Interviewing Well to Gain Employees

Feb 4, 2014 | Leadership Development

In a tough economy or a vibrant one, gaining or finding and hiring good employees is one of the most challenging, and re-curing problems confronting most organizations. We've all done it, and many still do: In our desperation to fill the empty position, we simply hire the most interested, and sometimes, the only applicant who appears close to what we're looking for. Then what often happens is, we end up paying an under-qualified individual more than current staff -- and quite often way more...

The Middle Management Mess

Oct 8, 2013 | Leadership Development

I started focusing on what I call the Middle Management mess after I read an article in the March 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review by Robert Morison, Tamara Erickson, and Ken Dychtwald entitled “Managing Middlescence.” Their article addressed the mid-career employees, aged 35 to 54, who “should be at their peak of productivity,” but instead “are the most disaffected segment of the workforce.” With one in four of these employees holding managerial or supervisory positions, this was a...

Employee Motivation Check-up

Aug 13, 2013 | Leadership Development

If you were asked to describe your employees, would "motivated" be one of the adjectives you'd use? If not, why not? If you respond by saying something such as "They just don't care…," or "All they want is a paycheck…," those statements are not true for most employees. Your employees want many of the same things in life you do; things such as a means to provide for and protect their families, strong family and social interactions, a stable work environment, and the opportunity to utilize their...

Dealing with Difficult People

Jul 9, 2013 | Leadership Development

We've all come across difficult people in our workplace and typically, we've found that the “safest” way to deal with them is to ignore them. However, by ignoring the difficult behaviors of our team members, we are by default condoning their poor behaviors. We are passively accepting their bad behaviors. As professionals, as leaders, we need to stop condoning their behaviors if we want our team members to stop behaving badly. So what do we do? Interact with them assertively. Most...

Critical Numbers

Jul 2, 2013 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

Critical Numbers are those key financial, production, or sales numbers that tell us how well we're doing -- or not doing. These numbers help us determine what we MUST accomplish day in and day out to be successful. For instance, for a movie theater, one critical number to track may be the number of seats sold; for a food processor, cost of raw product and additives; for a grocery store, spoilage rate. Whatever the number -- everyone in the organization must know what the number is --...