Many people get high marks for being good speakers. People have become presidential candidates due to their oratorical powers. In business, executives who wish to increase their public visibility hire speech writers to give them something terrific to say. We have long recognized the value of being a good speaker. Just ask any Toastmaster. Now, […]
Dos and Don’ts of Reprimanding
When reprimanding, what you do is often not as important as what you don’t do. Since no one really enjoys a reprimand, it’s easy for people to be put on the defensive when receiving criticism. I suggest remembering these “don’ts” when you must reprimand an individual. If you don’t observe these points, you may find […]
The Five Steps of Training
A lot of managers don’t realize it, but one of their responsibilities is to be an educator. The problem is that not all managers are born teachers. For those who want to be good teachers, here’s a five-step method for developing those necessary teaching skills. The five basic steps to good teaching/training are: 1. Tell; […]
Praise v. Criticism
I was once involved in a corporate study where criticizing and praising were actually tabulated and the reactions measured. Look at what we found: When there was one praising for each criticism, people felt as though they had a totally negative relationship with their boss. When the ratio was changed to two praisings to one […]
Three Deep Breaths
Recently I spent some time with Tom Crum and his daughter, Alia. Tom’s a good buddy of ours and is an Aikido expert. He wrote a wonderful book called Three Deep Breaths. I think I probably have shared these at some point but they are worth repeating… You know, as you head off any day […]
Do you think of yourself as a leader?
Some of you might know that I’m good friends with Colleen Barrett, who stepped down as President of Southwest Airlines two years ago. It’s interesting – at Southwest Airlines, they say that all of their people are leaders, including those who don’t have management positions. It’s because they think everyone can have a positive impact […]
Everyone’s a Coach
In the book Everyone’s a Coach that I wrote with Don Shula, we came up with an acronym that may really help you think about how you’re doing as parents and managers and volunteers in the community. You can use this in just about any area of your life. C stands for Conviction-Driven: Do people […]
Alarm Bells!
At our recent Client Conference, Garry Ridge, the President of WD-40 and my coauthor on the book How to Win at Work, was one of the keynote speakers. He was just marvelous. The concept he talked about, which is in our book, was alarm bells. He told how he was in a hotel room in […]
What’s Most Important Now?
Jim Steffen was a graduate student of ours at U. Mass. He wrote a book called Aligned Thinking and has been helping us work through some of his way of thinking. The most important concept Jim talks about is MIN—which is “Most Important Now.” He says that the way you really enjoy life the most […]
Don’t be a Passive Victim
There is a Positive Psychology course that Margie and I have been taking that is really interesting. We ran into a guy named Nathaniel Branden, who wrote about the six pillars of self-confidence. His big theme is nobody’s coming. If you are thinking about someone who is going to get you out of a situation, […]