October, 2014

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A Better Way to Address Performance Issues

Let's Grow Leaders

'“Will or skill” is an insufficient question when addressing performance issues. This model works okay if it’s truly a “skill” issue because managers know what to do next. They train, coach, or assign a buddy. But the “will issue” answer often begins a slide down a slippery slope of assumptive questions: Why doesn’t she care?

Energy 503
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Resilience: Standing Up Against Life’s Storms

General Leadership

'“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”. Alain de Botton. Resilience is not a new term in academic and preventive medicine circles, nor is the idea of nurturing people’s inner strengths a new idea. In fact, the view that resilience is an important aspect of our well-being has been gaining attention among researchers and health professionals over the last 25 or so years.

Influence 419
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How do you live life on purpose?

Lead Change Blog

'An aerial shot of the sidewalks of any major city bear an amazing resemblance to the view we get as we look down at a large ant den. . Lots and lots of tiny little bodies scurrying as fast as they can, doing what they can for as long as they can. Both are building, gathering food, and protecting their colony. . Each strikes out when attacked, at other times seems completely oblivious to the world around it.

Project 409
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Is It Ever Wise to Swear at Work?

Michael Lee Stallard

'By Michael Lee Stallard and Katie Russell. You discover a careless error your administrative assistant made in printing a proposal you need to present to a potential new client in a few hours. Should you swear to express your frustration? How about when you are speaking to the people you lead who are clearly not giving their best efforts? How about if you are a woman in a male-dominated culture and you want to fit in?

Advice 368
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The HR Leader’s Workforce Management Guide

In today’s fast-paced business world, effective workforce management (WFM) isn’t just an option—it’s a necessity.

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Why Disruptive Ideas Need Equally Disruptive Leadership

Terry Starbucker

'Since I left the corporate world a little less than four years ago, I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to be a startup investor. It’s been one of the most awesome experiences of my life. I’ve been exposed to multiple industries and multiple talents that have taken my brain on a fantastic learning journey. One of the core words that are kicked around in these circles as we evaluate possible investments is “ disruptive “ That is, put in the form of a que

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Why Leaders Don’t Listen

Great Leadership By Dan

'Guest post by Marcia Reynolds, PsyD “Leaders boldly go where no one has ever gone before.” Is this true? Rarely. The more successful a leader becomes, the less likely he or she chooses to step into the unknown. Although I have seen the words, “Embracing ambiguity,” on the list of leadership competencies for many companies worldwide, I have never met an executive who loves not knowing the answers.

Kahneman 290

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Inclusion: 8 Drivers of Employee Engagement

General Leadership

'“When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.” Joe Paterno. We have all heard the homily “There is no “I” in “Team. ” As any sports coach knows, a team’s results overshadow the individual. You do have to have some top talent on a first class team, but any team is more than the sum of its parts.

Sports 418
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How We Overlook Hidden Talent

Lead Change Blog

'In the history of every industry – manufacturing, tech, entertainment, sports, all industries – there have been many examples of talent that was overlooked only to be discovered at a later moment. At times the talent was recruited by someone else, too late for the incumbent organization to reap the benefits of their talent pool. Some of the most famous examples of talent that almost slipped through the cracks: Tom Brady – This Super Bowl champion and MVP dropped to the 6th rou

Collins 409
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How to Keep Remote Employees Enthused, Energized and Engaged

Michael Lee Stallard

'By Michael Lee Stallard and Colton Perry. As seen on SmartBlog on Leadership. . A 49-year-old father of two hits his alarm clock at 6:30 a.m., starts a pot of coffee and prepares for his daily commute. For the past three years, Bill Lewis has worked for a large company based in the heart of New York City; even though his home in Texas is nearly 2,000 miles from the office, Bill’s daily commute only takes him a few steps.

How To 327
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Do Leaders Need To Be Liked To Be Successful?

Terry Starbucker

'I was reading the Sunday NY Times this morning (my weekly old-school ritual) and came across this quote in Adam Bryant’s “Corner Office” column : I used to care a lot that people liked me. That’s no longer as much the case. Of course, nobody wants not to be liked, but I don’t care as much. I remember feeling liberated when it no longer influenced my decision-making. - Deborah Bial , president of the Posse Foundation.

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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The Power of Noticing

Leading Blog

'Harvard professor Max Bazerman believes in the power of noticing. Sometimes we get so focused on what is right in front of us that we miss the critical information that would help us to make better decisions. The Power of Noticing guides us through what happens when our focus can prevent us from seeing the critical information we need to make better decisions.

