3 Entrepreneurial Skills You Won't Learn In Business School

3 Entrepreneurial Skills You Won't Learn In Business School: Business school will teach you a lot, but it won't teach you these three things that are critical to founding and running a company.

Seven Questions You Need To Ask To Increase Your Leadership Potential

Seven Questions You Need To Ask To Increase Your Leadership Potential: The seven questions you need to ask yourself to become a better leader.

How To Influence Anyone, Any Time, Anywhere: 4 Subconscious Secrets

How To Influence Anyone, Any Time, Anywhere: 4 Subconscious Secrets: Learn quick and powerful ways to "speak another person's language" in order to enroll, engage, influence

5 Strategies That Will Turn Your Employees Into Leaders

5 Strategies That Will Turn Your Employees Into Leaders: Whatever your employees' career goals, it's up to you to mold them into leaders. Start now with these five leadership coaching strategies.

How You Can Cope Better With Stage Fright

How You Can Cope Better With Stage Fright: The best way to deal with stage fright is to embrace it.

How To Manage A Moody Boss

How To Manage A Moody Boss: Is your boss irritable, negative, and constantly experiencing mood swings? Here’s how to manage your moody boss.

8 Tips For Dealing With Difficult People

8 Tips For Dealing With Difficult People: Like the old Saturday Night Live character, Debbie Downer, some people are only happy when they're unhappy and bringing down everyone else around them too.
Here are eight tips for dealing with difficult people at work.
1.   Don?t get dragged down?The old saying is ?Misery loves company.? The most important thing is to be aware of who the Debbie and David Downers are in your company and to make sure they don?t suck you into their world of negativity.  Keep your guard up!

Getting Past 4 Common Workplace Fears

Getting Past 4 Common Workplace Fears: With uncertainty in the workplace comes the natural concern that runs through your mind and that feeling in the pit of your stomach about your future.   Many times this is exacerbated by tensions that exist with your boss, the fear of not getting promoted or not believing that you can be yourself at work.   Today’s workplace is fueled with uneasiness about trust, the next big decision and that sixth-sense that many of your colleagues don’t have your back.   Moving past workplace fears requires you to navigate the landscape with greater purpose of your goals, certainty of your beliefs and the required strategic focus to avoid being distracted by adversity and an environment you can’t control.

The Zen Of Innovation Leadership: 'And'

The Zen Of Innovation Leadership: 'And': If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.
― Søren Kierkegaard

Developing a Leadership Pipeline That Works

Developing a Leadership Pipeline That Works: One lesson that you learn reasonably early in life is that if you need to be somewhere at a specific time, and you know roughly how long it will take to make the trip to your destination, it is important to begin the trip on time.  No combination of speeding or looking for shortcuts enables you to get there on time if you’ve left 15 minutes or a half-hour late.

Why You Should Mentor -- And How To Do It

Why You Should Mentor -- And How To Do It: Sharing your expertise is not only helpful to someone younger, it’s a rewarding experience for you.

Brand Growth Lessons From McDonald's

Brand Growth Lessons From McDonald's: Increasingly, upstart competitors are peeling off slices of a large brand’s customer segments  by creating strong value propositions and specific, deep emotional connections with those consumer niches (To prove the point, just take a look at the growth of Tory Burch, or Dollar Shave Club or LEON restaurants  in the UK).

3 Strategies For Keeping Your Cool At Work

3 Strategies For Keeping Your Cool At Work: You get a rude email from a co-worker.

Seven Ways To Inspire Employees To Love Their Jobs

Seven Ways To Inspire Employees To Love Their Jobs: Smart leaders take advantage of the fact that some things never change. Take employee engagement, for example. In my book, Fire Them Up, which I wrote in 2007, I cited several studies that showed the majority of workers as being “disengaged” and hating their jobs. Unfortunately the numbers haven’t changed. In Gallup’s most recent report on the state of the American workplace, we discover that only 30 percent of the U.S workforce is engaged in their work. In other words, they love their jobs. Seventy percent are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged,” meaning they hate their jobs or, at best, are unenthusiastic about their roles (Forbes staff writer Susan Adams did a nice job of explaining the survey’s details).

Four Pillars Of Leadership

Four Pillars Of Leadership: Listening to CEOs and other senior leaders talk about building businesses is always a privilege. Last week I did this at the XSite conference in Boston (designed to recognize the high-tech revival in Boston) and again at the 50th anniversary gathering of 1,000 past and current partners of my former employer, the Boston Consulting Group (“BCG”).

10 Steps To More Confidence At Work

10 Steps To More Confidence At Work
Phase #1: Eliminating Self-doubt
Building self-confidence is a two-phase process. The first phase involves purging yourself of self-doubt; in the second, you build up your confidence. It’s like erecting a skyscraper...

The Six Steps To Trust

The Six Steps To Trust: Many people have been given the feedback, “Others do not trust you.” Most people, hearing this, are perplexed as to what they might do to change. One leader actually asked me, only half joking, if it would help if he wore a sign on his back that says, “JUST TRUST ME!”

Collaborative Marketing Is The Next Big Thing

Collaborative Marketing Is The Next Big Thing: Those of you who know me well, and who follow my columns, could readily guess that I’m a proponent of collaboration in any business function. Marketing is no exception. I’ve been talking about the “softer skills” of business quite a bit as of late as I’ve been gearing up for the launch of my book, The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning, at the end of July.

Should You Consider Public Speaking

Should You Consider Public Speaking: Entrepreneur and adventurer (I love that self-description) Rodolphe “Rudy” Dutel got in touch with me to help him kick off his new blog on self-improvement, Karma, and yes, adventures.  I think I checked the self-improvement box, since the discussion was all about storytelling, rehearsal, the career of professional speaking, and other public speaking mysteries.  We conducted the interview as a Google + hangout, a first for me, so perhaps that checks the adventure box.  The interview is casual, relaxed, and covers many of the kinds of questions I get asked all the time, so check it out here and let me know what you think, or what further questions you have that didn’t get answered in the 30-minute discussion.  Enjoy!  And thanks, Rudy.

Ask Great Questions: Leadership Skills

Ask Great Questions: Leadership Skills:
Building a successful venture means consistently making good decisions. The question is how to become great at making good decisions. The answer is to look to Socrates. This ancient philosopher holds the key to an essential leadership skill: ask great questions. The challenge is that too few leaders, managers and employees ask great questions. This is a big problem. Cultures that embrace a culture of questioning thrive and those that fear it either fail or are doomed to mediocrity.

12 Counterintuitive Practices For Long-Term Success

12 Counterintuitive Practices For Long-Term Success: Life is a complex combination of interactions, events, and relationships. We all chase “success,” but we struggle to define it. We all want true happiness, but we usually settle for the appearance of it. We all seek meaning, but we often succumb to doubt.

Seven Do's And Don'ts For Mentors

Seven Do's And Don'ts For Mentors: I just finished reading Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, and the “Are You My Mentor?” chapter really stood out for me because it highlighted an issue I've grappled with for years: how awkward and ineffective a formal mentorship can be. There's already plenty of advice for young people on how to be good mentees. But as someone who has been both a mentor and a mentee, I want to provide some solid tips to mentors instead, so they can guide their mentees in a more meaningful way:

The Two Most Underrated Leadership Skills

The Two Most Underrated Leadership Skills: Leadership is changing. A big part is the impact of the Millennials. They are less apt to respond to command & control and respond much more positively to a different kind of leadership. Even a recession has not cured them of this. I believe that this is a fundamental part of how they view the world. Mainly due to what they are taught at high school and particularly in university. One of the most interesting projects on emerging approaches to leadership is at MIT. I had the considerable pleasure of interviewing MIT's Deborah Ancona. She discussed their Four Capabilities Leadership Model, focusing on the two most neglected of the four, over to Deborah:

Coping In A Toxic Work Environment

Coping In A Toxic Work Environment: Recently, I had the occasion to observe a group of employees who were working in a toxic work environment.  I witnessed the decline of self-esteem in each one of them as they endured month after month of poor leadership and dysfunction in their workplace.   I was truly amazed at the change to the countenance of each of these employees as their situation continually grew worse.   If one could have taken a before photo of these employees prior to their being in a toxic environment and then an after photo when they were months into it, the physical manifestations of the negativity they endured would be staggering.  Slowly, I observed each of these employees reach their breaking point and one by one resign from the company.  Each of them had good paying jobs with fabulous benefits, but the toxicity they dealt with each day was so unbearable that no amount of money would have made it worth the cost to their own self-worth.   They left their jobs without having new jobs lined up because they recognized that the toll the toxic environment was taking had become far too great to stay another day.

7 Management Practices That Can Improve Employee Productivity

7 Management Practices That Can Improve Employee Productivity: All companies want to improve employee productivity, but how often do they examine their own management practices as a means of attaining it?  Studies consistently show that a disturbingly high number of non-management employees are disengaged, not working at full productive capacity.  Following are 7 practical suggestions - steps management can take to improve productivity by putting employees in a more productive mindset.

