I’ve heard it said many times by managers that “I work best under pressure,” or “I’m constantly being pulled into one crisis after another all day long.” The talk of crisis management for many leaves them exhilarated, excited and empowered by the unpredictable, feeling good at the end of the day that the problems of [...]

My high school football coach had a mantra: “You represent this school and this football team both on and off the field.” The idea was that your conduct and behavior symbolized the attitude and behavior of the team as a whole. Your poor decisions to go down to the party on Friday or mouth off [...]

When my oldest son, Michael, was Chief Student Affairs Officer at Paul Smith’s College, he used to use the phrase, “helicopter parents,” when describing parents who ran interference for their kids, made all the decisions, and then told their kids what to do.  This might happen with a roommate argument, upset over dining hall food, [...]

Autumn is the time of year when senior leadership teams are working on strategic plans, finalizing budgets, and making last minute adjustments to bring the fourth quarter in on target.  While some leaders question whether a team is a viable structure to coordinate strategy at that level, others are becoming increasingly aware that business demands [...]

In my Quality Customer Service training, I ask participants to complete a simple exercise where they answer some quick questions: (1) how old should a piece of pie be that is served in a restaurant? (2) what time should a 16 year old be home on a Saturday night? (3) how do you know if [...]

A lot of people throw around the idea of building consensus as a way to sound collaborative. “Hey, let’s be in consensus on this idea, okay?” or “We want our managers to build consensus with the workforce, rather than just telling them what to do.”  In fact, there probably aren’t any people who are against [...]