If you are like many new supervisors, you got promoted because of your job knowledge and technical ability. While some of you may have been recognized for your communication skills, others may find that your promotion requires a whole new level of expertise. Just recently, one new supervisor asked me quite openly, “Based on all [...]
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. In business, it is seen as a way of coordinating different ideas from numerous people to generate a wide variety of knowledge to achieve strategic objectives (wiki). I like how that sounds. I’ve been watching a lot of cooking shows lately, Everyday Italian, in particular. [...]
“Running short of cash and unable to sell 1,100 digital imaging patents that could have rescued it,” as Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle writes, Eastman Kodak Co. today took the long-expected but still painful step of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As The Associated Press says, this raises the specter that “the 132-year-old trailblazer could [...]
In November 2011, NDC blogger Michael Harrington wrote about three different types of people: the Conserver, the Pragmatist and the Innovator (Discovery Learning, Change Style Indicator). I want to revisit these three different approaches, and look at how “the fear of doing things differently” plays out in each change style. THE CONSERVER The Conservers prefer [...]
“Life is the sum of all your choices.” – Albert Camus (1913 – 1960), French Author And many choices we make. Some experts calculate that most adults make 35,000 decisions each and every day. As Albert Camus suggests, decisions are probably the single most influential factor in individual and organizational success – whether they be [...]
The Friday after Thanksgiving has, over the years, become a day of holiday decorating at our house which includes hauling out the Christmas decorations and putting up our tree. This year, we also decided that it was the perfect time to re-arrange the living room, make plans to freshen up the paint and refinish the [...]
What is your professional value equation? Are you on the addition side or do your behaviors subtract from your workplace worth? Some years ago I received a distress phone call from a former participant in one of my trainings. Even though she had been chosen to participate in this training based on her potential to [...]
Everyone wants more cash, right? Well…..apparently not. Twenty-first century research on motivation, commonly called Motivation 3.0 (Daniel Pink, Drive), suggests that what employees really want is much more than cash. Today’s workforce is looking for: 1. Autonomy – the desire to direct their own lives 2. Mastery – the urge to get better and better at something [...]
The days are getting shorter. The nights are colder; there’s crispness in the air. The kids are going back to school. September is here and it reminds us of new beginnings. It just feels like the perfect time to step back, take inventory and set new goals. However, for many of us, it ends there. [...]
Ten years ago we began to hear a common theme among our clients when talking with them about supervisory training. It sounded something like this: while our supervisors need to be trained, we find it difficult to find the time for them to be off the floor receiving the training. I’d like to suggest that [...]