Vacation Imperative!
Hello from Prague! As a freelancer for nearly 25 years, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve taken a “real” (meaning longer than 3-4 days) vacation. This is a big mistake; and I should know better, especially since I’m always advising my clients to pay attention to their work-life balance. But things – almost always related to work, such as writing the...
Lack of Diversity = Poorer Financial Performance
If you’ve received decent Diversity and Inclusion training, you know this fact: companies with more diverse workforces and more diversity in the C-Suite perform better financially. And new report from McKinsey & Company underscores this fact yet again. But sadly, the message doesn’t seem to be getting through to corporate leadership, especially in the US. The reality is that 97% of...
Disrespectful Assumptions
Almost every day someone says “respect our veterans.” That’s a noble sentiment and a good idea; to which I’d like to add, “…and don’t forget, our veterans are a very diverse group.” Apparently someone in Wilmington, North Carolina assumes that all veterans are male because when Mary Clare Caine – an Air Force vet who served in Kuwait – parked her car in a “Reserved for Veterans” parking space,...
Respect Your Elders
A good friend – a middle aged man – recently took a job at a local Starbucks to bring in some extra cash. He’s twice the age of everyone else who works there, which doesn’t seem to bother him or them at all. But, when a young colleague – someone most would consider a “millennial” – tried to coach him on using the point of sale system, she got frustrated with his slowness and...
Upset? Angry? Try Respect.
Right before Christmas, we discovered we had been lied to by a sales rep at our cell phone store and, furious, we went back in January to return some unwanted merchandise we’d been told we “had to buy.” But the “lead” customer service rep who was processing our return – despite knowing we’d been lied to – acted as if we were the liars and refused to treat us with respect. And when we got even...
Respect For Opponents?
Respect can surprise us in interesting ways. How many of us would have the courage to deliberately lose an important race to an opponent who’d made a mistake? In December of 2012, in an extraordinary show of respectful sportsmanship, Ivan Fernandez Anay – a long-distance runner from the Basque region of Spain who was running in second place in an important race – deliberately...
Bad Behavior, People Problems & Sticky Situations | Revised Edition
Back in the 90’s, my clients kept saying things like “We get a lot out of your training programs. How come all your stuff isn’t in a book?” Good question. So, in 2002 I wrote Bad Behavior, People Problems & Sticky Situations: A Toolbook for Managers and Team Leaders. I designed it to be a quick and handy reference guide for managers, who can just flip to the index, look up their problem...
The Respectful Leader |To Be Published by John Wiley & Sons, July 2016
After focusing on the ideas around respect and respectful leadership for many years, I finally decided to put pen to paper – or least fingers to keyboard – and, with the help of author Walter G. Meyer, write my next book which is called The Respectful Leader: Seven Ways to Influence Without Intimidation, A Business Fable. In this book, I introduce a fictional CEO, Des Hogan, who has been...
REBOOT | Making a Difference
I live in San Diego, which most people know is called America’s “Finest City.” But what most people don’t know is that San Diego is home to over 95,000 active duty military personnel. And right now, nearly 5,000 of them are retiring every month. Here’s the challenge for these new retirees: many of them have known no other adult life, or work, than the military. And when they get out, most are...