Six Verbal And Nonverbal Tips For Selling

Six Verbal And Nonverbal Tips For Selling: If you think that these tips aren't for you because don't have "sales" in your job description, I'd ask you to think again.

10 Lessons In Teamwork

10 Lessons In Teamwork: Standing on the deck of a sailboat, far at sea in the middle of a wicked storm. A freak wave climbs higher and higher until you are looking up at an 80-foot high wall of swirling green water. Your teammate desperately shouts at you from the other side of the boat, but all you can hear is the deafening howl of 100-mph winds.

How To Avoid Distractions In The Workplace

How To Avoid Distractions In The Workplace: Some of us get pushed off balance by the slightest interruptions at work, while others easily tune out distractions. The truth is, nobody is completely attentive to their work 100% of the time?and we can all use some guidance on ways to avoid or ignore disruptions in the office.

4 Questions To Identify Your Innovation Killers

4 Questions To Identify Your Innovation Killers: Rules can get in the way of the goal. If someone messes up, should they get fired? Your average manager's pat answer is always "yes, it sets a 'what not to do' example for the rest." An exceptional leader would answer "it depends." My colleague Ken Perlman offers a clear example of why punishing failures is the fastest way to stifle innovation in your organization.

4 Ways Open Innovation Can Drive Your Business Forward

4 Ways Open Innovation Can Drive Your Business Forward: Ever since General Electric built the first industrial lab in 1900, research and development has been a highly secretive affair.  Security protocols have been regarded almost important as scientific ones to stay ahead of the competition.

5 Transitions Great Leaders Make That Average Leaders Don't

5 Transitions Great Leaders Make That Average Leaders Don't:

The secret to leadership is there aren’t any real secrets. The best leaders have simply gone to school on improving their tradecraft. While the capabilities possessed by the best leaders might seem otherworldly to many, they are merely the outcome of hard work, experience, perspective, and yes, a bit of

The One Belief That Keeps You Locked In Career Inertia

The One Belief That Keeps You Locked In Career Inertia: This one core belief is responsible for thousands of professionals remaining stuck for years in career inertia and unhappiness.

Smart Leaders Engage Tomorrow's Workforce

Smart Leaders Engage Tomorrow's Workforce: I'm off to Chicago for #SHRM13 and am very excited to see everyone and for all the events. The topic most pressing on my mind today is the battle for young, emerging talent and how fierce the competition is these days in certain sectors. Companies that win it are the ones that will succeed in the years and decades to come.  So what is the key to first hiring and then unleashing the full potential of Millennials and thus building your future workforce? And what exactly are we doing about The Class of 2012, 2013?

The Most Successful Fail Frequently. Are You Making Enough Mistakes?

The Most Successful Fail--Frequently. Are You Making Enough Mistakes?: We have argued throughout  that the best way to deal with uncertainty is to act.

3 Networking Habits To Drop And What To Do Instead

3 Networking Habits To Drop And What To Do Instead: Summer is a great time to network. People are in a better mood because of the warmer weather and upcoming vacations. You might even schedule those hard-to-get lunches because it’s nicer to be outside. Workload typically slows so you actually have the time to rekindle those relationships. So summer is also a great time to revisit your networking strategy. You might have developed bad habits around your networking that you need to adjust:

Advice From The Most Innovative Leaders

Advice From The Most Innovative Leaders
Anyone can change his or her behavior to improve creative impact in a company. According to the authors of the Innovators DNA, the five skills of disruptive innovators are questioning, observing, networking, experimenting and associational thinking...

Turning Takers Into Smart Givers: The Reciprocity Ring

Turning Takers Into Smart Givers: The Reciprocity Ring: Americans enjoy explaining almost every act of their lives on the principle of self-interest.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)
Earlier this week, I reviewed Adam Grant’s wonderful new book, Give & Take, which shows why "givers” typically outperform “takers” and “matchers”, so long as givers are smart enough to avoid being treated as doormats by takers, fakers and others who want to take advantage of their giving spirit. It’s an important thesis, because smart “giving” is the ideological foundation of delighting customers and the new management paradigm.

Eight Essential Leadership Lessons From America's Greatest Skyline

Eight Essential Leadership Lessons From America's Greatest Skyline: Downtown Chicago is a skyscraper lover's paradise; it's also a business-school classroom writ large for entrepreneurs and managers. Here are eight essential lessons, care of an eye-popping summer riverboat tour through the Windy City.

9 Tips For Boosting Productivity At Work This Summer

9 Tips For Boosting Productivity At Work This Summer: Summer is upon us and over the next few weeks schools will be closing, the sun will be shining, and you’ll be daydreaming that you’re at the beach, on a boat, at the pool, or anywhere but your desk. There’s a good chance that all the excitement and distractions of summer will curb your productivity—but if you manage your time properly, communicate well, and shift priorities as needed, you can get through the season without slacking too much.

3 Ways To Become A More Effective Leader

3 Ways To Become A More Effective Leader: The only way we can create the impact we want is by giving everyone a seat at the table. Addie Thompson (@adelinemt) shares tips for more effective leadership.

7 Ways To Improve Employee/Boss Relationships

7 Ways To Improve Employee/Boss Relationships: There is a secret to becoming a more likable leader. It doesn’t have to do with how tall and charming you are, or how often you give employees a raise.  In fact, we have evidence that the majority of the behaviors displayed by the most likable leaders have to do with the way they interact with employees on a day-to-day basis.  But first, does being liked by your employees even matter?

Innovation: Leadership Is Always The Key

Innovation: Leadership Is Always The Key: The transformation will come from leadership.

Five Ways To Build An Effective Team

Five Ways To Build An Effective Team: It is not easy to be the CEO of an up-and-coming startup, especially when you are frequently out of your office talking to investors and the actual time you spend in contact with your team is limited. It gets even more complicated when you manage multiple teams working in different cities.

Six Ways To Earn Respect At Work

Six Ways To Earn Respect At Work
1. Pay Attention To Your Title
Don't be fooled, title matters, says career consultant Emily Bennington, author of Who Says It's A Man's World: The Girls' Guide To Corporate Domination. Right or wrong, your title is how people in and outside your organization judge your value to it, she says. Don't overlook it...

The Four Questions Great Leaders Ask

The Four Questions Great Leaders Ask: “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

Five Ways To Build An Effective Team

Five Ways To Build An Effective Team: It is not easy to be the CEO of an up-and-coming startup, especially when you are frequently out of your office talking to investors and the actual time you spend in contact with your team is limited. It gets even more complicated when you manage multiple teams working in different cities.

What Defines You?

What Defines You?: What do you think defines you? Is it your job? Is it your sport? Is it your life principles? Is it where you live? It is your friends? Is it your age?

Are You Managing Change Or Leading It?

Are You Managing Change Or Leading It?: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every purpose under heaven.”

Making Meaningful Connections With Influencers

Making Meaningful Connections With Influencers: As the CEO of an economic development organization that accelerates the growth of innovation clusters in Northeast Ohio, I connect with influential people to position the region as an innovation hub, raise visibility of its technology assets and attract resources. In this role, I make sure my organization, NorTech, effectively uses its industry expertise in advanced energy, flexible electronics and water technologies to align and leverage our cluster member’s assets to build a globally-competitive economy.

Five Ways To Get Unstuck And Get Things Done

Five Ways To Get Unstuck And Get Things Done: There have been days when I’ve been so overwhelmed by my options that I’ve become completely stuck–I couldn’t get anything done.

In the end, no single task will help to move the business forward without a larger goal behind it...

The Secret To Effective Delegation

The Secret To Effective Delegation: While most everyone in business would agree that delegation is critical to managerial success, how often are we dissatisfied with the results of what we've delegated?  How often is the "product" that is returned to us not exactly what we'd hoped for?  While this is sometimes the fault of the person of completing the assignment, it's  often the fault of the person giving the assignment.  And there's a common root to the problem.

5 Powerful Ways Leaders Practice Patience

5 Powerful Ways Leaders Practice Patience: Today’s business climate is more complicated than ever and fueled with many unknowns.  Every leader feels the pressure of generating results, building the most effective teams and creating a high-performance workplace environment to secure sustainable outcomes.   At the same time, employees are tired of the uncertainty and necessity to do more with less – often causing tempers to flare and growing workplace dissatisfaction.   This added pressure on employees to perform without knowing their succession plan or imminent future is not only testing their patience, but that of their leaders.

How To Bypass The 5 Worst Mistakes In Online Presentations

How To Bypass The 5 Worst Mistakes In Online Presentations: Getting ready to make an online presentation? Here's how to ensure yours are memorable, engaging and successful.

