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Why are managers and supervisors so stingy with praise?
Ken Blanchard has a favorite question he likes to ask audiences whenever he is teaching about the power of recognition. He asks, “How many of you receive too much praise at work?” It’s a bit of a...
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Customer Service–3 ways to make someone’s holiday a little brighter!
As we enter into the holiday season, I always remind myself to try and be on my best behavior and keep my patience while out doing my holiday shopping. So when I read the story about the New York City...
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Give the Gift of PEACE: A 5-step reminder for the holiday season!
Are you working to create lasting memories this holiday season? Stop and think for a minute, how are YOU feeling right now? Stressed? Anxious? Happy? Sad? How are other people around you feeling? What...
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3 simple ways to create a stronger team and build customer loyalty
With all of the changes going on in the airline industry over the last few years, it has definitely been more the exception rather than the rule when getting great service while traveling. However, I...
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The High Price of Perceived Unfairness—a mini case study
Alexa has been with a global telecommunications company for 15 years, most recently as an upper mid-level leader in the company’s consumer products division. Alexa took her current post in 2010. That...
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Not All Goals Are Created Equal
I’ve just returned from the 5th International Conference on Self-Determination Theory. The remarkable and often mind-blowing research on motivation that was shared and debated by 500 scholars from...
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Our Greatest Human Need…To Be Understood and Appreciated
I was at a conference last weekend and the facilitator assigned the table groups a topic to discuss. After the discussion a person from each table stood up and gave a brief report on group’s...
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10 Simple and Easy Ways to Give Thanks for Your Employees
In the spirit of today’s Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, I thought I’d share ten simple and easy ways to tell your employees “thank you.” Telling an employee “thank you” is one of the...
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Six Best Practices for Recognizing Employees in the New Year
“Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise, and nothing is more lame than a cookie-cutter compliment.” ~Bill Walsh I frequently ask participants in my workshops: “How many of you are...
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Thanksgiving Special: 10 Easy Ways to Thank Your Team
In the spirit of today’s Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, I thought I’d share ten simple and easy ways to tell your employees “thank you.” Telling an employee “thank you” is one of the...
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The number one thing YOU can do to improve employee engagement this week
Gallup’s latest report on The State of the Global Workplace 2011 identifies the levels of engagement and subsequent wellbeing of workers from over 120 countries. It’s another great report from a...
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Employees feeling entitled? It might be your fault.
The way you reward and recognize your people may be promoting some unwanted behaviors. That’s because the use of extrinsic motivators (like money, perks, bonuses, and promotions) may change an...
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Making the Jump from Good to Great—3 ways to get started
In his book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins found that leaders at the most successful companies shared two traits—a fierce resolve toward achieving organizational goals and a deep sense of personal...
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The 3 times when you shouldn’t praise people at work
Catching someone doing things right is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable things a manager gets to do. It shows people that you’re paying attention, that their work matters to you, and most...
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The Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make and How to Avoid Them
Join best-selling author and consultant Chris Edmonds for a complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern). Chris will be exploring three...
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Ready to grow and innovate? Begin by driving out fear and apathy—3 ways to...
People are stuck in place, not particularly happy with the way things are, but staying put because they don’t have any better options. It’s a “quit and stay” mentality that has been hard for leaders to...
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Exit interviews show top 10 reasons why employees quit
Ask employers why people quit a company and 9 out of 10 will tell you it’s about the money. Ask employees the same question and you’ll get a whole different story. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)...
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None of us is as smart as all of us—take this quiz and see for yourself
Here’s an exercise from a team building class I attended that I wanted to share with you. It uses questions from a Mensa quiz to illustrate the point that a team’s collective wisdom is always greater...
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“Be the change” you want to see in your customer service people: 5 ways to...
In a recent Legendary Service course, one of my participants—we’ll call him Chad—wondered aloud if leaders ever adhered to the same standards they continually ask of their service providers. When asked...
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The Power of Really Listening: A tribute to Stephen Covey
One of my mentors, Stephen Covey, passed away this week. No book, other than the Scriptures, has had a more significant impact on my life than his The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The 7 Habits...
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The 1 Thing Employees Don’t Get Enough of at Work
I don’t have an exact count, but over the years of conducting training classes on Building Trust or speaking to large groups about trust and leadership, I’ve worked with thousands of employees around...
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Recognition Is A Necessity – Not A Luxury
What happens when you forget to consistently recognize the hard work of your employees? You might find that the “hard” work turns into the bare minimum. It took my 5 year-old daughter to remind me of...
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All Grunt Work and No Glory
Have you ever asked yourself what it is your people actually work on throughout the day (or night)? I’m sure a lot of you know in general terms the type of work being done, but do you know the finer...
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The Excellent Employee
*Part One of a Six Part Series on The Excellent Employee Excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts....
