Here are 5 simple ways to help others be better. They’re not complicated. However, I didn’t say that they don’t take effort – they do. They all take hard work and commitment, but I think it’s worth it. I recently received a few compliments I'm very proud of. One was, "There are people who make [...]

So, what is the multitasking myth? Attempting to complete multiple tasks at one time reduces the speed of completing each task while raising the chance for mistakes. If you assign your team multiple simultaneous tasks, you may be setting them up for failure. As long as your team is asked to multitask, they will be [...]

We all want things to be better; everyone wants positive change in their life and at work, but where does change begin? We often want others to change to meet our expectations, when the change should begin with us. As comedienne Lilly Tomlin said, "Somebody should do something about that. Then I realized I am [...]

There’s an old adage that you can’t love another until you love yourself. The same principle is true for leadership. Becoming a leader begins with you. Once Upon a Time… As a young manager, I approached my general manager with the idea of promoting a member of my team. My general manager listened patiently and [...]

A friend and I were recently discussing working in vs. working on his business, working in defined as doing the work, and working on defined as growing the business and shaping it's direction. I’ve always thought of it as the difference between an actor and a director. Eventually, leaders that only work in the business [...]

How to take disciplinary action is a lot more than completing a form an having an employee sign it. Sound familiar. Yep, I've done that too. And when sit and sign was my system usually the only thing I accomplished was animosity from the employee. The action didn't lead to improvement. Just the opposite. How [...]

Leaders go to bat for their people. They don’t confuse project management with leadership. Projects are managed—people are led. Leaders lead people. It’s that simple. And it’s that complicated. To lead people, one must care about people. To care about people you have to know people. Do you know your people? 3 Ways Leaders Go [...]

So, what are the top ten reasons not promote someone? We’ve all seen it. People put in management positions that are ill-suited and poorly equipped for a leadership role. But how does this happen? Upper management surely doesn’t want to promote people, who will fail, do they? Poor management, at any level, adversely affects the [...]

Driving through the Midwest, you’ll see grain silos standing alone. Each silo is designed for a specific type and amount of grain. Departments within organizations are designed to accomplish specific tasks. Silo thinking is when a department or a team member stands alone, and focus is placed on the department instead of the organization. Often, [...]

Six ingredients to a goal is a follow up to my post You Cannot “Do” A Goal – You Can Do Activities. In this post I share a few more ingredients of a goal. If you want goals taken seriously, it starts with the team leader. Because if a leader wants team members to take goals [...]