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Blog Archives
Cultivating Creativity with Bob Lieberman
Many CEOs feel creativity should be limited to new-product development and advertising. They are missing out in a big way. As we learned from John Bernard a few weeks ago, a key differentiator among businesses is how many employee ideas for impro…
Tom on Leadership’s Top Ten Episodes
Across all 90 episodes and 16,000 listens of Tom on Leadership to date, the Top Ten are: Overcoming the Toxic Co-Worker or Employee Procrastination and How to Beat It Defining Leadership CEOs and Email Sanity Setting HARD G…
Avoiding the Arrogance of "Hard for You, Easy for Me"
If I had a nickel for every time a client said “I don’t understand why people can’t just…” I would be rich.Last week a coaching client related her struggles with her co-workers. She manages projects and has higher standards than almost anyone else i…
Managing in the NOW with John Bernard
There’s a business revolution coming, believes management guru and author John Bernard. He wants you to be ready for it. It’s called “Managing in the NOW.” (Listen to the interview is here.)Executing in the NOW means that “every employee can…
Dealing with Difficult People
CEOs have to deal with difficult people all the time — and sometimes they themselves are the difficult ones. What are some proven ways to deal with difficult people? To find out, I interviewed Pamela Cournoyer, founder and CEO of Communicate with CLAS…
Outstanding Manager Tools
If’ you’re not familiar with Manager Tools, start here on their Basics page: http://www.manager-tools.com/manager-tools-basicsIf you really want to start easy, try this: ”Effective Meetings Starter Model – Part 1″While my focus remains…
Hiring "A" Players
Several clients are hiring and it’s time to share some guidance on how to hire “A” players.First, how are we doing right now? Not well. The typical business, when they rate how well their people perform their job functions, finds that they have perha…
Setting HARD Goals
Most of us set plenty of goals, but very few of them get achieved. For example, 85% of New Year’s Resolutions fail within 3 months. To truly achieve our goals we need to radically change how we set them, says Mark Murphy in Hard Goals : The Secret to…
Power of High Standards
If you have time, read this excellent (long) article on the power of high standards, by David Maister.Here’s a key quote, from his study of 5,500 people in 139 offices around the world.Nine factors account for more than 50 percent of all profit differe…
Five Steps to Attracting More Customers
How can you most effectively grow your business?To find out, I interviewed Mark Paul, an expert at attracting more customers. He’s the author of “How to Attract More Customers in Good Times and Bad.” His firm is Synergy Consulting.Unlike most sales-and…
Two Stories of Trust
Two stories of trust.Liz, a massage therapist, was asked by the new restauranteur who moved in up the block to give him some feedback during his “soft opening.” She gave honest constructive feedback, and he yelled at her. She went to her office and c…
How CIOs can Earn Greater Trust from the Executive Team
[Update: this article also appears on the Oregon Business Magazine website.]Preparing for my recent speech to the Portland chapter of the Society for Information Management, I discovered that their burning question was this: how can CIOs (the bulk of …
How do we Make it Safe to Admit Mistakes?
How can an organization create an environment where it’s safe for people to say ‘here’s the part I got wrong’ and ‘this was my mistake’ and otherwise speak honestly about what they can do, what they learned, how they personally contributed to the probl…
Stress, Anxiety, and the CEO
When members of my CEO advisory panel ask “Am I the only one struggling with stress and anxiety?” I know it’s time to cover this topic yet again. This time my guest expert is Dr. Greg Eckel, a naturopath and licensed acupuncturist with ten years’ exper…
- On Lying to the Boss Thu 23-May-2013
- Write a Perfect Thank-You Note, Again Tue 21-May-2013
- Why the Boss is Always Wrong Tue 07-May-2013
- On being Firm Thu 18-Apr-2013
- Six Steps to Solving a Problem Mon 15-Apr-2013
- The Changing Face of Luxury Sun 07-Apr-2013
- How to Harness Visual Leadership Sun 31-Mar-2013
- Stop Putting People First – Put Profit First Wed 27-Mar-2013
- Why your Employee is Always Right Tue 19-Mar-2013
- When is Anger Okay in the Work Place? Thu 14-Mar-2013