Successful Business Communication: It Starts at the Beginning

Successful Business Communication: It Starts at the Beginning: A while back I was able to attend a seminar by Dr. John Lund on communication where he gave some amazing advice on how to better communicate with others. His input was simple and easy to follow, yet powerful. The best quote of the entire event was this: “Don`t communicate to be understood; rather, communicate so as not to be misunderstood.” What a great way to put things in perspective regarding our efforts on how to improve our communication. Here are some of the notes I made from his presentation:

5 Things You Should Be Talking To Your Boss About

5 Things You Should Be Talking To Your Boss About: Going into your boss’s office can often be hot or cold: You could be getting a pat on the back for a job well done—or a tough dose of constructive criticism. Your boss may want to assign you an awesome new project—or ask you for the report that’s due today (wait, what report?).

6 Reasons Leaders Make Bad Decisions

6 Reasons Leaders Make Bad Decisions: Employees are growing noticeably more frustrated with their leaders.  Employees want their leaders to have their backs and listen to their concerns;  to provide clarity of purpose and performance expectations; and to chart a roadmap for the future.   They expect leadership from their leaders – but instead many employees are finding themselves being led by people that lack focus and vision, mismanage resources, and  get caught-up in corporate politics.    Leaders need to step up their game and begin to provide the required strategic support and direction to keep their employees motivated and their teams inspired.

How to Resolve Conflict Like a Pro

How to Resolve Conflict Like a Pro: Jody Greene is the CMO and co-owner of Chic CEO – a free resource for female entrepreneurs. You can follow her and Chic CEO on twitter at @ChicCEO.

The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill

The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill: Even before I released the disc, I knew it was a long shot. And, unfortunately, it was a clumsy one too.

Stand Up For Yourself When Someone Else Takes Credit For Your Work

Stand Up For Yourself When Someone Else Takes Credit For Your Work: Sometimes, one of the most important things you can do to protect your career and career advancement is stand up for yourself when someone takes credit for your ideas or your work. Here is one story I received from a reader about a credit-stealing boss and my response.

90 Days To Great Leadership

90 Days To Great Leadership: While I’ve achieved a lot of success as an entrepreneur and business owner, I was not born a great leader. Rather, I’ve learned leadership skills and every day, I put them to use.

10 Ways To Help Others That Will Lead You To Success

10 Ways To Help Others That Will Lead You To Success: Helping others should be a natural extension of every business leader?s responsibilities. Unfortunately, it doesn?t come as easy as you would think. As leaders, we often get too caught up in operations or our own problems to give people the help they need. However, in the last year, I?ve realized that most of my best clients, partners and relationships have come from me helping someone. Here are 10 thoughts that can remind you to help others.

How To See What Others Don't (In Order To Increase Your Chances of Success)

How To See What Others Don't (In Order To Increase Your Chances of Success): Seeing What Others Don't is not only the title of new book by Gary Klein, it is also a mantra that can make you successful.

The 7 Non-Negotiables Of Winning

The 7 Non-Negotiables Of Winning: Today, I would like to share the principles that have transformed me and our company and a growing number of people across the globe.  They are simple and powerful and I promise you that if you make the time to learn and apply them new avenues of promise and possibility will open for you.  I share my personal journey and I am honored to share the story of a small company that works together every day to achieve great things in my book, The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning: Tying Soft Traits To Hard Results, due out from Wiley Publishing on July 29.

6 Essential Steps To Attracting Your "Right" Work

6 Essential Steps To Attracting Your "Right" Work: Can we really "attract" the right work for us, or is that just a foolish fancy?

How The Best Leaders Focus On Two Key Elements of Greatness

How The Best Leaders Focus On Two Key Elements of Greatness: I had the great good fortune of having breakfast this morning with Danny Meyer, longtime friend and client, at Maialino, one of his USHG (Union Square Hospitality Group) restaurants.  It was a wide-ranging conversation, but it kept coming back to two core things: beauty and utility.  We talked about business, relationships, food, training new employees, family and building teams - and in each realm we discussed how the best of these things are both beautiful and useful.

How To Say No At Work

How To Say No At Work: When Beth Cronin started out as an associate at the law firm Trenam Kemker, she never once told a partner that she was too busy to do a project. Instead, she learned the right way to say no. “First, I developed a reputation as being earnest and hardworking,” says Cronin. “Then I made sure to understand what the project entailed, when my manager needed it and whether I could realistically deliver high-quality work in the allotted amount of time. The way to handle a request is never just to say ‘I’m too busy.’” Today she’s co-chair of the commercial litigation practice group at the firm, which has offices in St. Petersburg and Tampa, Fla.

How To Multiply Efficiency And Free Up Hours Of Labor In An Instant

How To Multiply Efficiency And Free Up Hours Of Labor In An Instant: I am very fond of the strict “No Slide Presentations” policy in our office. Since its inception, presentations have become more animated, engaging, and effective. My colleague Ken Perlman tells the story of how one of our clients realized the wasted time and effort being poured into formal executive presentations and diverted that time to boosting productivity and trust simply by replacing slides with conversations.

7 Steps To Developing Career Capital -- And Achieving Success

7 Steps To Developing Career Capital -- And Achieving Success: In 2007, Steve Martin was on the Charlie Rose show to talk about his memoir Born Standing Up. He talked about his rise in comedy, and Rose asked him for his advice to aspiring performers.

How To Light A Fire Under Your Team When Things Are Going Well

How To Light A Fire Under Your Team When Things Are Going Well: It’s easy to create a sense of urgency among your team when business is tough. It’s harder when you come into a role after your predecessor had tripled business in seven years.

5 Things Highly Successful People Do To Stay Motivated

5 Things Highly Successful People Do To Stay Motivated: We've all been there.  Something we worked hard for, put a lot of thought and effort into, didn't go the way we'd hoped. A job, a promotion, a raise, assignment to a plum project.

6 Ways Effective Listening Can Make You A Better Leader

6 Ways Effective Listening Can Make You A Better Leader: When employees say they want their voices to be heard, they are really saying they want leaders who will not just hear them, but really listen to them.    As employees seek more attention, feedback and support, leaders must become more mindful of individual needs in order to more effectively inspire professional development and overall performance.   Leaders who listen are able to create trustworthy relationships that are transparent and breed loyalty.  You know the leaders who have their employees’ best interests at heart because they truly listen to them.

4 Steps To Find The Right Mentor

4 Steps To Find The Right Mentor: People often say that finding a mentor is essential as an entrepreneur, especially a young one at that. I am a sophomore at Duke University and the co-founder of Star Toilet Paper, so the experience I had prior to starting this company is my camp and caddying experience. So how do I even know what steps to take or how to develop a business?
While many people within the realm of entrepreneurship are willing to be helpful, there is a big difference between someone who answers a few questions for you and someone who is genuinely interested and invested (not monetarily) in both your company and in you. To me, the most important aspect of a mentor is the latter of the two; your mentor must have a vested interest in learning more about you and what you wish to do to change the world with your new company.
But how do you go about obtaining this type of mentor, and how do you know if they are the right person?
Where: In college, I have access to both people and resources. But you don't need to be a student to access the people and resources you need. In any major city, there will be a variety of incubators, accelerators and universities that are hotbeds for innovation and centers of knowledge. That does not mean that you need to find the entrepreneurship professor at the closest university. See what is around you and how you can make the most out of those resources. I have found that it is often the third or fourth degree of separation that leads to the best person for you.

3 Tips for Surviving as a First-Time Manager

3 Tips for Surviving as a First-Time Manager: Your first management job is a big win – a sign that you’ve done something right in your career. It’s also the first time that your success is completely tied to the performance of other people...

5 Ways To Unlock Authentic Leadership

5 Ways To Unlock Authentic Leadership: In today’s culture, where so much emphasis is placed on the superficial, people crave authenticity. Employees today are hungry for real what-you-see-is-what-you-get leadership. The most inspiring and influential leaders therefore don’t lead because of what they do (though they do plenty), but because of who they are. Too often leaders and those who aspire to be, forget that.

How To Be A Great Mentor

How To Be A Great Mentor:

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. - William Arthur Ward

Have you employed a mentor to help you navigate the professional world? Maybe you found her during your first job search; perhaps it was when you transitioned careers. Either way—your mentor most likely provided guidance and helped you overcome challenges. And if you’re really lucky, she inspired you along the way.

3 Tips To Navigate A Leadership Crossroads

3 Tips To Navigate A Leadership Crossroads: Judith E. Glaser (@CreatingWE) and Lori Polachek (@LPolachek1) offer advice to business leaders at a fork in the road.

The Art of Screwing Up

The Art of Screwing Up: I was enjoying breakfast with my good friend, Danny O’Brien, recently, when our conversation moved to the topic of screwing up, making mistakes and the steps we take thereafter.  Danny said, “The quality of our lives is not determined by whether or not we screw up—because we all will.”