Power 285
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How to Have a Difficult Conversation

Let's Grow Leaders

'When I ask leaders why they’re not telling people what they need to know, the most consistent response I get is “ Sh e or he didn’t ask.” Quite frankly that’s a cop-out. Yeah sure–ideally everyone would be ASKING for feedback. If you’re not asking, start asking now. It may be the only thing standing between you and the truth.

How To 497
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Train Your Replacement… Not Your Clone!

General Leadership

'An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual. Robert Baden-Powell. The cold hard reality of being a leader is we all have either a physical or organizational shelf-life. This realization, no matter how difficult or painful to grasp, need not be a fatalistic view of your future, but instead the inspiration behind the desire to find the next-generation leader, capable and prepared to spring-board to organizational success from your mentorship and guiding han

Training 418
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Weaving A New Future For Lead Change

Lead Change Blog

'If you are reading this post, you have landed on the new Lead Change Group site. We are glad you are here. You will notice that we have streamlined and simplified the site and added some new features: pages for Instigators and Leading Voices , new ways to participate, and events (more will be coming soon.). As we re-ignite the movement here at Lead Change, we hope you will choose to make a positive difference with us.

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5 Ways to Improve DE&I in the Workplace

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are critical for an organization’s success. And companies that take bold action to help ensure an inclusive workplace will win every time. Discover how your company can create a culture that celebrates DE&I while achieving higher revenue and growth.

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To Connect, Learn Team Strengths and Vulnerabilities

Michael Lee Stallard

'#56 Know Your Team’s Strengths and Vulnerabilities – Have your direct reports take tests that identify their individual temperaments and strengths (e.g. Myers Briggs Personality Type, Gallup StrengthsFinder, VIA Inventory of Strengths, etc.). In E Pluribus Partners’ work with teams, we often have team members take several tests and share the results with their teammates.

Team 296
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The Quickest Path To Building Trust – In Just 6 (Big) Steps

Terry Starbucker

'You’ve accepted a big leadership position at a company that had been mismanaged for many years, leaving its employees discouraged, jaded and skeptical. You have big plans to take this group to greatness using your brand of More Human Leadership, but the top brass wants it done “yesterday” What’s the first thing you must do to kickstart this transformation?

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Leading Rookie Talent: Helping New Recruits Hit the Target

Leading Blog

'Are your new employees loose canons or heat-seeking missiles? In a rapidly changing world, experience can be a curse. Strategies can grow stale and innovation can stop. Being new, naïve, and even clueless, can be an asset. Rookies – people of any age who are new to a task – aren’t weighed down with old assumptions and are more likely to explore new possibilities.

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How to Be Manager When Your Employees Are Older Than You

Let's Grow Leaders

'Pleased to welcome Scott Huntington with a guest post. Good news: You have been hired for a leadership or managerial position. Awkward news: You’re younger than the employees you’ll be managing. Discovering that you’re younger than your new employees is neither good news nor bad news. However, it has been known to make young managers uncomfortable or nervous.

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No Ego: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Drama, End Entitlement and Drive Big Results

Speaker: Cy Wakeman, M.S., CSP, President, Reality-Based Leadership

Most HR leadership philosophies are grounded in two completely faulty assumptions — “change is hard” and “engagement drives results.” Those beliefs have inspired expensive attempts to keep change from being disruptive to employees. What these engagement programs actually do is create and reinforce feelings of victim-hood and leave employees unprepared to adapt to real changes that are necessary for the health and profitability of their enterprises.

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The Two Most Important Questions In Leadership

General Leadership

'“Judge a man by his questions, …not by his answers.” Voltaire. 1. Do you know what you’re doing? 2. Do you know where you’re going? These are the two most important questions I ask when evaluating young leaders in my organization, or even when assessing my own leadership ability. I find answering these simple, deep-meaning questions tells me a lot about a leader’s impact and potential.

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Parents as Leadership Developers

Lead Change Blog

'Parents are well positioned to be the first leadership developers of their children. And yet, many parents do not take a deliberate approach to growing leadership in their kids. Parents work to give them an “early start” in music, sports, and reading, but for some reason wait until they are older to talk about leading. It is never too early to help your kids understand that leadership involves service, communication, teamwork, and helping others to grow.

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10 Ways to Take Charge of Your Own Leadership Development

Great Leadership By Dan

'This post was recently published at Smartblog on Leadership. When I first started in the field of leadership development (when gas was 89 cents a gallon), the model we used looking like this: When someone got promoted to team leader, supervisor, or manager, they were sent a memo (no email yet) from HR informing them that they have been registered for a mandatory 4 week supervisory training course.

