Paula Rizzo was sitting at her desk at Fox News Channel in New York City when she felt a dull pain below her belly button. Like many hard-charging people might do, she ignored it. After all, she was busy. She had a demanding job as a senior TV producer. She had obligations as a wife,…
Read More
Are you a first-level leader? Do you manage a team of individual contributors who don’t have direct reports of their own? Then you know some of the challenges of making the leap to management. You really want to be a good manager, but your training for that role may be light or even non-existent. You…
Read More
We live in the age of disruptors. We have one in the White House, and we have multiple examples throughout the business world. Illustrations of the latter were scrawled on a whiteboard a while back by Alberto Brea, chief growth strategist at a New York marketing firm. Here’s what Brea wrote— Amazon did not kill…
Read More
Achieving personal goals can be as frustrating as trying to nail Jello to a wall. Lose weight? Get more sleep? Exercise daily? Take a dream vacation? Improve a relationship? Earn a promotion? Read more books? Watch less TV? Cut back on social media? Save more money? Spend less? The list can go on. Set a…
Read More
Accountability is all about performance, and performance is all about behaviors. In fact, the overall performance in your organization—in every conversation, in every meeting, in every project, in every activity of every kind—is the result of behaviors. So doesn’t it make sense to focus on behaviors? In organizations where personal accountability for performance is highest,…
Read More
In many situations, the smartest questions you can ask will begin with the word “why.” Think about that. Have you noticed the inquisitiveness of young children? As long as they’re encouraged to do so, they seem to ask questions endlessly. They want to know how things work. They want to know the purpose of things.…
Read More
You’ve seen most of the teamwork clichés: – Together Everyone Achieves More – Great things never come from comfort zones – Teamwork makes the dream work – Individually we’re a drop, together we’re an ocean But of course posters in the employee cafeteria don’t transform glib slogans into reality. Effective teamwork…
Read More
Corporate hallways and lunchrooms are often festooned with “motivational” wall posters. The idea seems to be that clichés enhance comradeship and performance. Military drill instructors scream at recruits, apparently assuming that insults and humiliation are inspiring. Motivation can come from many sources. A tyrannical manager may “motivate” people to work killer hours that ruin health…
Read More
Engagement—the degree to which people invest discretionary effort on the job—has been all the rage in business circles for years. “Engaged” employees are absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work. They have a sense of psychological ownership of their organization’s purpose and success. The Gallup organization’s Q12 survey has gathered data from tens of millions…
Read More