Dear Madeleine, I manage an IT group—12 people—that does the tech stack for all supply chain management for a national chain of service providers. We also sell some product, but not a lot. I report directly to the CTO and have a good relationship with him. At the beginning of the year, after much discussion…
What started as a book to help an author’s college grad daughter navigate the business world turned into a guide for employers everywhere who want to build a high-performing workforce. In her new book Winning the Talent Shift: Three Steps to Unleashing the New Higher Performance Workplace, Berta Aldrich explains why companies struggle to hire…
When my colleagues Vicki Halsey and Kathy Cuff and I were creating the Legendary Service customer service training program, we asked people in organizations two questions: Why is creating a positive customer experience important? How do you want your customers to feel when working with your organization? We always got the same answers: If customers…
It’s a timeless truth that bears repeating: Good leadership starts with a vision. Why? Because leadership is about going somewhere. If you don’t know where you’re going, your leadership doesn’t matter. Great leaders understand this and mobilize others by coalescing them around a shared vision. A compelling vision will help you and your team get…
Creating a great learning experience is more difficult than it seems. And when you add rapidly changing work environments and technology to the mix, it might even be overwhelming. Enter learning strategy and design expert Julie Dirksen with tips and tools from her book, Design for How People Learn. Dirksen combines the fundamental concepts of…
Most companies want their employees to continue to grow and develop because they know employee growth benefits not only the individual but also the organization. For example, how would productivity change if an employee became a more effective communicator or learned to manage others using a coach approach? To foster employee growth and development, organizations…
2020 was quite a year and it was certainly reflected in the questions Madeleine received from her readers. Here is a list of the top five most-viewed columns. They tell a story of the year we’ve been through. Madeleine will be back next week with a new year of questions from well-meaning managers—possibly yours? Best wishes…
If you are a member of the L&D community, undoubtedly you’ve been delivering virtual training this year—and you are probably looking for ways to improve the experience for yourself and your learners. Cindy Huggett’s book Virtual Training Tools and Templates: An Action Guide to Live Online Learning is filled with resources that you can use…
Dear Madeleine, I’ve been managing a couple of teams located around the globe. Recently, our business has exploded, and I find that I am losing control of things. My question is: how do I help my people clarify when they need to include me in big decisions and when they don’t? I’ve never had this…
The quest for high performance may be at an all-time high. With the COVID-19 pandemic turning things upside down, some people are struggling to get through the day—but others continue to thrive. How do they do it? Brendon Burchard’s best-selling book High Performance Habits offers many answers to that question. Through extensive original research and…