It's shocking how many companies end the year without reviewing progress against goals, or with merit increases completely divorced from actual goal attainment. No wonder we have employees with entitlement issues. If you want to spur high performance and reward for performance, it's critical to set a strong foundation of...
Why Gyms Have Mirrors and You Should Too
It was a full class at the gym Saturday. A colleague with a barbell across her back in front of me shuffled over so I could get a clear view of myself in the mirror as we performed synchronized squats. In many training areas - from ballet to bootcamp - there are...
4 Unbeatable Ways to Keep Your Remote Team Working at Peak Performance
20 years ago if you were a guest at IBM's head office you would have seen employees working from desks in the hallways such was our rapid growth. To manage the dearth of space, IBM pushed remote work. We were all using laptops and cell phones anyway, so why come into...
How to Break the Blahs: Strategies for Resetting Team Energy
In January I landed in Winnipeg on their coldest day: -53 Celsius (-63F) with wind chill. Good timing! Many cities in North America have experienced record lows that suck the energy right out of you…all except what’s needed to cozy up beside a fire with a latte. In the heart...
11 Signs Your Strategy Will Fail
I recently challenged an executive to ask her team if they could paraphrase her strategy accurately. The results were abysmal, getting about one and half of the priorities correct out of five. That's a fail. Companies rarely crash and burn over night. Instead, strategies get off track as cues are missed...
Want monumental success? Strip mental weight and bulk up on lightness!
When I worked at Suncor, the company would physically re-shuffle people periodically to bring teams closer together. A couple days before our group’s move, bins showed up at our desks to kick off the process of sorting, purging and packing. It’s amazing how much crap (aka, vendor knickknacks) you can...
White Noise or Fright Noise? Interpreting the Office Buzz Factor
With today's open offices, people prefer a steady level of 'white noise' to drown out distractions. If it's too quiet we wonder if the rapture occurred and we missed it. Sometimes conversation levels rise above the background noise. You know 'something's up'. Strong leaders pay attention to the OBF: Office...
Avoid Obsolescence: Plan your next brain upgrade!
When I finished my last degree, I decided my brain was big enough. The Master's program for Organizational Psychology featured a large volume of dense reading in addition to lengthy lectures which distilled decades of knowledge into a firehose. I loved those days, devouring the writings of great thinkers like...
Gauge the impact of change with two simple questions
Change is HARD! Change is RELENTLESS! The pace of change is ACCELERATING! We hear these messages all of the time, while glossing over the following: The rate of change has been high for a long time. Nothing new here. We are built to adapt. We incorporate change into our lives all the time with minimal disruption. Change...
Values kill careers: How leaders tune in to avoid derailment
Quick Quiz: When a woman presents an opinion at work, do you give her the same attention as you would a man? Do females get the same promotion opportunities as men in your company? If you witnessed a woman being treated unfairly, inappropriately would you step in and end it?...
