Part of my team and I are exhibiting at the American Society of Training and Development International Conference in Denver this week.  Yesterday, as a part of the conversations we had with participants, several asked if we provide training for people to prepare them for supervisory/leadership roles before they get those jobs.  As we debriefed

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Have you ever enjoyed the sounds of a rock and roll band? Would you like to have a team that performed as well as your favorite band? With the five tips below you can be on way to creating that rock star team. Have a clear vision and purpose. The band needs to know the

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As leaders, we must be willing to let go of lots of things. Just Monday, I wrote about this idea of surrender.  Consider this a companion to that post – perhaps a more practical addendum. Micromanagement In workshops I led yesterday, I said “no one includes micromanagement in the list of attributes of a great

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Surrender? When you think about surrender, you don’t likely think of great leadership. People who surrender, lose, right? The dictionary tells us that surrender, as a verb, means things like: “to yield possession or power,” “to give (oneself) up,” “to give up, abandon or relinquish.” These are hardly the ideas we connect with leaders we

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If you believe, like I do, that we all have tremendous untapped potential, then today’s quotation begs an important question. A question that I will ask you below. “Great work is done by people who are not afraid to be great.” – Fernando Flores, engineer and politician Questions to Ponder How do you personally define greatness?

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Excuses . . . wear me out. Here are some examples from the workplace (though I could easily give you a longer list outside of work too): I can’t learn it that way (it’s not my learning style). I need to know this first, so until I know that I can’t . . . I can’t make it work because. . . No one will agree with me. I

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Effective coaching is a big topic. Here are just a few examples where being a more effective coach can make a difference: at work, for your children’s sports teams, for a friend and in your community. As with anything as important and as pervasive as this topic, there are lots of resources available to you.

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I’m on vacation this week with my family in the San Francisco Bay Area.   Our day yesterday included lunch with our accountant and his wife.  He became my accountant nearly 20 years ago after I got to know him through his wife, with whom I had worked.  We also had dinner with people who

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Last week, my son Parker was telling me about an exercise he completed in one of his college courses.  Students were asked to list the most important things and people in their lives in various categories.  During the course of the exercise, they were continually asked to take one item away.  One by one, important

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Perhaps you’ve heard of Jeremy Lin and “Linsanity”, or perhaps you don’t follow sports at all.  In case you haven’t or don’t, let me give you some background. Jeremy Lin is a 6’3″ basketball player.  He went 32-1 as a high school senior and helped his team win a California State Championship, and even though

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