, relationships, and why to “not be the event.” Wally learned leadership as a U. S. Marine, an executive in a

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Busy is a good thing, but if your employees are stretched too thin, it could be hurting the quality of their work. You may not be able to add staff right now, but you can do one thing to ease their stress: Show your employees how to prioritize work assignments.    Conduct a workload assessment    

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