I grew up on a farm. We raised a variety of crops, had a fertilizer and seed business, and we raised hogs. For most of my growing up, our hog operation was pretty small, and feeding was done somewhat automatically. Feed was prepared every few days, and loaded into feeders which was gravity fed to

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I travel enough to have lots of travel and airline stories. Overall, I have as many positive ones as negative ones. In fact, I am typically very productive on airplanes, even when the seating space is tight. Today, however, I want to talk about one of “those” travel days. My day was supposed to be relatively

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There are just three more days in the 12 (Leadership) Days of Christmas.  If you have been following along, don’t stop now!  And if you have just found this thread of tasks/gifts, you can get the background, purpose and full recap here. I grew up on a farm, and while we rarely had chickens (or

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On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . . Four calling birds? I don’t want to give or receive any birds, but the gift I’m writing about today? That’s definitely a gift worth giving. If you don’t know how a Twelve Days of Christmas reference makes it onto a

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I’m not a swan expert, but if I watch them, I don’t see them worrying about other swans (unless a mother with her young).  I mean, look at this picture – the swans are “a swimming” on their own – focused on their surroundings and their needs.  Given that observation, they aren’t a good model for our

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As we count down to Christmas, I am creating 12 daily leadership tasks, designed to be completed in 12 minutes or less that I am calling the 12 (Leadership) Days of Christmas.  You can see the premise and links to the others in the list here.  The best part about these tasks is that in

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On 12/12/12 I outlined a process I call The 12 (Leadership) Days of Christmas.  If you have been following along you know that.  If not, check out the beginning (with links to the other days) to understand what we are doing and why. In the song there are ten lords a leaping.  As a leader

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On 12/12/12, I outlined a process for a Leadership 12 Days of Christmas process, where each day I would give you a small task that, when completed, would bring gifts to both you and your team. While I don’t know the value of 11 pipers piping, I believe the value of the gift you will

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Why do you hire new employees? Ok, this seems like an obvious question, and no, it isn’t a trick. We hire people because we have assignments that need to be completed, sales to be made, products to be created, manufactured, shipped, and billed. We hire people to be productive; to get work done. Yet, that’s

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This week, the world lost a legend; a one-of-a-kind salesman, author and speaker died.  Zig Ziglar was all of these things and he was also one of my mentors and heroes.  I read his books, listened to his speeches over and over, and attended his week-end workshop with my wife.  Zig is one of the

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