Forming Better Professional and Office Relationships

Forming Better Professional and Office Relationships: Whether you are a CEO or entry-level employee, getting along with others is paramount to success and your career is no exception to this rule.  While tenacity, hard work, intelligence and making the right decisions are all significant factors in the equation to achievement, interpersonal relationships can either make an individual's career manageable and more lucrative or set up unnecessary barriers to getting what you desire.

People CAN Change Their Past -- Put Mistakes Behind You.

People CAN Change Their Past -- Put Mistakes Behind You.: People often think they can’t change their past, but I disagree. Perhaps we can’t change every mistake in our past, but we have to remember that the past is a moving target. Every day that goes by us becomes a part of our past history. Whatever we do today will become a part of our past tomorrow, which means we do have the power to change our past by doing the right things today. Today we have the ability to continue building on our past story, and that gives us the power to modify that story into one we can be proud of.  It’s important to remember that the whole of our past is far more powerful than any of its parts.

In A Daze? Easy Ways To Defeat 'Fuzzy Brain' At Work

In A Daze? Easy Ways To Defeat 'Fuzzy Brain' At Work: Unproductive days at work come in many forms. There are the days when you’re tired (I probably shouldn’t have gone to that midnight movie premier last night), days when you’re distracted (How can I focus on work when my relationship is on the rocks?), and days when you can’t get motivated (Can’t I do the monthly report next week?).

Don't Bring Problems To Your Manager -- Bring Solutions

Don't Bring Problems To Your Manager -- Bring Solutions: In today’s workplace, if you want to stand out as a valued employee, don’t bring problems to your manager -- bring solutions. Why? Because there are too many problems for managers to solve all by themselves; that’s why you were hired. So don’t be part of a problem. Become a solution-generating employee and you’ll increase your value to your manager and to the company.

Pump Up the Volume -- Establishing Your Leadership Presence

Pump Up the Volume -- Establishing Your Leadership Presence: As an executive or want-to-be executive, wouldn?t you love to have presence? Wouldn?t you love to have people drawn to you when you speak and pay attention to what you are saying? Presence is one of the most common characteristics shared by over 150 CEOs that have come to our CEO Insights class or Speaker Series here at McGill. Two in particularly lit up the room, Sir Richard Branson and Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus; very, very different personalities yet both had presence.

5 Habits Of Leaders Who Create Workspace Culture

5 Habits Of Leaders Who Create Workspace Culture: When I was a student (once upon a time I thought I was to be a clinical psychologist), and broke, and spending time in New York City (also about the time I decided I was not to be a performing artist, choreographer for my career after spending years here doing so), I used to make extra money volunteering for psychological studies at Columbia University. I arrived one day and was told to wait in a small room for the study to start. The room started to fill up with other people, also waiting, until it was jammed and people were sitting on the floor shoulder to shoulder. Things got testy, arguments broke out, there was jostling. After 45 minutes the researchers came in and announced that the study was over: they had been measuring how we reacted when we were crowded into a small space.

The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator

The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator: The most powerful workplace motivator is our natural tendency to measure our own performance against the performance of others, according to research by Harvard Business School professor Ian Larkin. He describes his findings in this article, which first appeared on the HBS Working Knowledge website.

Seven Steps to Negotiating Success

Seven Steps to Negotiating Success: Tried-and-true negotiation tactics from author and negotiation expert Selena Rezvani.

Cultivating 'Soft Skills' to Get Ahead

Cultivating 'Soft Skills' to Get Ahead: Personal aptitudes and attitudes like being a good listener and communicator strongly influence likability and workplace relationships.

Seven Customer Service Lessons I Learned in One Day With Richard Branson [Video]

Seven Customer Service Lessons I Learned in One Day With Richard Branson [Video]: It’s rare to find a leader who elevates the experience for employees and customers to such a degree that other brands benchmark against his or her company. I recently had a unique opportunity to spend a day with one such leader, an entrepreneur and billionaire who has built a brand considered the gold standard in customer service—Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson.

How Employees Can Succeed Faster

How Employees Can Succeed Faster: Google used to have a formula for finding the best employees: it screened for high SAT scores and grade point averages. Sounded like a good plan (especially since Google’s two founders demanded it).

Tips For Talking To Customers

Tips For Talking To Customers: In a recent post, I discussed the importance of communicating with customers and not making assumptions about them. Listening to feedback from your customers can be incredibly helpful.

Six Ways Introverts Can Be More Powerful

Six Ways Introverts Can Be More Powerful: I have a hard time thinking of Warren Buffett and Al Gore as introverts. But according to Susan Cain, author of last year’s popular book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, they join Charles Darwin, J. K. Rowling, Mahatma Gandhi, Google’s Larry Page and at least a third of the world’s population who prefer listening to speaking, reading to socializing, and working on their own to collaborating in teams. In other words, they are natural born introverts.

Innovation Leadership: The Revolution Starts With Words

Innovation Leadership: The Revolution Starts With Words: High sentiments always win in the end.  The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more than those who offer safety and a good time.  When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

10 Things Inspire Teams to Optimally Perform

10 Things Inspire Teams to Optimally Perform: More and more people feel stuck at work and are looking for validation. Not only do they want to be heard, but more importantly they want to know that their contributions are being noticed and not taken for granted. Not for the sake of attention, but more so because they want to know that their skill sets are still relevant and useful and that they are making a difference to advance the organizations they serve. With professional development budget cut-backs in recent years, employees have had to start investing in themselves as concerns grow about where their capabilities best fit in their organizations and what their futures hold. Leaders must understand that in today?s new workplace, there does not exist a single recipe to encourage employees to perform better. Rather, it?s about how to maximize the ingredients in order to create hundreds of recipes that are customized and authentic; that provide long-term continuity and impact. To get you started, here are ten ways to inspire teams to optimally perform.

How To Remember Everything

How To Remember Everything: A husband-and-wife team of brain researchers has discovered a kind of brain cell that goes a long way to explaining how memory works and how you can remember things better.  May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser have been researching the brain since 1988, and in 2005 they announced the discovery of so-called grid cells.  These grid cells create a direct, intuitively simple map of everywhere you go, basically, sending the data to your hippocampus, the seat of memory and emotion in your brain.

5 Ways to Build A Future Leader

5 Ways to Build A Future Leader: Philly is a great town – it’s filled with interesting people and awesome food (oh yes, with a little history thrown in). I was there last week for the HR Conference for senior level executives. The energy at the conference was amazing – there are so many exciting developments in the new world of work. I left with my head spinning (in a good way).

Overcoming the Biggest Challenge in Business: Your Own Insecurity

Overcoming the Biggest Challenge in Business: Your Own Insecurity: I was struck this week by something Barbara Corcoran, real estate mogul and Shark Tank expert, recently said.

10 Ways To Inspire Your Team

10 Ways To Inspire Your Team: More and more people feel stuck at work and are looking for validation.   Not only do they want to be heard, but more importantly they want to know that their contributions are being noticed and not taken for granted.  Not for the sake of attention, but more so because they want to know that their skill sets are still relevant and useful and that they are making a difference to advance the organizations they serve.   With professional development budget cut-backs in recent years, employees have had to start investing in themselves as concerns grow about where their capabilities best fit in their organizations and what their futures hold.

Five Easy Steps To Giving The Best Speech Of Your Life

Five Easy Steps To Giving The Best Speech Of Your Life: Good talks are short, lively and engaging. Speaking is about being yourself while not getting in the way of the message you’ve been asked to deliver. In that sense, there’s nothing to fear.

The 'It' Factor: How To Have Executive Presence In A Meeting

The 'It' Factor: How To Have Executive Presence In A Meeting: Think back to a recent meeting, when someone there just seemed to attract and engage everyone around the table. Someone like Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg or Virgin’s Richard Branson—someone who has the ability to walk into a boardroom, command attention, and leave everyone wanting more. Someone who has that “it” factor.

The 7 Ways Successful People Approach Their Work

The 7 Ways Successful People Approach Their Work: When it comes to work, everyone has their own methods for getting tasks done.

5 Time-Tested Success Tips From Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos

5 Time-Tested Success Tips From Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos: Amazon's Founder, Jeff Bezos has had an incredible entrepreneurial career. He has gone from simply selling books online to offering consumers tens of thousands of products. Not satisfied with conquering the online retail world, Amazon then productized access to its infrastructure, ushering in the era of the public cloud. This innovation has eliminated billions of dollars of annual costs previously associated with creating and maintaining web-based businesses.

What The Most Successful Leaders Know About Creating An Inventive Culture: A Case Study

What The Most Successful Leaders Know About Creating An Inventive Culture: A Case Study: Iron Man is a fictional superhero.

