Culture
Looking for something specific? The following topics address a wide range of business needs and challenges.
4 Secrets to Leading Change When Your Company Is Already Successful
It’s no secret: Many successful businesses are slow to change. There are hundreds of examples in which corporations have rejected ideas and products that have been left to entrepreneurs to make…
Overworked? Could Reducing Workloads be the Key to Improved Results?
We may be at a tipping point. It just might be that we have hit the limit on how much we can do on any given day, week or month. Most of us have more work on our to-do lists than we can…
Don’t Blame Employees for Lack of Effort—Managers Hold the Key
It’s generally agreed that persuading employees to give more than required can make or break a company. Yet many leaders struggle to get that discretionary effort. The 2022 Gallup State of the…
Why Mary Barra Should Be the Norm, Not the Exception
One issue has been largely overlooked in the discussions about women in leadership: Do the traits of one gender have an advantage over the other in the boardroom? Direct and self-promotional…
Fast Company Article on "Stack Ranking"
It’s hard to believe but Stack Ranking has found its way back into corporations as a means for motivating employees. What will it take for leaders to understand that this practice doesn’t work and in…
Rank and Yank: Would a Rose by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?
Jack Welch joined the fray about Microsoft’s abandoning “rank and yank” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Jack Welch: ’Rank and Yank’? That’s Not How It’s Done.” Welch now says that rank…
Zero Tolerance Policies Should be Called “Don’t Blame Me” Policies
While I understand the appeal of zero tolerance policies in that they allow difficult decisions about behavior to be dispatched easily and quickly, the decision to expel a child from school or to…
President Obama, You Say You Want Ideas—Here’s One!
President Obama says he wants ideas. How about this one? The government will designate a fixed dollar amount to be deducted from each taxpayer each year. This fund will be…
A Better Way for HP to Boost Performance
Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Meg Whitman has rekindled the debate over whether to telecommute with a memo urging employees to show up at the office more often. She wrote that “HP needs all hands…
Justin Bieber, Senior Leaders and “Yes-Men”
Recently I heard Charles Barkley on ESPN radio, but he wasn't talking basketball. He was talking about Justin Bieber and how Bieber’s life is gradually unraveling. It’s been a slow shaping process…
Rank and Yank and Other Business Nonsense
When will they learn? I wrote my book Oops! 13 management practices that waste time and money in 2009 and the one that has caught the most attention is Performance Appraisal. An article by Will…
5 Tips for Improving Your Effectiveness as a Coach
There is always a lot of buzz surrounding leaders– what makes an effective one, are they born or made, and why do some transform into bad bosses. Yet the most common trending topic today seems…
The Royal Baby: Does Gender Matter When it Comes to Leadership and Ethics?
Update: It’s been announced that the Duchess of Cambridge has given birth to a Baby boy.
The UK government has changed the 300-year-old laws on royal succession to ensure that a first born…
J.C. Penney Provides OOPS #14
Can you believe it! J.C. Penney hired a therapist to help employees cope with the firing of former CEO Ron Johnson. I need to add this to my next edition of OOPS: 13 Management Practices that Waste…
Why is it Always THE PEOPLE?
Maybe it is because I turned 78 last week, but it seems that every day I read something or see something on TV that drives me crazy. Even though by the usual standards, I am at the age where people…
Breaking Bad Habits: How to Create Change that Sticks
When I first started working in a call center, I asked a supervisor of thirty years to estimate how many change initiatives she had seen in her career. I shouldn’t have been surprised when she said…
Praising the Boss on Boss’s Day? Not so Fast.
Patricia Bays Haroski who worked for her father in a State Farm Insurance Agency in Deerfield, IL, registered October 16 as Boss's Day with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1958. She chose October 16…
Buy-In is Overrated
A big mistake leaders make when implementing change is spending too much time trying to get buy-in.This well intentioned approach not only delays getting to the change that matters but creates severe…
