After years of saying that a consultant’s job is not to change people’s attitudes, I might need to eat my words. Here’s what I learned from reviewing a Harvard Business Review case: a bad attitude can blind an employee – even a good one – from seeing who to communicate with and who needs […]
A recent review of manager comments on their workplace communication was very revealing: they didn’t get the idea of dialogue. Two-way talking was not recognized as a tool for getting things done on time and on budget. Here are two samples of their management “conversations” for getting people to perform: “I think we need to get […]
Ever try talking to someone who brings everything you say back around to themselves? Here’s a clip from a conversation a friend reported to me last weekend: Joan: I watched 3 reruns of The Mentalist on Friday night and learned more about how to observe and understand people than I ever thought possible. That guy […]
Four weary senior executives came home from their 2-day “huddle” with a decision to close a regional office and eliminate 11 jobs in their company – the only solution they could find to solve the problems identified by a recent financial audit. The decision to decision to “outsource” the company’s marketing and communications responsibilities was […]
A client organization has received a daunting financial audit: they’re losing money and must act quickly to save the company. I met with Matthew, the CEO, to discuss the way forward. He said, “My top 3 executives and I went into a 2-day “huddle” to review the audit report and talk about what we should […]
A while back (December 2013), the Harvard Business Review had an article on the subject of leaders and results-focus vs. people-focus. The verdict is you need to focus on both results and people. But we knew that, right? The trick is figuring out how to do that. How you do that is in communications – […]
Ever feel overwhelmed by unexpected requests from people who are important to you, or surprises in your schedule with sudden “emergencies” or when meetings go longer than you planned? Being “semi-retired”, I’m finding that lots of things are unpredictable – like when the phone rings with another client that I can’t turn down, and then […]
The hardest thing about getting what you want is the problem of deciding what, exactly, you really do want. If the Lamp Genie offered you one wish, what would it be? Over 70% of people would ask for some time to think about it – which probably means they are living a pretty good life already. […]
Last week’s issue of The Economist reported on “rogue employees” who can cause more damage to their company than competitors can. In a 2013 poll, it was discovered that 70% of companies report having employees who committed fraud of some kind: padding expenses, using company technology for their own purposes, or stealing corporate client lists. Shocking, […]
Most managers have some confusion about “accountability”, but one manager I talked with recently takes the cake. Howard complained about the poor quality of employees, saying that his (mostly young) staff people are “not accountable”. “They just do the work they think they should do, but they are not accountable for their results,” Howard explained, […]
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