8 Ways to Undermine Yourself as a Leader

8 Ways to Undermine Yourself as a Leader: As entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time honing our leadership style and working tirelessly to ensure our teams are motivated to work with us. There are countless resources to improve on various attributes you utilize both in and out of the office, but there’s less information readily available on pitfalls to avoid. You might think you’re doing a good job, but here’s a list of how you might be undermining yourself.

Leading With Engagement Instead

Leading With Engagement Instead: We all know that influencing by authority—by command & control—is out. Influencing by engaging and enrolling is in. Yet too many leaders still rule with claws and teeth, rather than cropping grass alongside their herd and nudging them in the right direction.
What about you? Are you helping employees envision an exciting future—or are you sending their innovative brains scurrying for cover?

Are You a Visionary Business Leader?

Are You a Visionary Business Leader?: What does it mean to be a visionary business leader?

How To Approach The Boss When Conflict Arises At Work

How To Approach The Boss When Conflict Arises At Work: Sometimes the hardest part of your job isn't the work; it's the people.

Tips for Building Long-Term Client Relationships

Tips for Building Long-Term Client Relationships: A business is only as good as the clients it serves, and no business gets far after losing the clients it has. The key to success is building relationships that go beyond one-time projects and provide value to these clients on a consistent, ongoing basis.

Essential Tools of Talent Management

Essential Tools of Talent Management: There’s a problem that small-to-midsized but fast-growing private companies often don’t see coming until the damage is done. Namely – they don’t recognize until it’s too late just how much value is being lost owing to immature talent development, retention, evaluation and recruitment processes.

Five Ways Helpfulness Wins Hearts and Sales

Five Ways Helpfulness Wins Hearts and Sales: Taxi Mike, Geek Squad and Vanderbilt University Medical Center take the same successful approach to stand out from their competition, and you can too.

The Difference Between Asserting Yourself and Being a Jerk

The Difference Between Asserting Yourself and Being a Jerk: First it was Suzy Lee Weiss and her Wall Street Journal Op-Ed. Then last week we got the crazy but ?amazing? University of Maryland sorority girl who penned a letter to her ?sisters? telling them they were losers, ?faggots,? and ?retarded.? Now people are calling Reese Witherspoon and her DUI antics amazing. There has been such an outpouring of support for this trifecta of bitchiness that I?m surprised Ann Coulter hasn?t been crowned woman of the year yet.

The Easy Path to Persuasion

The Easy Path to Persuasion:

If you want to persuade a customer to do something - buy a product, request more information, or call your toll-free line, for example - do you think the odds are better if: It appears to be quick and easy? It appears to be difficult and time-consuming? Of course, "easy" is the obvious

5 Ways Leaders Can Reclaim Their Identity

5 Ways Leaders Can Reclaim Their Identity: The first job I had was with a large Wine & Spirits company.  It was a top-down, best-practice, zero-defect, career-path, fear-based culture.  Everyone was accountable to someone else, and had to follow a set of policies and procedures.   In this company, you were not encouraged to freely express your individuality.  In fact, in the classical ways of bureaucracies, the best sales people had been promoted into management – where they were floundering because they lacked the right types of skills to succeed in their new roles.  A great sales person is not necessarily a great manager.  But this company didn’t care about the consequences they created.  This was a linear-thinking, cookie-cutter, no-individuals-for-hire organization.

Who Are The Best Marketers?

Who Are The Best Marketers?: Who are the best marketers out there right now?  Who are the leaders shaping the way businesses interact with their customers and the marketplace?  Big questions, right?  What is more important than “who” is doing it, is “what” are they doing to meet the ever-changing needs of customers and to deliver results for their companies.

7 Common Excuses That Prevent an Employee From Being Great

7 Common Excuses That Prevent an Employee From Being Great: It’s usually easier to come up with an excuse than it is to actually get something done. I’ve learned that many employees have the potential to be great, but they let excuses get in the way of their true potential. As a leader, it’s important to address these excuses and challenge your employees to be better. Here are some excuses that send my “BS meter” off the charts.

How to Keep Your Focus Razor Sharp

How to Keep Your Focus Razor Sharp: There’s a woman I know, a writer and consultant, who says she’s more stressed out by what she’s not doing than what she is doing. When she’s in the flow of work, she’s consumed by it, productive, engaged. But when she’s not and instead worrying about what she has to get done, she says she “hovers like a gnat around her work, not landing on anything, not getting anything done, and completely stressed out about it.”

Be Like Mike: Three Keys to Collaboration and Winning

Be Like Mike: Three Keys to Collaboration and Winning: This weekend Adam Scott’s caddie Steve Williams (Tiger Wood’s old caddie), was part of a major tournament win for the 14th time in his career. Williams carried the bag for 13 majors and three Masters wins for Tiger Woods before he was fired. This weekend, he helped Scott to his first

4 Questions You Should be Asking Your Employees

4 Questions You Should be Asking Your Employees: Are you having trouble motivating your employees? Struggling to figure out what resources your team is lacking? Not sure what you can do to make your management style more effective?

8 Ways To Achieve Better Work-Life Balance

8 Ways To Achieve Better Work-Life Balance: For most people, juggling the demands of a career and a personal life is an ongoing challenge, especially at a time when many companies have slashed their ranks–and expect more from the survivors.

Excellence From A To Z: 26 Qualities to Strive For

Excellence From A To Z: 26 Qualities to Strive For: The Greek Stoics believed that life is about learning to die. I like to think about it another way: reflecting on death can teach us how to live.

Good Employees Make Mistakes. Great Leaders Allow Them To.

Good Employees Make Mistakes. Great Leaders Allow Them To.: As a business leader, I found that one of the scariest things to do was to give your people the freedom to make mistakes. While mistakes allow individuals to learn and grow, they can also be very costly to any company. Scared as I was, I knew that truly great leaders found ways to allow their people to take these risks, and I genuinely wanted to be a great leader. I wanted to help my employees to grow. So I set out to discover how to accomplish this without placing my company in jeopardy. 

Change Is Hard. Remembering These 2 Things Will Make It Easier

Change Is Hard. Remembering These 2 Things Will Make It Easier: A rising star at one of the world's major consulting firms is munching on his shrimp and cashews at the Chinese restaurant across the street from his office in mid-town Manhatan. It's been a tough week. He's put in three consecutive fourteen-hour days at the office in order to satisfy a demanding client and there will be  a six-hour plane trip tomorrow.

How To Conduct A Personal S.W.O.T. Analysis

How To Conduct A Personal S.W.O.T. Analysis: An effective process companies use to assess themselves and their competitors and formulate their strategies is an analysis called “S.W.O.T.” But this exercise isn’t just for businesses. It can be helpful for job seekers and those who are looking to climb the career ladder, too. Here’s how the process works…

Get Noticed! Four Easy Steps to Climbing the Corporate Ladder

Get Noticed! Four Easy Steps to Climbing the Corporate Ladder: As a board member on dozens of companies, the CEO of several firms, and an executive on many more, I have spent countless hours behind closed doors with fellow leaders discussing what employee should be promoted within the company.  Have you ever walked by a conference room and wished you were a fly on the wall? You probably thought to yourself, what are we talking about in there?  Well, I’ll tell you.  We discuss competitive analysis reports and sales trends, new products launches and financial statements. We talk about strategy, expansion and legal issues. And – we talk about you.

5 Leadership Lessons for Today's Executive

5 Leadership Lessons for Today's Executive: The poster of 12 O’clock High, the 1949 Gregory Peck-led vehicle centering on the underperforming 918th Bomber Group, hangs framed in my Aveksa office. This is not because of its reputation as one of the best WWII films to emerge from the glut of late 1940’s war-centric cinema, but as a constant reminder of the timeless lessons of leadership the film triumphed.  Through juxtaposing the leaderships styles of Colonel Davenport and Brigadier General Frank Savage, 12 O’clock High explored what it meant to be an effective leader of troops.  Its lessons, which I will explore in this week’s column, can be translated from the harrowing skies above WWII Europe to the (significantly less dangerous) modern workplace.

Time Management Secrets Anyone Can Use

Time Management Secrets Anyone Can Use: If you’re reading this article instead of doing your work, chances are good that you have trouble managing your time efficiently. You’re not alone. According to a survey by Salary.com, 90% of workers waste at least a half hour each workday, not including lunch or scheduled breaks. While computers have dramatically increased efficiency, they have also provided the ultimate in distraction. The Web is like the next-door neighbor who keeps asking us to play when we know we have homework to do. It and e-mail offer so much distraction on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour basis that we find it nearly impossible to give our full attention to higher-level tasks. Because there are no defined edges to most of our projects–and certainly not to our workdays–we live in an endless jumble of work and life. We can book a trip to Mexico while participating in a conference call. We can send work e-mails from a chairlift above the ski slopes of Vermont. It’s tough to establish boundaries and focus on any one thing.

