On board a Boeing 777, cruising at 37,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, in-flight between Chicago and London. A yellow light goes on indicating that there is a fire in the baggage compartment, which is not accessible by the crew. What should be done next? Relying just on training and experience … [Read more...]
Maintaining an Employee Driven Culture
It was mid-November of 2005. Our company had just moved into a building that was four times larger than our previous facility. We were a close knit group with great communication and transformational behavior amongst the employees. The larger area helped a silo atmosphere settle in, resulting … [Read more...]
Ethics in Leadership
Has ethical behavior become meaningless term? Ask several of your employees what is ethical behavior and you will probably receive a glazed stare. Ask your leadership peers what subsets of their behavior are influenced by ethics and you may receive the same result. Proper organizational moral … [Read more...]
Understanding the Younger Generation
Why you shouldn’t try to ‘get around’ working with Millennials Are you a Gen X-er or a Boomer who just doesn’t like working with the Millennial generation? Understanding the younger generation is a must-do for organizations these days. In just a few short years, believe it or not, we will be … [Read more...]
How to be a Good Coach: Tips for employee-focused leaders
Being a good coach means putting others before yourself and always making decisions for the good of the team. Here are a few tips on how to take coaching principles into the workplace in order to be an employee-focused leader. Listen This is the most important part of communication. Part … [Read more...]
Coaching vs. Managing: Why coaches are better leaders than managers
For the past several years, I’ve had the pleasure of coaching young females in the sport of softball. Throughout my time, I’ve learned that being the coach of a team and being a leader within an organization is not much different. The same principles span both responsibilities. In fact, when you … [Read more...]
How to Get High at Work
Take a look at this video, titled "How to Get High at Work." Creator Paul Herr discusses the benefits of giving employees a chance to experience "creative highs" in the workplace and what it could mean for both your employees and your organization. [youtube height="HEIGHT" … [Read more...]
5 Key Steps to Gaining Company-Wide Discretionary Thinking
If every employee gave just five or ten percent more than the required thoughts every day at work, how much stimulus towards performance excellence would result? Is it possible to raise the level of your staff’s discretionary thinking, company-wide, and find out? Yes! It is possible, and those … [Read more...]
How to Attract (and Keep) Olympic-Caliber Employees
In the last post, we compared an entangled employee to an Olympian, versus an engaged employee, or collegiate athlete. Just to recap, the engaged employee has risen to a level above most other employees. He has skills, commitment and dedication but doesn’t exhibit the same kind of care for the … [Read more...]
Entangled Employees are ‘Olympians’ at the Office
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the Olympic Games are going on right now, or maybe that’s what sparked the idea for this blog post. Two years ago, when we set out to write our book on the phenomenon known as “organization entanglement” with fellow co-authors, Dr. Ray Benedetto and Dr. Ken … [Read more...]