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Great Business Lessons From The Movies – Jerry Maguire.

Rich Gee Group

'WOW – What a wonderful movie. It’s a love story, a coming of age movie, and building strong friendships, all mixed with humor and pathos. And so many business rules. So here they are: “Show me the money!” – Rod Tidwell ( video ). You work to make money. So many people forget this. I know — there’s the satisfaction, the notoriety, the use of your talents, etc.

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Innovation: Five Signs You Might Be Faking It

Every company wants to be a leader in innovation, but how can you tell if your company is really innovating or just going through the motions? See the 5 signs you might be faking innovation and what to do if you are.

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The Moment You Can’t Ignore

Leading Blog

'A leader once told me, “We’re stuck.” It was an un-ignorable moment that reflected a cultural issue within the organization. In this case, it hinged around a destructive, persistent, self-perpetuating organizational belief about what leadership should look like that had plagued it for decades. Un-ignorable moments, write authors Malachi O’Connor and Barry Dornfeld, “typically occur when an organization is teetering on the brink of a cultural shift.

Energy 284
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5 Ways Naming Things Will Make You a Better Leader

Let's Grow Leaders

'The world goes nuts when someone finds a simple name for that universal feeling that makes you think more deeply about your leadership: Who Moved My Cheese , Flow , fill in your favorite blank __. You don’t need to wait for someone else to name it. Chances are you and your team can go a long way in naming your _(fill in your favorite blank here, e.g. challenge, knee jerk response, team dysfunction).

Stress 481
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The Eagle: Symbol of Greatness

General Leadership

'“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective…Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back?”. Clement Stone. For thousands of years the eagle has served as the official seal of empires, leaders and strength. Fierce warriors have valiantly displayed the image of the eagle on their shields, on their banners, and on their uniforms.

Objective 417
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10 Rules for Women Who Want to Lead: Melissa Greenwell, The Finish Line

Lead Change Blog

'In presenting to the women at The Indiana Governor’s Conference for Women yesterday in Indianapolis, Melissa Greenwell, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at The Finish Line shared that the end result is that women earn only $0.77 for every dollar men make. Working harder does not help us close the gaps that exist for us.

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Tough Comp Conversations: A Guide For Doing Them Right

Speaker: Rusty Lindquist, VP Strategic HR Insights at Bamboo HR

Compensation can be tricky, few things carry as much emotional weight as comp. And with the increased transparency in the market, combined with our collective propensity to rate ourselves against others, the frequency of these very difficult conversations is increasing. In this webinar, we will deconstruct some of the psychology around comp. We’ll take an analytic look at comp’s role in the employee experience, and then we’ll get really tactical with guidance on very specific compensation conver

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SERVANT Leaders are Selfless – Acronym Model

Modern Servant Leader

'Background: This post is part of a series defining the principles of Servant Leadership via the acronym SERVANT (Selfless, Empathetic, Resolute, Virtuous, Authentic, Needful and Thorough). For more, visit the overview at this link or sign up for the free online course, Servant Leadership 101. The first principle in the SERVANT Leadership acronym is Selfless.

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Your automatic self vs. your aware self

Persuasive Powerhouse

'Bethany, a leader in a Fortune company, knew she had an issue with expressing quick and deadly (metaphorically speaking) anger. It would come out of nowhere in a flash that silenced her stakeholders. Dirk, CEO of a nonprofit, interrupted people. He cut them off or talked over them to get the first, second, and last word in. Amy, a middle manager in a government organization would roll her eyes in impatience and cross her arms over her chest in disagreement with others.

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Leading Rookie Talent: A Sizing Guide for Stretch Assignments

Leading Blog

'Rookies: Bumbling newbies that require copious management? Or underutilized top performers that need to be turned loose? While we often think of newcomers (be they young employees or experienced staff from another arena) as empty vessels that need to be filled up, my research shows that being a rookie – facing a new problem or a challenge for the first time – can provoke top performance.

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5 Ways to Encourage Your Team Toward “Yes You Can”

Let's Grow Leaders

'28 eyes looked at me skeptically. They were convinced the task I had outlined for their strategy session was beyond their reach. “Just too hard,” they explained. “I’m not that creative,” said another. No time for second guessing. Sure this exercise had worked in other contexts, but I had never worked in this industry before.

Team 479
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Why (and How) to Switch to a New HR & Payroll Platform

Speaker: Speakers:

HR and payroll impact every aspect of your business. Choosing the right provider is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. Before you decide, hear first-hand customer accounts in Paycor’s webinar to learn: The three most important things to look for when switching. How to begin your search. What are some of the red flags?