By Mindy Bortness
What is a have-to-have soft skill that indicates a job candidate’s greatest propensity to be successful?
Problem-solving skills, personal accountability and time management are solid contenders; a few of the many examples of soft skills that can make the difference between a good team member and a great one.
Here’s my case for one that should easily rise to the top: resiliency. Read More
Event: The most nerve-wracking moment of my career
Location: The conference room of a massive social media company
I was looking at twelve angry eyeballs. Two of those eyes belonged to my client’s Treasurer. The other eyes belonged to my client’s Lead Auditor, Treasurer, Accounting Manager, and two other accounting staffers.
Forty-eight hours earlier, my firm and I had made a seven-figure mistake. A mistake that could force my client to re-file their quarterly “10-Q” filing with the SEC.
By Ron Price and Stacy Ennis
One of the long-term challenges of the workplace is how many employees feel powerless. For many years, employee surveys around the world have measured levels of engagement as high as 70% or more. What creates levels of disengagement this high? Is it bad managers, as many experts claim? Many have heard the moniker, people leave bad managers, not bad companies. We believe this is overly simplistic.
Instead, we can point to four different causes for employee disengagement: Read More
By Jaime Lisk
You’ve found the perfect training to attend – it’s a topic you have been curious about for the past year, the top expert in the field is speaking, the training is during your slow season, and you feel like you could really learn something. But now you need to ask your boss for approval. If you’re one of the lucky ones, you forward the email to your boss and she approves it. But if you’re like most people, you may have a bit of anxiety at the thought of asking for approval. It can be an easy yes if you do your homework and you know how to ask.
Here are some sure-fire steps to successfully ask for training:
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By Ron Price
Hiring has become more important than ever. Today we are not simply filling a job, but instead asking people to balance complexity and deal with ever-present change. We are not only looking for someone who is going to fit into the job today, but also grow into additional roles in the future, due to the pace of change in the world.
Today’s workplace dynamic of low unemployment and increased worker mobility has resulted in employees who no longer feel loyalty to a company because companies are no longer loyal to them.
This changing landscape can seem like a threat to hiring, but I prefer to see it as an opportunity. It is a chance to hire in a new way.
By Jalene Case
Summer feels like it races by at twice the speed compared to the other seasons. We fill the long summer days with as much fun as possible while trying not to fall behind on our workload, but this can leave us feeling pressed for time and exhausted. How do we revive ourselves so we can enjoy our fun and still bring our best selves to work?
This summer, I thought that combining both work and fun into three weeks on the road would be a brilliant idea. It wasn’t. The long drives left me more tired than I expected, which resulted in a less-than-optimal energy level for my work. By the time I got home, I was wiped out with no scheduled time to recharge for the full workload ahead.
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By Ron Price
In my own experience as an executive, I sought to put as much power as possible into hands of those I supervised. I wanted them to “own” their jobs and to always know how to accurately evaluate their performance. Once I retired from corporate management and started supporting other leaders, I discovered they are equally interested in providing clarity to their subordinates and nurturing a higher level of accountability. This led to formalizing a process for defining and measuring executive performance.
We start by asking our clients, “What are the three to five key results that will reflect superior performance in a job?” They often answer, “if we’re making money or if we’re growing, that hits the mark”.
By David Quinlan
Imagine an iceberg floating in the middle of the sea. Above the surface sits the impressive tip and rugged edges. What you do not see is what rests below the surface – a massive glacier with peaks and valleys and mass that comprises 90 percent of the entire body.
Defining a problem is like an iceberg. Many organizations make the mistake of trying to fix what they can see above the surface and ignore the root of a problem that sits below the surface.
Just like an iceberg, the deeper we go into the world of innovation, the more we discover. And as leaders, it’s our job to find the truth and identify a problem for what it really is versus what we think it is.
By Chip Scholz
I hear a lot of buzz around the words “authentic leadership”. Some demand more, while others debate its meaning. Regardless, smart leaders recognize the cries of dissatisfaction and seek ways to engage others with passion, authenticity and long-term value.
Legitimate leadership authenticity begins with self-knowledge: your values, thoughts, and actions. It carries with it a set of moral obligations. Leaders must avoid deception, contradiction, hidden agendas and ulterior motives.
Leadership experts like Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, have studied how authenticity impacts organizations—and how a lack of it destroys them. Distant and insincere leadership repels people, causing multiple dysfunctions. Only legitimate authenticity works.Read More
Tips to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Be More Productive
By Jalene Case
Bring to mind your last off-the-grid, disconnected-style vacation. If you can’t think of one, you’re not alone. Even though we know (somewhere deep down!) that taking a complete break from work will increase our work productivity, we often resist.
I recently returned from a one-week vacation during which I fasted from email and social media. The urge to check-check-check was mighty. It reminded me of a chicken’s endless drive to peck-peck-peck its food. The problem was that my habit of continually checking was not nourishing me! Instead, I was doing a great job of sustaining a constant level of alertness mixed with anxiety, which was depleting my energy.
My coach wisely challenged me to leave my phone at home. I involuntarily gasped and wondered to myself, Could I do that? After negotiating, I agreed to take my phone so I could use the travel apps, and hide the email and social media apps so I wouldn’t check them for a week.