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Excellence in Action
*Part Two of a Six Part Series on The Excellent Employee “Can you hear me when I sing? You’re the reason why I sing … You’re the reason the opera is inside of me!” —Sometimes You Can’t Make It on...
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Aiming For the Stars (Literally) With Goal Setting
I’ll admit it: I’m a bit of a nerd. I enjoy technology, science, and astronomy (or anything space-related). On October 8th, Christmas comes early for me as I’ll be getting a mix of all three. In...
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Leadership is Luck
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times… —A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens The opening lines to Charles Dickens classic, A Tale of Two Cities could not have expressed any better, my...
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Celebrate the “bright” moments of 2012 and build more in 2013
Here we are, a few days before the end of the year 2012. Now that we have survived the end of the Mayan calendar, it seems another year is rapidly approaching like a locomotive without breaks. But...
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Personal engagement: it's a relationship thing!
As so many of us focus on the newness of setting goals and resolutions, I find myself looking back over various relationships with friends, coworkers, and others that were once new and have now matured...
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George Washington's Leadership Legacy
Let’s indulge, for a moment, on a seasonal exposition that preys on a national day of remembrance—not as a desperate attempt to capitalize on optimal web search methods spiked by the holiday; but...
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Narcissism and How We Perfected It
I’m taking a rather ambitious stab at clearing the name of an entire generation with a single blog post. I have not been chosen by my generation to represent us, but by definition I’m entitled so I...
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The Edge of Leadership
Five Smooth Stones Made from old wires and glass bulbs. With almost nothing, Edison made the impossible happen! –Oz, The Great and Powerful Ever since a little shepherd boy knelt down to pull five...
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What’s wrong at work? You may need an Alberti
As a kid, I watched the movie Renaissance Man with Danny DeVito. Some of you may remember the film. Danny DeVito is this Advertising Executive with an Ivy League background who is fired from his job....
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Know Yourself
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” —William Shakespeare When recently opening a package of Green Tea, the quote, “It’s not a privilege to know others. Know yourself. That’s a...
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The Look of Ethical Leadership
Call me idealistic, but I want more from Gen X and Gen Y when it comes to leadership. I want to see us go beyond the standard leadership stereotypes to something more global, accepting, and inclusive....
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Want to be productive? Stay home from work
Absenteeism (not showing up to work) is a well-documented and researched metric. However, the evil twin brother of absenteeism is presenteeism, and it’s now starting to get some more attention....
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The End of Innovation
“Innovation is dangerous!” says Yawn Fearman, Gatekeeper of Ideas at Acme Corporation—an international consulting firm that provides executives and managers the tools and skill sets needed to maintain...
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Leadership Failure
Not too long ago I was put in charge of a couple sections of soldiers who were working on some military intelligence products for an upcoming mission. Since the teams were working on separate products,...
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Speakeasy Leadership
Seakeasy Leadership The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a cultural rebellion against classic traditions, inspiring social revolutions around the world. Everything seemed to be possible...
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What Halloween and Bad Leadership have in Common
Part of what makes each company special is the ability to connect the whole organization together. Like many companies, Blanchard has a very special Halloween Party on their main campus and our team...
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Stop Trying to Find Yourself—Start Being Yourself
Stop It! Whether you’re in the early stages of your career or a tenured vet of the workforce, there is a constant tension between who you are at work and who “they” want you to be at work. This...
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The Smile Test and the Positive Leader
Did you feel happier? Now try this experiment again with a group of friends in the same room. Look at one another as you smile. Does anything change? From what I’ve experienced, being around a group...
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A Managerial Felony
“Why don’t you and I go get some lunch to connect?” Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard that from your manager. Ok, put your hand down before they see what you are reading. Plus, that guy in IT might...
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Have the negatives taken over time and focus?
If you think for a minute about your average workday, how would you divide that workday between focusing on positives versus focusing on negatives? Do you tend to catch people doing something wrong...
View ArticleInfectious Thought Germs Will Anger You
Looking past the viral-oriented nature of this video, the main concept presented is critical for leadership. Thoughts, when attached to emotions other than sadness, generally have higher “infection”...
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Top 3 Reasons Why Being a Great Leader Isn’t Easy
A few months back, I asked a group of leaders for a show of hands on who had experienced either oversupervision or undersupervision. Almost every hand went up. But then I asked how many had themselves...
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Remember Your Worth
I first heard this story a few years ago – my Granddad sent me it in an e-mail. He sends me a lot of things, as it’s his way of letting me know that I’m thought about, but for some reason, this story...
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Praise Where Praise is Due
Who doesn’t like positive feedback? It’s great to feel you have done a job well, beat a target or helped others. Being recognised boosts our confidence, self esteem and drives us to perform well....
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