Conversations are hard. The cool thing about what's happening in the training and development and talent world is that leaders and organizations are finally realizing coaching is not just something we'd like to do if we had time. It is now moved into an arena of, We Must Coach Our Employees. This requires leaders to have conversational ability, the ability to ask questions, to truly listen, to..
Conversations Affect The Workplace
First of all, realize one thing conversations are powerful! What we say and how we say it has a major impact whether fair or unfair.
Turn Your Leadership Training Upside Down!
What if we turned our leadership development program upside down? What if we looked at developing our organizational leadership skills and capacity from the bottom up, not from the top down? Let me explain. In the United States alone, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every single year on top line management, middle management, down to frontline leadership to become better leaders. There..
That Poor Little Leaguer (Parent Feedback is Hard to Listen To)
I went to go get some food for my wife and I at a very popular place where a lot of baseball teams go after they play. What I witnessed at the counter was a father giving his son some feedback on the game that was just played. As I sat a couple seats away, I quietly listened, not letting them know I was listening. The father began to tell his son he could not make the mistakes he was making..
Quiet Quitting Has Been Around For Decades
Quite Quitting is not a new concept. Maybe it's a different name and a different label yet, we've had quiet quitting for decades. We need to get back to the fundamentals of employment. If you are hired to do a job, you should be hired to do that job to the best of your ability. There is not a job description in the world that encourages people to not try or to gossip or to be negative in the..
Do NOT Leave Constructive Feedback By Itself
The key to feedback is to give it so someone receives it openly and professionally and puts it into strategic use. One of the best things that you can do is to ask questions after providing feedback. For the sake of this article, we'll assume the feedback is constructive in nature. And here are five questions you could ask to create greater ownership of feedback.
Building Trust Is Tough! Coaching Trust is Tough!
There are specific things people MUST do to develop and maintain trust within organizations:
Coaching Employees to Become Influential Leaders
One of the most valuable things we can do as leaders is to position people within our own teams to be what I call influential or internal leaders. Now, just for our own definition, internal leaders or influential leaders are those people who don't have the title yet can help you lead the team. Now, let me give you a really fundamental example. Years ago, I was working with a number of branch..
Coaching People Full of Crap (said that nicely)
What I'm about to share is not going to be very popular. What I'm about to share is not going to be well received by everybody. The other day, I was talking to somebody that works at a manufacturing plant, and this person was a friend of a friend and the friend had asked me to speak to him and talk to him about his performance. I said, sure, but I said, I don't know the guy so I want to be very..
Take The Emotional Baggage Out
This post will also not be very popular but I'm OK with that. As an entrepreneur we embody a lot of different positions in terms of the work that we do. It is not for the faint of heart and it is certainly not meant for a certain group of people yet let me just say at times it is very very hard. I also think working in the corporate workplace and managing teams is also very very hard. As we talk..