7 Barriers to communication and a lesson from YouTube
Barriers to communication can be removed! Ask employees in any workplace what the company’s biggest internal problem is and the majority will say without hesitation, “communication,” (insert eye rolling and groans here). Why is it that although we are social...
Why you can’t afford to have poor communication in your business or organization
We start with a story... There was a young man driving his car home on the expressway one evening, when he heard a loud bang and felt his left rear tire blow out. He pulled the car over on the shoulder of the expressway, got out, and saw that he had a flat tire. Even...
“What? Are you trying to teach me something?” The link between organizational learning and polar bears
Let me tell you a tale of two species… I was at a conference recently and one of the participants shared this story with me. “So, I went to the CEO and I said, ‘We have to start learning to stay current in today’s economy.’ The CEO said, ‘Ya, why? I’m making money so...
The power of a true vacation, and why you should harness it
“You can’t do a good job if a job is all you do.” - Artifact Uprising “A vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work.” - Morris Fishbein I have a confession to make. Since I started my business 10 years ago I have only taken one vacation – ONE vacation, ONE...
Overcoming talent blindness
The Webster dictionary defines talent as "a special ability that allows a person to do something well." We all have some special abilities that help us do things well and we are actually full of latent, undeveloped talents Why learn to see talent in others? Dave...
Measuring for results: Three key principles
We all know it is important to measure for results, but often we don’t know what to measure or how to interpret the metrics. Another issue is knowing what to do – how to change our behaviour – based on the metrics. QUESTION 1: HOW CAN I UNDERSTAND METRICS SIMPLY?...
8 Social assumptions and what to do about them
Have you noticed yourself or others making any of these kinds of statements? “Why do we need _________? I would never use it.” “Back in the day when we only had two TV channels…” “What barriers? I didn’t have any issues.” “It’s because people have no (insert virtue...
Effective meetings strategy #1: Using meetings to mine for team talents
People categorize and use routines to deal with things quickly and efficiently throughout the day. This is a natural part of understanding the world and it saves us time. Unfortunately, in a workplace setting, classifying people in terms of what we already know about...
Biology and business: genes and employee performance
Biology, employee performance, and business systems have more in common than you may think. According to the book “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins (first published in 1978 and widely accepted as the most significant communication about the basics of inheritance...
Five Skills for effective workplace communication
Effective workplace communication can be learned! You may think you know how to communicate to your team or employees. But communication is not about what you think has happened when you speak with someone, it is about what actually happens between two people in...
Why do people follow bad leaders and what can you do about it?
Most of us have either experienced or currently work with bosses who are incompetent, tyrannical or vindictive. You may have asked yourself how someone so incompetent ended up in a position of power. Or you may wonder why everyone seems to put up with the tyranny of a...
Me biased? 3 strategies to find out
It is pretty easy to tell other people what they should do, how they should fix a work issue and how to fix their personality foibles. We can quickly see when someone else is so much in favour of a person or a project they can’t see the forest for the trees. We can...
The Myth of “Old School” Management
It always irritates me when I hear people excuse a manager’s poor performance by saying “don’t worry about (insert name of bad manager here), he/she is ‘old school.'" What does that really mean when someone describes a decision maker as ‘old school?' My initial list...
Linking Training, Organizational Climate and Business Outcomes
Statistics about training investments increasing company net worth, particularly in the area of high capital and skilled worker training, are widely known. However research on training and organizational effects is still relatively new. Tharenou, Saks and Moore...
Supervisory Basics 2: Setting Clear Expectations
Setting clear expectations is critical to team success When you are an employee, you expect your team leader to let you know what your job is and to teach you how to get that job done. Many supervisors make the mistake of assuming their team already knows what to do...
Productivity challenge: Your employees are not your family
The news is not good. It appears the Alberta approach to improving productivity is to throw more people, money and material resources at the issue without considering - or measuring for - the consequences. Financial Post’s July 25th story by Yadullah Hussein about oil...
Effective meetings strategy #2: Matching goals with questioning strategies
We've all been there...stuck in a meeting fighting hard to keep either our eyes open or to stop them from rolling. And, as comedian Dave Barry so aptly highlights in the quotation above, we might just be left feeling that our potential has somehow been sapped because...
The paternalism checklist for women and men
Isn’t paternalism a good thing? Paternalism. Isn’t that what you do if you are a father? Well, not exactly. To have fatherly or “paternal” feelings towards someone is, at its root, kind and loving: it implies interest in the well-being and development of children and...
Evaluating the effectiveness of diversity and inclusion efforts
They say, “what you measure grows.” But before measuring begins, when you start paying attention to something, it’s importance in your thinking increases. Let’s say you want to buy a car for example. Suddenly you notice things about cars you never noticed before and...
5 planning strategies to build leadership from within
Internal leadership development is something many companies fall short on. Bruce Anderson from the International Institute of Directors and Managers states that barriers to leadership building from within stem from a lack of: Time to coach Accountability with regard...
5 Megatrends to rock your world – and mine
At the Manufacturing Leadership Executive Summit this year, Frost and Sullivan’s megatrends and disruptive technologies presentations had some particularly close to home themes for me. As a business owner working in industry managerial training, e-learning and...
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