I didn't come up with this new employee common mistakes checklist. A group of department team leaders did. I facilitate bi-weekly leadership development meetings with six team leaders. They're all involved with training new hires. In our last meeting, we discussed the importance of giving new hires clear objective expectations. One of the discussion points [...]
While working with a corporate staff on leadership development, one of the managers asked what they should expect from follow-up training with their team. We had just held the first meeting of a new class with entry level managers on leadership. The topic was one of my favorites, the need to manage projects but the [...]
How essential is praise in business? I’ve seen various surveys over the last three decades demonstrating the power of praise in business. I’m often met with doubt when I claim recognition to be the number one factor in retaining or losing valuable employees. Many managers believe money is the prime motivator for most employees. While [...]
So, does your organization have a leadership development program? Too often, businesses put people in management roles with little or no training and support. I was surprised in 2008 when I began facilitating leadership training by how often new managers were promoted and thrown into the pool's deep end. I shouldn't be surprised that this continues [...]
The story I’m about to tell about a path to promotion is one I've told but not written. It’s a story I often shared when completing new hire orientation. I used it as an example of creating a position. The story begins during a call-center employment interview. How to Create a Path to Promotion The [...]
Trusting your gut is bad business. It can be a huge mistake. “Trust your gut” is an old and accepted saying. It’s one of those adages that many accept without question. Several times in the last week, I’ve noticed tweets, Facebook posts, and blogs that refer to it as some fundamental tenet of running a [...]
So, what networking events should you attend? Whether you enjoy networking or not, networking is a fact of life in American business. Whether it's in person or online, for many positions it's expected. It doesn't matter if you're an introvert, extrovert, or like most of us, somewhere between. For many, it's part of the job because [...]
Has Ageism Become Acceptable in the Workplace? I recently clicked on an infographic posted on LinkedIn claiming to explain generational differences. That's not what it did; it stereotyped people by the year they were born. It claimed Gen Xers were independent, Millennials selfish, and Boomers were hard-headed. Like a daily horoscope, it was general enough [...]
How to ask questions for understanding not confirmation is important. I've attended meetings, seminars, and lectures — observed interviews, corrective actions, and employee evaluations — watched video interviews, webinars, and listened to podcasts — and time and time again, I've heard poorly constructed questions with little thought put into them. Too often, questions are asked [...]
So, yes, I have a top ten reasons not to cook fish at the office from experience. A few years ago, I made the mistake of warming fish in the office microwave for lunch. It was previously cooked. However, I warmed it in the office microwave, which sent my co-workers running out of the building [...]
