Today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States, a time to reflect back on the life and teachings of the great civil rights leader and activist. While most of us will not be called to engage in social activism on the scale that Dr. King did, we can still have a great impact…
“Make sure that people understand your reasoning and process. If you decide that some information is just too sensitive to share openly, that’s okay. Just be sure that the process you use isn’t seen as secretive. In the absence of openness, people will imagine the worst,” says Scott Blanchard in a recent column for Fast…
“Do you want this job so you can serve—or so you can be served?” Of course if you ask most people this question straight-up, the answer will always be “to serve” in the mind of the applicant, but a closer examination of what is behind the desire to serve is still really an opportunity to…
There’s an old saying that, “People don’t really care what you know, until they know you care.” This is good advice for leaders who often get caught up and lose focus while dealing with all of the performance pressures at work. Sometimes it feels like you have to choose between focusing on people or focusing…
As the world becomes more connected by technology, there is a growing expectation that modern professionals are accessible and responsive. Often, this means stretching boundaries and developing new skills to conduct business with people in far-reaching time zones and geographies. One of the basic requirements in today’s new connected world is “virtualosity” when it comes to responsiveness…
Everyone agrees on the importance of trust as a building block to creating strong relationships at work. But what is trust composed of? Trust experts Randy Conley and Dr. Pat Zigarmi point to four key areas (represented by the letters A, B, C, and D) that leaders have to be aware of when they are…
You can’t blame managers for feeling some reluctance when it comes to having challenging conversations with peers and direct reports. Most people feel some uneasiness when facing a necessary discussion they know has a lot of emotion attached to it. A couple of resources posted by The Ken Blanchard Companies this month can help. Depending…
Most managers feel some reluctance when faced with having challenging conversations, according to Eryn Kalish, mediator, conflict resolution expert, and co-author of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Challenging Conversations program. When this happens, a manager will sometimes shut down or withdraw from a situation instead of confronting it directly. While this strategy may keep the lid…
IBM recently surveyed 700 human resource executives to find out the key challenges they expect to face in the near future and their degree of readiness to meet those challenges successfully. Nine different areas of concern were identified: Managing labor costs Sourcing and recruiting from outside the organization Evaluating workforce performance Efficiently allocating the workforce…
A good performance management system has three components; Performance Planning—where goals are set; Day-to-Day Coaching—where managers provide direction and support as needed; and Performance Evaluation—which most of us know as the “annual review.” Of these three components, which one do you think is short-changed the most in organizations? It’s day-to-day coaching.