3 Tips for Getting Your Organization to Move, Now

3 Tips for Getting Your Organization to Move, Now: My colleague PJ Chan was recently involved in helping a global pharmaceutical company take on an enormous challenge. Here she offers tips leaders can follow to generate the momentum their company needs to achieve success.

Three Questions for Business Leaders to Ask When Surprise Hits

Three Questions for Business Leaders to Ask When Surprise Hits: Despite tremendous developments in business strategy over the last fifty years, businesses and governments keep being disrupted by events that they might have seen coming, but didn't. In other words, they get surprised? and not in a happy, surprise party kind of way. Think 9/11, the Arab spring, Fukushima or the launch of the iPhone for Nokia. Such events often have consequences far beyond their immediate environment that make many firms suffer, and require a response that isn't in anyone?s existing playbook.  The late Steve Jobs ? no slouch when dealing with disruption in the marketplace ? once replied that his strategy was to ?wait for the next big thing.?

Five Important Lessons From A Trip To The Apple Store

Five Important Lessons From A Trip To The Apple Store: Want to sell more stuff? Take some tips from the folks who do it best.

Be a Giver Not a Taker to Succeed at Work

Be a Giver Not a Taker to Succeed at Work: I recently spoke to Adam Grant, who is the youngest tenured professor and single highest-rated teacher at The Wharton School. He is a former record-setting advertising director, junior Olympic springboard diver, and professional magician. He has been honored as one of BusinessWeek's favorite professors and one of the world's top 40 business professors under 40. His consulting and speaking clients include Google, the NFL, Goldman Sachs, Merck, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. His new book is called Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.

How to Get Others to See Your Potential

How to Get Others to See Your Potential: Chris was starting to worry. For eight years, he’d been on the fast track at his large, multinational company. But suddenly, his career began to stall. “I ended up replacing a VP and didn’t get the promotion,” he told me. “Then I replaced another VP and didn’t get that promotion, either. I was going through performance reviews and everyone said ‘you exceed expectations,’ but then I was asked to report to another Senior Director. Alarm bells went off - what am I doing wrong? What am I missing?”

How To Become A Better Superman

How To Become A Better Superman: Are you an idealist or a pragmatist? It’s one of the great dilemmas of life, but finding the perfect balance is quite simple. You simply have to become a better Superman.

When Measuring Impact, Ask the Right Questions

When Measuring Impact, Ask the Right Questions: Editor’s Note: Ehren Reed is a Research and Evaluation Officer for the Skoll Foundation. He is responsible for assessing the impact and effectiveness of the Foundation’s efforts in order to support ongoing learning and evidence-based decision making.

Don't Rely On Luck At Work: Define Your Career Aspirations And Goals

Don't Rely On Luck At Work: Define Your Career Aspirations And Goals: Do you feel like a cork bobbing in a stream going wherever the current takes you? Instead of relying on luck and hope, take control of your career by defining your aspirations and goals.

6 Easy Ways To Remember Someone's Name

6 Easy Ways To Remember Someone's Name: Maybe you have trouble recalling your clients’ names. Perhaps you draw a blank every time you introduce a new colleague to co-workers. You're constantly thinking to yourself: Is it Joan or Jane? Tim or Tom? Larry or Barry?

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Great Leader? Take The Test

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Great Leader? Take The Test: Most everyone, regardless of their current role, wonders if they’ve got the right stuff to become a strong leader. Today is your chance to find out.

4 Steps To Master The 'Art' of Sales

4 Steps To Master The 'Art' of Sales: Selling is the most basic and fundamental skill required to be a successful entrepreneur. Although a lot has been said and too much of a big deal has been made about it, I’ve heard from many aspiring entrepreneurs who are scared to death of selling.

6 Ways To Conquer Leadership Pressure

6 Ways To Conquer Leadership Pressure: How a leader deals with pressure will tell you much about who they are as a person. Their reaction to pressure will reveal the strength of their character and conviction, what and whom they value, and whether or not they can be trusted. The reality is most people buckle under pressure. Only a few handle pressure well, and even fewer possess the qualities to be able to thrive on pressure.

10 Ways to Become a Better Listener

10 Ways to Become a Better Listener: I never take the ability to listen for granted. Maybe it’s because my oldest daughter was born profoundly deaf, and though she has benefited from the modern technology (and miracle!) of a cochlear implant and the early intervention that has enabled her to hear, I have come to value listening more than ever. It’s also crucial to my livelihood. As a writer, I certainly can’t pen a story without carefully listening to those I’m writing about.

How To Always Say The Right Thing

How To Always Say The Right Thing: It's often true that the more proficient we become in our role as managers and leaders, the less preparation we think we need. As a result, we become less effective at motivating and inspiring others, and our ideal message gets buried or watered down because of a poorly articulated or organized presentation.

The Five Dimensions of Learning Agile Leaders

The Five Dimensions of Learning Agile Leaders: Living and leading today are much like swimming in the unpredictable, treacherous Lake Superior, the 4th largest body of fresh water in the world.  We dive into the water, and we never really know what is going to happen next. Although we operate under the illusion that life remains constant, clear, and under our control, this is far from reality.  Everything is always changing, and often situations and choices are unclear, uncertain, even murky.

15 Traits Of The Ideal Employee

15 Traits Of The Ideal Employee: When hiring for any size business, it's not what the candidates know today.  Information can always be taught.  The most intelligent companies hire on future success and heavily weigh personality when determining the most apt employees.

The Fastest, Easiest Way to Boost Creativity

The Fastest, Easiest Way to Boost Creativity: We'd all like to be able to turn on creativity at times, and research shows that simply looking at the right symbol can do just that. In fact, at least two such symbols have been shown to increase creativity in problem solving. What are these magic symbols?

Leading with a Clear Vision

Leading with a Clear Vision: It is not remarkable that Hubert Sagnières’ vision is clear. After all, he is CEO of Essilor, the world’s largest producer of eyeglass lenses. What is remarkable is the discipline with which Sagnières keeps various societal, business, and individual efforts all focused on the mission of improved vision and in their own boxes at the same time.

How To Manage Conflict At Work

How To Manage Conflict At Work: Effectively managing conflict is arguably the hardest thing a manager has to do.  I was recently reminded of this by a comment from a reader in response to a post (10 Things Successful Business People Aren't Daunted By).  Her observation?  "I'll be printing this off and putting it where I can read it every morning," she wrote.  "Dealing well with conflict (instead of running and hiding) has been one of my biggest challenges as a relatively new manager, so thank you for reminding me that conquering that fear of conflict is worth it!"

Five Must-Follow Rules for a Successful Office Culture

Five Must-Follow Rules for a Successful Office Culture: Culture, that ambiguous little catchall buzzword, has only recently become in-vogue with the modern executive.  Maybe this is because creating a successful office culture lacks the concreteness of, say, managing finances or launching an advertising campaign,  or maybe it is a result of those in charge simply refusing to recognize the importance of it.  Regardless, a culture will emerge. Whether it is a productive, positive one or one that forces employees to jump the proverbial ship whenever something new comes along, is your responsibility.

How to Get Things Done

How to Get Things Done: One of the greatest leadership success stories of the past decade unfolded in a place that was inarguably the site of the greatest tragedy of the previous decade.

Career Boot Camp: 5 Steps To Become A Better Presenter

Career Boot Camp: 5 Steps To Become A Better Presenter: Last up in this month’s “Career Boot Camp” blog series (read my previous entries here, here, and here) are my tips on becoming a better presenter, essential if you want to be seen as a good leader, build your workplace credibility, or catch the attention of upper management.

Change Happens. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Look Forward to It.

Change Happens. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Look Forward to It.: One of my very favorite books in life is Who Moved My Cheese, by Spencer Johnson, MD. It is a fantastic book for many reasons. 1. It?s easy to read because it has big print and it has pictures! 2. It?s about two mice and two men and let?s face it, who doesn?t love a story about mice? 3. It has one of the best messages about letting go of the past, getting over the things you cannot change, moving forward, and realizing that there is no reason to fear the unknown because the unknown may be better than anything you could have imagined! It?s really all about change and how change has unlimited potential depending on how you deal with it.

How to Become a Higher-Ambition Leader

How to Become a Higher-Ambition Leader: At a recent conference, executives underscored the importance of employee engagement, contributing to the community, and creating sustainable environment strategies. Dina Gerdeman discusses the key points of "higher-ambition" leadership in this article, which first appeared on the HBS Working Knowledge website.

5 Easy Ways To Motivate - And Demotivate - Employees

5 Easy Ways To Motivate - And Demotivate - Employees: I'll put it as simply as I can: There are an awful lot of unmotivated employees out there.  With a recent national study showing that less than 1 in 4 non-management employees is fully engaged (aka, fully motivated and productive), there is, shall we say, ample room for improvement.   And since an employee's relationship with his or her direct manager is the single most important factor influencing engagement, the responsibility falls to management to improve motivational levels.  Accordingly, here are 5 easy ways to motivate - and demotivate - employees.

