Dear Madeleine, The COVID-19 pandemic has been such a disruption over the past couple of weeks. At work, all travel has been put on an indefinite hold, all training classes and in-person meetings have been cancelled, and the entire workforce has been asked to work from home. Working from home sounds like a dream to…
Dear Madeleine, I am the GM for a small brewery that has been shut down during the COVID-19 crisis as non-essential. However, the owner believes it is still worthwhile to stay open to serve take-out customers, which is allowed according to the shutdown rules. Because I am the GM, I have been designated as the…
Dear Madeleine, I work as a marketing director at a medium-sized firm and I’m a longtime reader of your column. My company reacted quickly to the warnings about COVID-19 and sent all of us home last week. My spouse is a frontline manager for a larger firm across town that couldn’t send employees home because…
After surveying more than one million employees from a wide range of organizations, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton have found that leading with gratitude is the easiest, fastest, least expensive way for managers to boost both performance and engagement in employees. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most misunderstood and misapplied skills in business…
Organizations are quickly releasing policy statements as part of their contingency response to the coronavirus outbreak around the world. In addition to having well thought out strategies, it’s important for senior leaders to be prepared for questions that will inevitably arise as soon as these policy statements are released. When leaders are not prepared to…
Venturing into virtual territory without a road map for success can lead to a bumpy and uncertain journey. Although virtual delivery differs from classroom delivery, there are similarities. A few simple guidelines will ensure success with your next (or first) virtual venture. On March 27, I will host a webinar on Conducting Your First Virtual…
Historically, leadership development has been the one “vertical” within traditional learning and development curriculums that was immune to digitalization. Training and workshops had to be face to face—or so the story was told. But the nature of our workforce and operational constraints have forced a change for nearly every global organization—and when you overlay disruption…
Dear Madeleine, I need your advice. The coronavirus is really putting everyone in my office on edge. Clients are canceling bookings. Executives are calling emergency meetings to try to figure out a course of action. And mid-level managers like me are being pulled in a dozen different directions with multiple top-priority requests from senior leaders…
Dear Madeleine, I am a very quiet person, not so much shy as simply quiet. I am interested in people but have almost no need to be interesting to others. Social events aren’t hard for me, except for feeling the expectation from others to be entertaining. My problem at work is that I feel that…
Dear Madeleine, I am biased. I thought for the longest time that I wasn’t, but it has become clear to me that I am. I realize I am biased against certain types of people. My biases are not traditional ones like race, gender, or age. I think I am mostly conscious and appropriate. What I…
Do you ever wonder why you reach some goals easily and struggle with others? In her latest book, Master Your Motivation, Susan Fowler explains the three scientific truths behind motivation that will help you achieve your goals. Distilling many years of research, Fowler fashioned a condensed description of three basic needs we must create in…
We’ve just celebrated the fifth anniversary of this blog. My goal has been to host an advice column for you, the well-intentioned manager. Over the past five years we’ve looked at over 200 different questions from people working to lead at a higher level. As a coach for the past 30 years I have seen…
Constant change is a way of life in organizations today. How do managers and leaders cope with the barrage of changes that confront them daily as they attempt to keep their organizations adaptive and viable? Leaders often feel trapped in a lose-lose situation when they try to launch a change effort. On one hand, they…
Dear Madeleine, I have been working for the internet arm of a retail company for almost twenty years. When I started, we were truly innovating with the speed and fierceness of a startup. I was given carte blanche because the internet business was growing more quickly than that of the actual stores. The website has…
Most people will agree that ongoing professional growth and development is important. That said, most people also know it can be quite challenging to establish new skills and behaviors. Competing priorities make it hard to focus, motivation comes in fits and starts, and there just never seems to be enough time. There is a great…
