Fear of Failure? 10 Tips to Insure Your Success
At the beginning of a new year, we often begin new projects and set goals for ourselves. Many times our attempts at improvement are not as successful or don’t deliver the results that we expected....
View ArticleYour Awareness Can Improve Your Results! 7 Questions for Improving Your...
During the holidays, my youngest children rigged a booby trap in our Christmas tree, so if Santa Claus touched the tree a little bell would sound the alarm. I was really quite amazed at their...
View ArticleDo Your Questions Really Matter? 4 Types of Questions to Improve Results
Many years ago, I was assigned a business coach as part of my professional development plan. At first I didn’t really think that I needed a coach to help me grow and develop in my career aspirations....
View ArticleCan You Follow the Current in a Conversation? 8 Tips for Staying in the Flow
While I was in college, I worked during the summers as a whitewater guide running the rapids in Grand Canyon, Arizona. One of the first things that you learn as a guide is to follow the current of the...
View ArticleDo You Know How to Engage with Shy People? 7 Tips for Increasing Engagement
Late last year I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful writer on an article dealing with how to engage with people who are shy. During the editing process, much of the original information was...
View ArticleEight Tips for Dealing with Irrational People
After running the river for a number of years, my curiosity finally got the best of me. I wondered what it would be like to swim one of the major rapids. With some hesitation, I put on an extra life...
View ArticleDo Your Stories Keep You Stuck? Eight Questions for Expanding Your Thinking
Exploring the assumptions or stories behind people’s behavior is a fascinating pursuit. Recently a friend told me a wild story about his mother that gave me cause to think about how our stories keep...
View ArticleDoes Your History Impact Your Message? Seven Mindsets that Impact the Way You...
Awhile back as I was going to bed, my wife said to me, “John I don’t know if I can stay married to you much longer.” After I got over the initial shock, I asked her what was going on. She replied, “It...
View ArticleDo You Bail Your People Out? Rescue Management Diminishes Employee...
I recently had a VP tell me that she had assigned one of her directors the task of doing a comparability study of their company’s compensation and benefits vis-à-vis other companies in their industry....
View ArticleHow Emotionally Intelligent Are You Really?10 Questions for Assessing Your...
A few weeks ago I was taking my son to school in the midst of a snow storm. As I pulled into the student drop-off at the high school, I noticed a woman who was getting into her car as I was waiting to...
View ArticleHow to Deliver Bad News to Your Boss: 13 Tips for Making the Best of a Bad...
I had a previous boss who would go off like a volcano anytime the results that we produced did not meet his expectations. He was so volatile in his reaction to bad news that other members of our law...
View ArticleDo You Foster a Culture of Encouragement? Eight Questions for Improving Your...
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to watch one of my favorite college basketball teams win their quarterfinal contest in the NIT. What was so memorable about this game was that one of the team’s...
View ArticleWhat Messages Are You Sending? Nine Questions for Improving Your Broadcast...
A number of years ago, I was asked to coach an individual who had pretty much alienated everyone with whom he worked. When I was asked to work with him, I asked why his rehabilitation was so...
View ArticleNine Questions to Consider When Changing Your Culture
When I first started working in the field of organizational development, my mentors told me three things that I always needed to remember about change: people don’t like it; people don’t understand...
View ArticleAre Your Assumptions Getting the Best of You? 9 Questions for Challenging...
Last November, I wrote a blog post about dealing with difficult people. I told a story of coming together for a family dinner at Thanksgiving. About a week after the post was published, someone wrote...
View ArticleAre Your People on Board? 6 Questions You Need to Answer if You Want Change...
In one of the first cultural change projects that I worked on, I was tasked with teaching company members process improvement and critical thinking skills. The organization was committed to involving...
View ArticleAre You Wearing the Emperor's New Clothes? Six Questions for Improving...
We are all familiar with the Hans Christian Anderson story of the emperor who thought that he was arrayed in magnificent attire when in reality he was naked. And no one would tell him what was obvious...
View ArticleAre You Lost in Your Assumptions? Seven Questions for Challenging the...
A good friend of mine recently sent me a link to an interesting article.It seems a summer intern was not particularly happy with the strictness of the company’s dress code. This person decided to let...
View ArticleHow Do You Handle a Naysayer? Eight Tips for Managing Those Who Are Negative
Recently, I was writing at the local university, and I ran into a friend that works for the construction department on campus. He asked me for a few ideas for handling a “naysayer” at work. It seems...
View ArticleHow Easily Do You Take Offense? Seven Strategies for Maintaining Your Cool
Jane was sitting in an online meeting where current deadlines were being discussed among team members. At the close of the meeting, Jane’s manager asked if anyone had any other concerns that needed to...
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