What to do if Politics are Taking a Toll on Your Workplace Productivity

This week, I contributed to a piece Noreen Seebacher @writeNoreen wrote for CMS Wire about steps managers should take to deal with the continuing decline in productivity owing to U.S. election-related politics and governmental affairs distractions in the workspace. Here’s a link:  http://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/politics-are-taking-a-toll-on-workplace-productivity-heres-what-to-do/  If you find it worthy, I’m sure Noreen and CMS Wire won’t mind if you give […]

The ONE Thing that Builds Employee Engagement More than Anything Else

A young(ish) audience member came up to me at a conference I was set to speak at last year, and said, (I’m paraphrasing throughout, but not much) “Richard, I’ve read the conference program, and I see that you’re going to be speaking on Employee Engagement later today. What’s the one thing – the ONE thing,” he […]

Helping New Leaders Stay Out of the Weeds

Nearly every day we witness or experience the net effect of people having been thrust into front-line leadership roles without being vetted for leadership capability, and without the benefit of any management training. The evidence pile consists of long lines at retail shops because managers don’t know how to recruit, surly or inattentive front line employees who’ve […]

It’s Not About the Phones

If I hear this question one more time… I won’t be surprised. “How do we get these people to get off their phones and get their work done?” First point: it’s not about the phones. The phones are irrelevant. They simply represent yet another distraction, and, let’s be honest, a tool which most of us (irrespective […]

Sometimes Leaders Have to Put it All on the Line

In the late 1980’s I left a very good job because I refused to follow a direct order that, though legal, was contrary to both policy and practice of the organization. Moreover, carrying it out would have materially harmed the livelihood and careers of some good people for no good reason. I certainly didn’t take […]

Three Essential Steps to Improving Your Managerial Coaching Results

Few would argue that coaching has become an important part of any leader’s repertoire for improving human and organizational performance. Yet, most have given little thought to when, where, and under what circumstances coaching is most effective, let alone trying to define or understand its key components. Let’s try to shed some light on the […]

To Raise Productivity, Stop Putting Lipstick on Pigs

Despite unprecedented increase in the amount of digital labor-saving technology applied to our commercial processes, the U.S. rate of productivity growth has effectively been sawed in half over the last decade. You heard that right, microchips and poor productivity in the same sentence. Federal Reserve Board Chairwoman Janet Yellen has declared this trend “a key uncertainty for the U.S. […]

Less Selfies, More Ussies

As a leadership coach, I work with managers up and down the ladder, helping them refine and capitalize on their strengths, discover hidden (to them) weaknesses, and rehab or minimize the impact of the latter. In a world that seems bent on becoming more inwardly-focused, where everyone is running for their next gig, one thing that […]

On Being the New Sheriff

As of noon today, for those of us in the US, there will be, as we say, a new sheriff in town. Based on the popular vote, more than half (about 54%) of those who voted in November’s presidential election were disappointed in its outcome. But the Electoral College vote is what counts, quirks and […]

All Millennials Are…Different

Years ago, I participated in a diversity workshop that featured an exercise called “All Iowans are Naive”, the object of which was to expose the fallacy of stereotypes. And fallacious they are. I have two close friends who hail from the state of Iowa, and both are exceptionally savvy. Other combos in the game were […]