The Secret to Motivating Your Team

The Secret to Motivating Your Team: When your employees do something awesome?whether it?s finishing a project three weeks ahead of time, figuring out how to streamline a process, or just talking down an angry client?you, as a manager, want to reward them.
Except, if you?re not the top dog at your company, you may not be able to dole out free days off or give your employees hefty bonuses. But as it turns out, the secret to employee happiness isn?t rooted in those things anyway. In fact, one of the most effective ways to reward your employees is by simply recognizing their hard work and accomplishments.

3 Simple Steps To Get Where You Want to Go

3 Simple Steps To Get Where You Want to Go: In order to create the life or business you want, you have to do these 3 things. The good news is, you can.

Tips to Go Above and Beyond With Customer Service

Tips to Go Above and Beyond With Customer Service: Customer loyalty is hard to win and easy to lose. Here's how to make the extra effort required to stand out from the competition.

5 Tips To Lead Effective Conference Calls

5 Tips To Lead Effective Conference Calls: If you’ve been following my “Career Boot Camp” blog series this month, you’ll know that last week I covered how to lead effective in-person meetings. Let’s build on that knowledge by focusing on leading conference calls.

The New Rules of Leadership

The New Rules of Leadership:

Spring is in the air, the days are getting longer and the crocuses are poking up their hopeful heads. Yet, these remain bleak times for too many job seekers, even leaders and managers with impressive resumes. The reason? The demands of a collaboration-based, talent-hungry, global, wired economy are evolving so

5 Creative, Constructive Approaches To Bad Bosses

5 Creative, Constructive Approaches To Bad Bosses: Unless you're pretty lucky or haven't been in the workforce too long, you've probably experienced this: A boss you enjoy about as much as you would an afternoon with a wolverine (see nice photo).   But rather than wasting energy on frustration and anger, try applying some of your well-honed business skills to improve things:

Three Communication Skills That Make Suze Orman An Influential Celebrity

Three Communication Skills That Make Suze Orman An Influential Celebrity: More than 300,000 financial advisors in the United States provide saving, investing and retirement advice, but only one made the top ten of the Forbes 2013 list of the most influential celebrities: Suze Orman.

What I Learned From My Mentor

What I Learned From My Mentor: As told by nine leaders drawn from Forbes’ list of America’s Most Promising Companies. Edited by Max Mallet

7 Ways to Enliven Your Next Brainstorming Session

7 Ways to Enliven Your Next Brainstorming Session: Even in the most creatively booming of small businesses, there are times when you hit an ideas wall. The well of brilliant thoughts dries up and it usually happens right around the time when you really need something innovative to come along. Don’t feel down – these moments of creative stagnation happen to even the best and brightest. If your company’s brainstorming sessions have been lackluster of late, pull from this list to give yourselves an exciting mental jolt.

6 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty

6 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty: Effective ways to follow up that ensure your business is always in the customer's mind.

Train Your Brain to Overcome Fear

Train Your Brain to Overcome Fear: Three tips to help you get over your fears and take bigger risks.

3 Essential Skills Every Leader Should Cultivate

3 Essential Skills Every Leader Should Cultivate: Changing your way of thinking can change your whole approach to your business. Here's how.

4 Tactics To Build Your Word of Mouth

4 Tactics To Build Your Word of Mouth: In my last blog we established the importance of Word of Mouth in building your brand.  You can have a great product or service, but if people don’t know about it then it does no good.  We know it is important to keep track of what people are saying about you and your brand online and off, but how do you insert yourself in the conversations?  MarketShare calls this overall Word of Mouth (conversations occurring online and offline) your brand’s Social Voice.  It is more than just creating a Facebook and a Twitter page.  Successful Word of Mouth requires strategic thinking and serious work.  Here are the most important steps to take when carving out your Word of Mouth strategy:

The 3 Things All Humans Crave--And How To Motivate Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

The 3 Things All Humans Crave--And How To Motivate Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: What human beings crave at their deepest levels, and how as leaders we must provide these to boost performance, trust, emotional engagement.

How To Give Difficult Feedback

How To Give Difficult Feedback: For most of his career, Thomas D’Aunno has been studying how people give one another feedback. As a professor of health policy and management at Columbia University‘s Mailman School of Public Health, he focuses on health care, where the failure to give or take feedback can have life or death consequences. Think of a surgeon supervising a resident who may cut into the wrong artery, or an obstetrician training a young doctor who must deliver a premature baby.

The Secret to Getting Really, Really Good at Something

The Secret to Getting Really, Really Good at Something: Recently my husband and I were talking about the human will to mastery.  The conversation started as a discussion of the attraction people have toward precision tools as they advance in a craft.  For instance, I was noting how, as I get deeper and deeper into my knitting hobby, I get pickier about the needles I use, and I find I'm accumulating a variety of little tools (row counters, cable needles, stitch holders, needle sizers) that I didn't even know about - and wouldn't have understood the use of - when I was starting out.

Seven Steps to Negotiating Success

Seven Steps to Negotiating Success: Tried-and-true negotiation tactics from author and negotiation expert Selena Rezvani.

Read “Tipping Sacred Cows” to Uncover Behaviors that Hold You Back

Read “Tipping Sacred Cows” to Uncover Behaviors that Hold You Back:
You seek balance, collaboration creativity, fairness, excellence, passion and preparation?  Good for you.
But did you know that these virtues can easily turn into vices that hold you back from everything you’re envisioning?

10 Tips For Communicating Across Generations

10 Tips For Communicating Across Generations

Four wildly different generations are now working together in one office, and it can be a Petri dish for problems. Veterans (born before 1946), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1979), and Generation Y or Millennials (1980-2000) grew up in different times, have wide-ranging value sets and often conflicting communication styles. Can't we all just get along? Dana Brownlee, a corporate trainer and president of professional development firm Professionalism Matters, offers 10 guidelines for communicating across generations.

How To Spot An Opportunity

How To Spot An Opportunity: While no one can provide a fool-proof way to always spot an opportunity, of course, there are some simple tests you can apply in order to increase your chances of success.

How To Fast-Track Your Way Up The Corporate Ladder

How To Fast-Track Your Way Up The Corporate Ladder: As a 19-year-old college student, Justin Hutchens began work as a resident assistant at an intermediate care facility in Greeley, Colorado. Over the next 18 years he worked his way up at six different companies in four states, from a care giver to admissions director, regional operations director and chief operating officer. In 2009 he joined National Health Investors, a health care real estate investment trust, as president and chief operating officer. Two years later, at the age of 36, he was appointed chief executive.

10 Things Every Leader Should Challenge

10 Things Every Leader Should Challenge:

News Flash - innovation, growth and development cannot occur by pretending we live in a world that has long since passed us by. Leading in the 21st Century affords no safe haven for 20th Century thinkers. Old, static, institutionalized thinking will gate the pace of forward progress faster than just

How to Turn Any Setback Into a Success

How to Turn Any Setback Into a Success: I will never forget the day so many years ago that a too-slim envelope arrived from my first-choice college. I had applied Early Decision, and when I opened it up to find out I'd been deferred, failure washed over me. It was the amplification of every less-than-perfect test score, every time I'd worked hard on something and struggled to do as well as my peers. I told myself I must be stupid.

7 Steps To Lead Effective Meetings

7 Steps To Lead Effective Meetings: This month, I’m taking it back to the basics with my “Career Boot Camp” blog series. Next up in the series is leading effective in-person meetings, which is a requirement if you want to climb the career ladder. Why? Because meetings occur in every business, in every industry, and in every country in the world – there’s no way to avoid them. Use these seven steps to dazzle colleagues and management with your leadership skills and watch the level of your credibility soar:

What Makes Effective Coaching Sessions

What Makes Effective Coaching Sessions: For many business leaders, the open door policy is a mainstay of employee engagement. It?s like an old friend. The one policy you can rely on. You never have to question it because ? intuitively ? it just makes sense. I mean, you want to be approachable and supportive, and you want employees to come to you with issues and concerns. Right?

10 Things Every Leader Should Challenge

10 Things Every Leader Should Challenge: News Flash - innovation, growth and development cannot occur by pretending we live in a world that has long since passed us by. Leading in the 21st Century affords no safe haven for 20th Century thinkers. Old, static, institutionalized thinking will gate the pace of forward progress faster than just about anything. If you want to expose yourself as an out of touch, dated leader, keep trying to address today's issues and opportunities with yesterday's thinking.

Become Successful By Understanding Peoples Personalities

Become Successful By Understanding Peoples Personalities: Have you gotten annoyed at your colleague for being too loud or rambunctious? Or impatient at your employee for not getting to the point quick enough? How about thinking that your boss is a lunatic for wanting everything to be exactly the way he/she wants it (even if it makes no sense)?

