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From the title of his book, “Nine Lies About Work,” I expected my conversation with Ashley Goodall to reveal a few uncomfortable truths about work. Instead, I was met with a parade of radical, fresh ideas for managers who want to do things differently and better. A senior leader at Cisco, Goodall collaborated with bestselling author Marcus Buckingham on his book, subtitled […]
Curious about what leadership actually means? Me too. We all know leadership is critical to maximizing success, but what exactly is it? To grasp how difficult it is to precisely define leadership, just consider the title of a recent article from Business News Daily: "33 Ways to Define Leadership." In this blog post, we'll attempt to whittle […]
What's the key to a successful business? Why do some sink and others swim? Is it just a case of having the right product at the right time? Or is it that the company is good at managing and deflecting crises when they arise? The Greiner Curve is a simple tool that lays out the […]
Many people, when they start working, don't have clear goals or a definite idea of what their career path should look like. But many aspire to become a manager. They know they want to climb the corporate ladder, get recognized for their hard work or for being an expert, and become the "boss." They even say, […]
There's a well-known quote by E.M. Kelly that says, "Remember the difference between a boss and a leader. A boss says 'Go!' A leader says 'Let's go!'" In reality, this is a differentiation between two distinct leadership styles. The first is a commanding leader; the second is probably a servant leader or a transformational leader. […]
Creativity, Decision Making, Leadership, Learning Skills, Stress, Team Management, Uncategorized
"We all need people who will give us feedback. That's how we improve." – Bill Gates, American business magnate. Feedback... There is something inherently awkward about the process of giving and receiving feedback. If done – and taken – in a negative vein, it can feel a lot like judging or being judged, and that never leaves us feeling […]
All Posts, Career Skills, Communication, Leadership, Problem Solving, Project Management, Team Management, Uncategorized
These days, there's change everywhere you look, from new technology in the office to new ways of communicating with friends. It's great when this change is easy to keep up with. But sometimes new systems and approaches can cause anxiety. Will other people "get with the program" more quickly than we do? What does that […]
All Posts, Career Skills, Leadership, Learning Skills, Team Management, Uncategorized
Have you heard the saying, "People don't leave jobs, they leave managers."? There are various forms of this saying, but we all know exactly what it means, don't we? At some point, most of us have either been tempted to leave or will actually have left a job because of our manager's style of leadership. […]
As a crime reporter for various regional newspapers, I was exposed to the hidden – and sometimes not so hidden – underbelly of life in seemingly respectable communities. Every neighborhood endures the annoyance and frustrations of low-level wrongdoing: vandalism, graffiti, theft, and other anti-social behaviors. But, every so often, a town would be shocked or […]
I've been racking my brain in an effort to recall any experience I had working with a so-called “micro business” – those tiny enterprises that still populate a few slots on the high street, but I suppose are now mostly based online. I was pretty sure that I'd never been part of an organization that […]