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

Know it alls make the worst leaders.  The best leaders ask great questions.

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

An execution mindset separates the best from the rest.  "I go through" is not just a song by O.A.R. but an attitude for success.

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.

I have worked for three companies in my career that had Ping-Pong (Table Tennis) tables in the offices.  The Motley Fool,Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner operation and Doosan Infracore International.  The existence of a Ping-Pong table in each of those environments was very telling about the type of culture that each company wanted to foster.

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. 

One of the biggest issues facing many our Groove Management’s clients is employee retention.  Turnover is up across the board.  Voluntary attrition rates continue to climb because the job market has heated up.  Employees are recognizing that there are a lot more opportunities in the marketplace than have existed during the past eight years.  With the aid of LinkedIn and other socialrecruiting tools, recruiters are doing a better job of identifying passive job seekers.  The end result is that companies are struggling to hold onto their top talent.

Similar to starting a new job or a new school, the Panthers entered the 2014 season feeling good about themselves.  They had completed a winning season the year before despite being eliminated in the first playoff game.  This season got off to a decent start with a 2-0 record.  The fans were on board and everyone had high hopes.  Then the Panthers hit a wall.  It was as if someone had cast a spell over them.  They won only one of their next nine games; well they did have a tie in there.  Entering December with a record of 3-8-1, the fans and everyone else had counted them out.  Maybe next year they would get their act together. 

Action learning programs exercise the strategic muscles of an organization, build leadership capability, drive employee engagement and improve business results.  Why not trust your strategy projects to your high potentials?

A few employment branding ideas,  each one serves the purpose of building a stronger employment brand.  The products connect your employees to your brand in a unique and fun way.  Even more importantly they connect your employees family to your company and your brand.

A paradox exists in most large companies.  The larger the organization the more risk averse it becomes.  This makes little sense, but it is commonplace.

By providing a daily visual, the leaders could see that they were being measured against their colleagues.  This graphical view of response rates translated into a 97% response rate for one business unit and helped push the enterprise response rate over 90%.  

Technology advances are great, but their success hinges upon user adoption.  Technology companies can do their part by creating a user experience that is intuitive and easy to use.  Replacing the virtual paperclip with the virtual link button seems like a good next step in the transition to the cloud.

With the hunter now the hunted, it is time to adopt a new strategy for success in the digital age.  Those that embrace the opportunities will flourish and the companies that drag their feet and stay married to their traditional sales channels will pay the price in the long run.  This is an exciting time for both new and old companies; most importantly it is a great time to be a consumer because the access to products, services and data has never been so great.  Be digital or be gone!