What Your Employees Really Want (It Might Not Be What You Think)

Forget more money and better benefits. We think that is what people need, to which most managers and leaders say – “I can’t give them more” or “That’s out of my hands.”   The good news is those aren’t the things that will move the needle. A recent (February and March of 2012) Career Builder survey of

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It’s My Birthday and You Get the Gift!

It is one of those milestone birthdays. 50 years. When my Dad turned fifty he said “I can’t decide if I am going to start counting backwards next year, or just adjust my birthdays to the Celsius scale.”  I was 30 when he said it, and it made me laugh. It still makes me laugh.

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Read This Before You Attend Your Next Training Session

Dear Learner,I don’t know why the training is on your calendar. Maybe you are being told to go. Maybe you don`t even really know what it is about. Maybe you’d rather be in training than work on your project/task list. Maybe you are really looking forward to attending and are excited about it. Or maybe

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Saying Less May Mean More

Have you ever had a problem and needed to vent or just share what you were dealing with? When you are in this situation, are you always necessarily looking for advice, input, or counsel? If you are like most people, probably not. So why is it that when people come to us with their problems or

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Don’t Fence Me In

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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How Leadership Is Like Beer

I caught myself humming a tune from my past the other day.   It’s an old Tom T. Hall song titled “I Like Beer.” Just to give you a flavor, here is the second half of the chorus . . . “Whiskey’s too rough, champagne costs too much, and vodka put my mouth in gear.  This

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Change vs. Consistency

This is the 700th blog post on this blog, and because I blogged previously here, this is really my 1532nd post since March of 2004.  This fact got me thinking about consistency, and led me to today’s quotation. “But change must always be balanced with some degree of consistency.” – Ron D. Burton, lawyer, businessman,

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Finding a Story for a Specific Communication Purpose

Tom had a major presentation coming up in less than a week, and he was concerned. This presentation was important not only for his team and his company, but also for his career. He knew that if he did well it would make all the difference . . . for everyone. And if it bombed,

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Are You Observing or Judging?

Yesterday, I was thinking about observation and judgement, and how it relates to effective communication and coaching.  It reminded me of a particular incident that took place a few years back – an incident I had previously written about on the blog for my book Remarkable Leadership. We were driving somewhere as a family and,

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A Workshop Alone Isn’t Enough

Even though most people would say we are in the training business, we don’t see it that way. Yes, we deliver training, and so we are intimately aware of both the benefits and the limitations of that method of transferring skills and knowledge. There are many benefits training can provide.  Here are just a few:

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