Some New Year’s Coaching for You
Another new year has begun (2016), and many of us are now in the process of embracing it, with hopeful ambitions to tidy up our bodies, our lives, habits, homes, you name it. Clearly, we do so with varying degrees of enthusiasm and Commitment (capital ‘C’ intentional), but to be sure, no one enters 2015 […]
Practicing Self-Care Amidst the Storm
Guest Post by Sylvana RochetAs the events in Syria and Ukraine unfolded this summer, I got to thinking about how delicate it is for leaders to respond to others’ conflicts and emotional distress, while attempting to maintain their own balance. Not only because it must be hard to witness such turmoil around them – despite […]
Ebola and a Lesson on Leadership
Since passage of reform legislation in March 2010, the U.S. healthcare industry has struggled with wrenching change brought on by movement of the tectonic plates underneath the delivery and payment sides of the industry. With the introduction of competition from new sources (e.g., diagnostics and urgent care via Doc In a Box), and the early […]
Show Some Appreciation to Hotel Housekeepers
https://contentedcows.com/blog/item/63-show-some-appreciation-to-hotel-housekeepers Marriott International announced today that it has partnered with A Woman’s Nation, a Maria Shriver venture, in implementing a housekeeper gratuity initiative, “The Envelope Please”, in more than 160,000 North American hotel rooms. The plan is that clearly marked gratuity envelopes will be left each day in guest rooms as a reminder that someone who […]
A Physics Lesson for Leaders About the Use of Power
The first lesson learned by every new leader, one that should be permanently tattooed onto their gray matter, is that by virtue of occupation they have inherited a simple, high school physics problem – There are more of “them” than there are of you. Repeat, there are more of “them” than there are of you. […]
Getting Beyond the Rehearsed Blather in Recruiting
Last week I had a short, informal coaching conversation with an experienced, level 2 retail manager. Soon to be involved with staffing a new store, he was concerned about the recruiting process, and the fact that many candidates today show up with their promotional blather fairly well rehearsed, and a modicum of experience with behaviorally-anchored […]
Struggling Supervisors – Coach ‘em Up or Move Them Out
Confirming what many had been sensing for some time, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President, Richard Fisher said recently that increasing numbers of workers are quitting their jobs voluntarily, and concomitantly, employers are finding that it’s taking longer to fill open positions. Those are two fairly strong indicators that the job market is heating up. But […]
Discretionary Effort Beats an Inversion Strategy Any Day
Business news has been rife of late with coverage of U.S.-based corporations (e.g., Medtronic, Walgreen, AbbVie, Pfizer, Aon, Eaton, Omnicon) either attempting or completing an effort to re-flag the business as a non-U.S. entity. By and large, companies are using such “inversion” strategies in an effort to reduce corporate income taxes (e.g., Ireland’s headline rate is […]
Metrics and Managing – Be Careful What and How You Measure
One of the time honored, oft repeated (sometimes mindlessly) management mantras is, “What gets measured gets done.” It seems harmless enough on the surface, right? After all, if you visibly go to the trouble of measuring or inspecting a particular method or outcome, the very act of doing so suggests to onlookers that it’s important […]
Three Things That Will Improve Employee Engagement
Recently I read a piece in the e-version of a major business publication which, by title and implication suggested that seventy percent of Americans hate their work. The piece used as its factual anchor the oft-quoted “State of the American Workplace Report” by Gallup, which suggests that only about 30% of American workers are truly “engaged” in […]