Let Her Finish!

Let Her Finish! by Bill Catlette 10.08.20 • memphis Cutting someone off in mid-sentence is not far removed from cutting them off in traffic and forcing hard braking, evasive action, and perhaps hand gestures on their part. Yet, many of us, mostly guys it seems, are too well-practiced at interrupting people, especially women in mid-sentence […]

Promote Team Building by Improving the Workplace

by K. Baker With more companies struggling to stay profitable, employers have increased their efforts to build stronger teams. While a capable team isn’t made overnight, it can be created with specific changes designed to improve workers’ job satisfaction and productivity. Besides using team-building exercises, here are some ways to help your employees work more […]

Unjobbed

Bill Catlette   8/7/20 • memphis Bored, Scared, Angry  In 2+ decades as a coach and advisor to business leaders, the very worst workplace situations I’ve encountered have almost always been those punctuated by boredom and bad leadership, usually in tandem. That stands to reason as most often, bad leaders concern themselves more with accumulating […]

Leaders… Dancing in the Dark?

by Bill Catlette memphis • 7/26/20 In his 1984 Grammy Award winning song, Dancing in the Dark, a slightly randy Bruce Springsteen bemoans a grinding, dreary daily existence without much well, uh, action.  A glance at the lyrics comes uncomfortably close to what a lot of leaders are feeling of late. But let’s start with […]

Coaching From a Distance

With the sudden, COVID-inspired shift to WFH, one topic that has come to the fore is productivity. How do we get it? How can we possibly verify and measure it in light of physical separation? How can we coach people to better outcomes? Fair questions. One emergent point of view is that the manager/leader should […]

Leading from a Distance

see our keynote and workshop on leading from a distance If you’re a manager, right now your leadership skills are being tested, and evaluated (by those you lead), like never before. Add to that the challenge of trying to lead from a distance, and… well, I don’t have to tell you… The US Patent and […]

Generations Need Each Other Now More Than Ever

Like many others around the world, I attended “virtual church” this past Sunday, as I expect to do for some weeks to come. The church I attend has been livestreaming services for nearly a year, but with virtually (no pun intended) every faith community going online this week, the broadband network was, to use a […]

Employee Engagement: Two Reasons Why ‘Getting Sticky’ Matters

(This piece generally represents the text of a letter sent to some of our firm’s leadership coaching clients this week.) Too often I see HR professionals and the organizations they are apart of throwing around the expression, “employee engagement” like medical terms used by healthcare professionals, without first clarifying what the term means, and why […]

Leadership Can Be Hard…Are You Up For It?

Knowing exactly what would come of it, US Navy Secretary, Richard Spencer refused an order from his supervisor (issued at the direction of POTUS), to stand down on a disciplinary matter involving one of the country’s elite special forces. As a result, he was asked for his resignation. In reality, he was likely told that, […]

The Enemy is not in Your Own Locker Room!

In a recent conversation with a mid-level manager, we discussed his concern about members of his team getting in periodic spats with their contemporaries in another department, an internal client organization. “It’s pretty much out in the open” he said, before adding, “… and I have no doubt that it is impeding our levels of […]