Smart Leaders and the Power of Collaboration

Smart Leaders and the Power of Collaboration:

Collaboration is the keystone of leadership success. Don’t believe me?  Google  > sequestration < Anyone? Last week in Washington we saw an infantile exercise in acting out. Driven by rigid ideology, inflated egos, and a desire for revenge that put party above country, potentially serious damage was self-inflicted on our economy

4 Steps to Successful Brainstorming

4 Steps to Successful Brainstorming: Almost everybody does brainstorming wrong, Ralph Keeney says, and turns it into an enormous waste of time. He wants to tell you how to do it right.

Office Stress: His vs. Hers

Office Stress: His vs. Hers: Women report higher levels of work-related stress than men, along with the sense of being underappreciated and underpaid.

10 Ways To Be More Confident At Work

10 Ways To Be More Confident At Work: There are many reasons you may lack confidence at work. Maybe you’re in a job that requires skills you don’t have, or you’re less experienced than anyone around you. Perhaps you’re new to the company and feel uneasy about your ability to succeed—or you feel threatened by colleagues; you fear losing your job; or you are simply too hard on yourself. Public humiliation and errors in judgment can also do the trick.

How to Be More Creative

How to Be More Creative: According to research by Clayton Christenson, Jeff Dyer and Hal Gergersen — the co-authors of  The Innovator’s DNA — recent research has found that most creative skills are not a special gift conferred on us at birth by the Magical Gene Fairy.  They can be learned.  In fact, between 60 and 75 percent of our innovation skills are developed and fostered.

How To Become a Successful Young Leader at Work

How To Become a Successful Young Leader at Work: Most young, new employees aren’t typically thought of as leaders in the workplace. Not only do they inhabit a low spot in the office hierarchy and lack experience and skills, but also many are too timid and insecure to assume a leadership role. But with the right attitude, an observant eye and a desire to learn, any young professionals can prevail early on.

Six Things to Put on Your Not-to-Do List

Six Things to Put on Your Not-to-Do List: What really sets high achievers apart is not that they do a lot, but that they don't do a lot. The most successful people filter out thousands of opportunities every day, and focus on a very few important tasks.

Your Ego and the Bad Decisions It Makes

Your Ego and the Bad Decisions It Makes: In my work with business leaders and executives, I talk a lot about ego – and how egocentric behavior can sabotage their careers and hold them back from the success they desire. These conversations are invariably spirited, often challenging and sometimes contentious. In any case, let’s just say the ego is on my radar.

5 Ways to Earn Respect and Get Noticed in a Meeting

5 Ways to Earn Respect and Get Noticed in a Meeting: According to a Microsoft survey, the average worker spends 5.6 hours a week in meetings.  For many of us, 5.6 hours in meetings is probably a light day!  And all of the time that we are in those meetings,  we are being evaluated by  our peers.

How to Hire Successfully: Focus on Mission, Values, Talent

How to Hire Successfully: Focus on Mission, Values, Talent: Like many leaders I feel like I am becoming a hiring expert. Between building my own organization and serving on multiple search committees, I have spent a lot of time thinking about hiring and developing talent. That’s a good thing, because there’s nothing more crucial to the success of an organization than bringing the right people on board and encouraging their growth, especially if you consider a bad hire could cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Top Leaders Share The Best Advice They Ever Received

Top Leaders Share The Best Advice They Ever Received: Sage advice can go a long way. In fact, some of the most accomplished people in business suggest that good advice was the secret to their success.

5 Ways to Build a Resilient Organization

5 Ways to Build a Resilient Organization: Disruption seems to be everywhere these days – industries collapsing, storm surges shutting down major urban centers, financial markets imploding, and more. Preventing these calamities would be everyone’s first choice, of course. But in an increasingly complex world, it’s very difficult. “There’s a deepening appreciation that we’re living in a time of increased, intrinsic volatility,” says Andrew Zolli, the Executive Director and curator of PopTech and the co-author (with Ann Marie Healy) of Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back.

5 Simple Steps To More Efficient, Effective Meetings

5 Simple Steps To More Efficient, Effective Meetings: Have you ever heard anyone complain a meeting was too short?   (Neither have I.)  Ever been frustrated at a meeting by rambling chitchat chewing up time while work remains undone... or by stragglers routinely wandering in 10 minutes late?  In the spirit of brevity and productivity, here are 5 simple  steps for more efficient, effective meetings.

Seth Godin on Dealing With Critics and Rejection

Seth Godin on Dealing With Critics and Rejection: The popular marketing guru on how to deal with rejection and still unlock your ability to do amazing things.

How to Determine Motivation in a Job Interview

How to Determine Motivation in a Job Interview: Everyone knows someone like my friend, Gary. Gary swears that he's an extraordinarily good interviewer, with a strong track record of making great hires. His technique? He can sit down with someone and, using pure gut instinct, determine if they're a good fit.

Top Leaders Share The Best Advice They Ever Received

Top Leaders Share The Best Advice They Ever Received: Some of the most accomplished people in business suggest that good advice was the secret to their success. And thanks to LinkedIn, we know which pearls of wisdom they cherish most.

The #1 Shift to Move from Management to Leadership

The #1 Shift to Move from Management to Leadership: Converting complexity to clarity may be the most critical competency to move us from management effectiveness to leadership excellence. In his book, Beating the Global Odds, Paul Laudicina, managing partner and chairman of the board of A.T. Kearney, writes: “Not surprisingly, people (and organizations) everywhere are feeling disoriented, bewildered, and even paralyzed. From crisis and scandal to the proliferation of product choice and the relentless 24/7 ‘information smog’ of always-on news, email, and social media, we are not feeling smarter and wiser. On the contrary, our ability to think and act decisively with the future in mind has diminished. Imagine having—at last—the entire knowledge of human civilization at your fingertips, and finding it basically gives you a migraine.”

5 Tips To Put A Crisis Behind You

5 Tips To Put A Crisis Behind You: We all experience a crisis now and then. It can be large or small, personal or professional. You forget a loved one's birthday. You get caught up in an office scandal. Or you do something that’s just plain wrong.

The Top Ten Challenges in Time Management

The Top Ten Challenges in Time Management: We all have 168 hours a week. Yet, some people get so much more done than others. Furthermore, the people who get more done are usually less tired than those who are perpetually frustrated. What are some of the common obstacles keeping people from getting what they want, and what can be done to leap over these hurdles?

10 Steps You Can Take To Become A Successful Young Leader At Work

10 Steps You Can Take To Become A Successful Young Leader At Work
Most people near the starts of their careers aren't typically thought of as leaders in the workplace. Not only do they inhabit a low spot in the office hierarchy and lack experience and skills, but also many are too timid and insecure to assume a leadership role. But with the right attitude, an observant eye and a desire to learn, any young professionals can prevail early on.

What It Takes To Have Influence

What It Takes To Have Influence: What makes a person good at – and comfortable with -- persuading others?

Five Important Lessons From A Trip To The Apple Store

Five Important Lessons From A Trip To The Apple Store: Want to sell more stuff? Take some tips from the folks who do it best.

Becoming A Great Leader Is A Lifelong Quest, But One Well Worth Pursuing

Becoming A Great Leader Is A Lifelong Quest, But One Well Worth Pursuing: I have spent many years as the leader of several companies. I hope that during that time I have learned a bit about what it takes to become a great leader. Many of the lessons I am still learning, but I wanted to share a few of the things I have come to learn thus far.

12 Ways to Be the Leader Everyone Wants to Work For

12 Ways to Be the Leader Everyone Wants to Work For: It’s not easy being a manager these days. You’re responsible for recruiting, hiring, training, coaching, modeling, engaging, monitoring, motivating, anticipating, prioritizing, planning, evaluating, clarifying, adapting, envisioning, directing, disciplining, reinforcing, reporting, recognizing, budgeting, and building alliances. And that’s all before lunch. And if you struggle with just one, your reports will say you’re over your head.

Nine Practices to Help You Say No

Nine Practices to Help You Say No: Irene* is a great colleague. A senior manager in a large consulting firm, she pitches in when the workload gets heavy, covers for people when they're sick, and stays late when needed, which is often.

How To Deal With Jerks And Idiots

How To Deal With Jerks And Idiots: Have you ever noticed that your co-workers tend to fall into two categories? First, you have the idiots – those lovely, well-intentioned people that don’t seem to have a clue what they’re doing. Second, you have the jerks – the people who are difficult to deal with, stubborn and always wrong. And they’re not just in your office! On the highway, the idiots are the people driving more slowly than you, while the jerks are the people whizzing by you in the left lane. At the grocery store, the idiots are blocking the ice cream aisle, while the jerks are pushing your cart aside to reach the soup. It feels like they’re following you around, doesn’t it? In fact, toward the end of a bad day, it can start to feel downright personal!