Leadership and standards of excellence – create and achieve customer service standardsThe former head of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain once said, “Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction…you must improve.” He set out to find a road map to reach just that goal. The inspiring story will motivate you to raise the bar and find your road map to 100% success. Read more
Happy employees are wearing flip-flopsAs a leader, you want highly engaged and motivated employees. Not only is this clearly an attribute of successful companies with high profits; it just makes the job easier. Work weeks feel shorter and problems somehow get taken care of without being escalated. Read more
How to run effective meetings: 5 tools to build consensusConsensus building tools help you get through meeting impasses or inaction.
Don’t let your meeting get bogged down due to an impasse or sudden lack of attendee action. Learn how to retain and combine members’ best contributions and maximize results. Read more
How to design a fun and productive meetingThe following is a guest post about designing well-organized meetings by Miri Zena McDonald, an organization development and communications strategist on a quest to help companies thrive by engaging employees, improving culture and promoting wellness. She tweets at @miri_orgchange.
3 concepts every business can learn and use – for freeWhat we have to offer can be boiled down to one concept: the power of zero. We get more done with less of just about everything, from our people to our workplaces to our vendors. Zilch is what drives us to be more innovative, more passionate, more creative. Read more
Cultivating strong talent takes timeBlackberries and the Internet make the line between home and work easy to blur. But vacations and work need a strong line drawn. While at play, collecting factoids and stories is about the only thing close to work I want to be doing. After finishing a long weekend in Paso Robles wine country, I can count the stories, but did not read a single email! Read more
Reward employees oftenUnemployment may be at 9.6%, but it’s rare to find any employee in America who says there is 9.6% less work to do. In fact, it is just the opposite. Employees are working harder. How do we reward this hard work? The trend in 2010 was to unfreeze pay and reinstate 401k programs. Without spending millions, leaders can go a step further. Read more
Can leadership be taught?Many had gone before me, but I was a skeptic. I remember asking my boss what I could learn from climbing up a 40-foot tall post, balancing on a small platform and then jumping off? It didn’t seem relevant at the time. In the deep woods of Arkansas, I was proven wrong. Read more
10 tips to make the most of business travelLast month, I was traveling in Chicago on St. Patty’s day along with a few members of my team. I was reminded of this today, when a colleague was reminiscing about the fun evening. I make a habit of enjoying local culture when I travel for business, but not everyone does. Here are 10 ideas to help make your next business trip fun for you and your team mates. Read more
Leadership tokens remind you to be open to new ideasIn the fall, I made a trip with my wife to Woodstock, Virginia to visit family. If you have not been there, I would highly suggest a visit during early October to see the brilliant leaf colors. This is a truly inspiring area with deep roots in conservation. In the late 1800s, this was an area of stripped lands that has been radically transformed into beautiful lush forests. Read more