Posts

How to Save Time: Make Better Requests to Get Better Promises

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How to get what you want from others? Here’s how to make a more effective request. It takes a bit of practice, but you’ll see the benefits early and they will continue to increase.

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When a Team is – And Is Not – a Team

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We talk a lot about teams, and sometimes send people off bungee jumping as a “team-building exercise”. Sounds like fun. But a team is something that needs thought – and practice – to design and implement. It is simple, but not always easy. Still, when you need a team, it’s worth knowing what works.

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It’s Valentines Day – But What do You Do When You Hate Someone at Work?

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A good friend – let’s call her Katy – shared with a group of us the other evening that there’s a woman she works with who is “awful”. She didn’t go into details, but said she was unwilling to even have a conversation with “Cruella” to clean up the bad vibes. And Katy said, “There’s […]

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What is a “Needs Assessment”?

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Almost every HR initiative begins with a Needs Assessment. One HR training specialist announced to a group of manufacturing Operations Managers, “Our most important deliverable to you is the Needs Assessment.” The Operations Managers hooted. “We don’t need your needs assessment! We just need you to train our operators to use the equipment without breaking […]

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How to Have People be “Purpose-Driven” At Work

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An article reporting on the Workforce Purpose Index findings says that companies with purpose-driven employees have better growth in revenue.  Their study found “three factors that contribute to an employee feeling like they have purpose at work: Independence; Influence when it comes to decision-making; and Recognition for their work. How do you get those things […]

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Micromanagement: Story #1

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A friend of mine is an accountant for a yoga-fitness studio, and last week he told me his studio owner is a “micro-manager”. I asked him what he meant – here’s what he said: “Patty is our studio owner who sometimes drops in on a yoga class, and if she thinks a student is doing a pose incorrectly, she will interrupt […]

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What’s the Source of the “Productivity Deficit”?

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The Marketplace newsletter has an answer for a question I hadn’t thought to ask: “Why are workers less productive?” It seems the output produced for each hour of labor worked (aka non-farm business productivity) dropped in the second quarter of 2015. It’s the third quarter in a row with a decline in US labor productivity. Innovations like smartphones and 3D printing […]

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Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, and the Missing Conversation

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There is much talk right now about Yahoo’s demise as an independent company. The Economist said the failure was due, first of all, to “a chronic lack of focus”, never deciding if it was a media company or a technology company. NPR’s “Morning Edition” said Ms. Mayer, the CEO, treated Yahoo more like a think-tank than […]

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That Difficult Client Talk – Part III.  Too Many Goals?

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Dear Reggie, The “discussions” are working. Your people said that you are listening to them in a new way, and that should raise their performance. That was your original goal, wasn’t it? So here’s the next place to put your attention: your Step 3. I am hearing some confusion among your staff people – it’s […]

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That Difficult Client Talk – Part I

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Dear Reggie, First, the bad news. You’ve been blaming your staff and technical teams for not doing their jobs well, but you have not considered that you might be the problem. So I’m here to tell you that you are breaking almost every rule of good management. I’m telling you because you said to me, […]

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