Do Employee Cliques Have You Stuck?

Nov 15, 2011 | Leadership Development

One of the quickest ways to alienate new employees, restrict their skill development, and keep an organization stuck in a proverbial rut, is to tolerate employee cliques and allow them to control production. What are they? Employee cliques are destructive employee groupings (gangs) that don't welcome new employees (outsiders). They view new employees and their ideas as threats to the status quo. To them, new employees are a waste of their time—particularly if they have to train the new person...

Performance Choices and Horse Lessons

Nov 1, 2011 | Leadership Development

My husband and I helped a friend move her horses to a new stable recently. Neither of her horses had ever been loaded on a trailer before, so she was terribly nervous about the unfamiliar adventure facing us. She had visions of her horses panicking, bucking, kicking, whinnying for dear life, and forcibly being pushed and pulled into the trailer. Instead, one horse walked right on as we calmly talked to her during the loading process, and the other eventually walked on the trailer, without...

Your Values Statement Serves as Your House Rules

Apr 17, 2010 | Strategic Planning

We have all seen values statements hanging on the walls of various organizations. They're usually nicely framed and tastefully hung for all who pass by to see. However, other than knowing the executive team developed them as part of a strategic planning effort, most of us who walk by our own organization's values statement rarely understand its purpose - other than serving as a nice piece of artwork. The values statement of an organization is what I call "The House Rules." It outlines how...