Do you know what makes a leader worth following? You've been promoted to manager. It’s your first real management position and you don’t want to mess it up. You've had bosses who helped the team be more productive, others who interfered with productivity, and some who hindered performance. You don't want to be one of [...]
A college professor sent me this book report covering The New Manger's Workbook from one of the profs students. This isn't the first time I've heard from secondary educators who use my book as a text or offer it as collateral material. The New Manager’s Workbook A Crash Course in Effective Management Randy Clark – [...]
Do you know what's important to your employees? Last week, I asked a management team how they could make their workplace better for their employees. A short discussion ended with the conclusion that the best answer to this question was to ask the employees. They're currently conducting an employee survey. The team has reviewed about [...]
If you're not currently working with or directly managing younger people in the workplace, you soon will be. Interacting with people outside your generation comes with a whole host of challenges. But there's one serious problem, in particular, to keep in mind when working with younger team members that you absolutely must hold at the [...]
So, who's training the trainer? Good question. Have you ever managed managers? I have. And for a time I wasn't very competent. I expected my managers to know it all and do it on their own. Because, I mean—they were managers, weren't they? I remember discovering several of my managers weren't properly training their direct [...]
This post about the workforce of 2024 was written in 2014. I pulled it up with the idea of updating and rewriting it and then thought, what the heck, it's kind of fun looking back. So, where do you think I nailed it and where do you think I missed the mark? Over the next [...]
I think I’m an empathetic person and can be sympathetic. However, I do my best when focusing on making it better, bettering the situation, because empathy, understanding, sharing, awareness, or sympathy don’t always make things better. Sometimes they can make the situation worse. I’ll give you an example. If a friend loses their job, and [...]
Here's a personal example of how employee personality assessment profiles can be misleading. Years ago, when I was a sales manager, the company I worked for brought in an expensive management and personality profiler. I wasn't a fan from the beginning when she arrived late, holding up more than twenty busy managers, and then complained [...]
How significant is employee engagement to workplace satisfaction? It's crucial to employee retention, consistent, top-notch performance, and increased production. Although most organizations know and understand this, only a few follow through with the activities necessary to create an engaged company culture of satisfied employees. How Significant Is Employee Engagement to Workplace Satisfaction? It Takes More [...]
Failing to cross train leads to failure. Here's one example. A few years ago my father was in the hospital for an extended stay. It was serious. Although he was cared for by personable and professional staff, there was constant miscommunication. Instructions from the doctor weren’t carried out by the nursing staff, the pharmacist forgot [...]
