My Chance encounter with Herb Kelleher from Southwest airlines

In business we often talk about the iceberg theory and the fact that more lies beneath the surface, but to witness it firsthand and to take away new learnings in Iceland was even more impressive.

Too many organizations focus on employee retention when the goal should be employee engagement.

Excerpt of keynote address to the SCTE on disruption, innovation, change and resilience.

If HR is responsible for managing under-performers in the organization, what happens when the head of HR is the under-performer?

Learning to give and receive feedback effectively is one of the most powerful skills a leader can learn.  The feedback piggy bank is an easy concept to grasp, but one that takes practice to implement.

Five Charlotte are team building activities that Groove Management can help you organize and facilitate.

Speaking Engagement- Come join me at Advent Coworking for a workshop on starting a business.  I will be speaking about mission, vision and values.

How does your office environment and community impact productivity?

Unlike in sports where the competitions are scheduled, in business the competition never stops, unless your team calls a TIMEOUT.  When was the last time your team called a timeout.

Companies and their needs evolve, they get acquired, they move their offices, they shift their business models and all too often their employees end up as casualties.  Career transition is nothing to be ashamed of.  It has become incredibly commonplace. 
 

Are you “always recruiting” for your company, and are you asking your team to do the same?  The best people can be found in the most unlikely places.

The decision to hire someone with a different work style and approach is the easy part. The harder part is flexing your style as a manager to allow someone with a different work style than yours to be themselves and excel. Too often we try to change people to fit in to an organizations culture. The best companies leverage diversity as a strength. They try to hire people with diverse work styles, and backgrounds and most importantly they create space within the organization for people to play to their personal strengths.
 

When working with senior leaders one of the biggest hurdles is to get them to see constructive feedback in a positive light. Too often leaders think feedback is an attack on them.   Referring to feedback as a gift opens their eyes to the positives.

Why does the word conflict get a bad rap and how to turn conflict into a tool for better decision making.

Earlier this year the image below was posted on Tumblr with the tag, “Is the dress white and gold or black and blue?”  That single post led to marital discontent, celebrity arguments, news channel mayhem and millions of views and shares on social media.  While the rough statistics showed that about 78% of people saw the dress as white and gold, the 22% who saw it as black and blue were actually correct.  The real dress is in fact black and blue.

here is a lesson here.  While we think we are all quite similar, we truly see the world through different lenses. 

One of the most difficult tasks of a leader is to maintain a team of A players.  Steve Jobs once famously said “A players hire A players and B players hire C players.”  Research has shown that A players outperform B players 2x on essential tasks and 10x on creative tasks.  So why do so many leaders live with mediocre talent on their teams?  

As leaders it is the small actions that can have large impacts. Think about the last time you greeted your employees or customers in the office lobby or at the front door to your retail outlet. If you have never tried it, go for it. That small gesture will have a lasting positive impact. Learn how the actions of one school leader model the behaviors of a great leader.

As a former leader that I worked with always said using the military term, you want “Fewer soldiers, better fed”.  A headcount freeze is an opportunity to increase hiring not freeze it.  The problem is that too many organizations mix up the intent versus the impact.  It is important to be very clear on the goal.  If the goal is to freeze employee expenses (salaries and benefits) at their current level, then a headcount freeze can achieve the same result as a hiring freeze, but in a much more effective manner. 

Cost cutting has become a standard operating procedure for many organizations, but there are hidden costs in cutting costs.  Culture suffers the most and the cost to a culture might be ireparable.