The role that firefighters play in our society is secure. The way that we honor their service is appropriate. I have close friends who are and have been firefighters, and so I personally hold them in high regard. Great firefighters are leaders of their teams in situations far beyond what most of us could imagine.

Read More

Because you are reading these words, I am confident you are a believer in ongoing learning and development for yourself and those you lead. Precisely because this is your bias, you may find it hard to understand why your team members aren’t anxiously looking forward to attending the training you offer them or is in

Read More

Feedback must be heard and valued in order for it to be used. And to have a better chance of all of these things happening, you must remember that it’s not about you, it’s about them. Check out the video below for tips on ensuring that your feedback is heard, valued, and USED. If you

Read More

Change is all around us – all the time. And this is truer now than ever before. This fact is important to us as leaders, because we need to be in front of the changes facing our organizations and teams. You are nodding as you read, because you already know this, and yet there is

Read More

Today’s quotation comes from this past year’s Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year and perhaps a person everyone will think about or hear about at some point in the next week. Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, and perhaps this quotation gives us a small insight as to why that is. While

Read More

Perhaps the oldest conundrum of all is – which came first, the chicken or the egg? Perhaps the oldest in the minds of savvy leaders is, what is more important, my Customers or my Employees?It’s the CustomersMany wonderful books have been written about putting the Customer first. In 1983, Tom Peters and Bob Waterman (in In

Read More

By Steve Yastrow The premise is simple. People are persuaded or make decisions based on their reasons, not yours. And so our completely preplanned, preprogrammed, and scripted presentations won’t work. Whether you are a sales person, leader, business owner or parent, you are “pitching” your ideas to others every day, and this easy to follow

Read More

Lots of people have visions of crashing and burning when giving a speech. The nightmares seem real, and yet while you may not like presenting and may have had some blunders, you’ve likely not had a presentation-nightmare-come-true like Michael Bay (Director of the Transformer movies, among many others) had in Las Vegas last week. He

Read More

Most people love to hate PowerPoint when they are watching others use it. But when it is their turn to present, the dreaded tool becomes their best friend. (i.e. crutch of choice). The truth is PowerPoint can be an incredibly powerful tool for communicating your messages with greater clarity and persuasive power. . . but

Read More

This month, members in the Remarkable Leadership Learning System are focused on improving their skills at communicating change. Perhaps that is why this quotation struck me so hard this week. There are many implications of this powerful idea, change being one of them. More below. But first, your weekly questions and action steps. Questions to

Read More