30 Years and 2,500 Programs in Learning & Development- Has Anything Changed?
My first real training development and delivery job was for the New York City Police Department in the 1980’s and it was a doozy: use professional actors to help train police officers learn how to manage what they called “EDP”s – Emotionally Disturbed Persons. My responsibility was to cast and direct the actors and help them create realistic characters – like drug addicts going through...
When Employer Trust is Lost
Last year, I was leading a program on respect and trust with a dozen mid-level managers at a new client’s headquarters, when I found myself in a strange situation: everyone stopped talking. I was covering the four conditions that must be met for a relationship to have a high level of trust — competence, openness & honesty, concern for others’ best interests, and reliability — and I...
A Healthy Company Culture Starts with a Blueprint for Success
In my 25 years of experience working with top industry and government organizations, I know one thing is true: a company with happy employees and a healthy company culture didn’t get there by accident. Its leaders have carefully nurtured and curated their work environments to develop a sustainable foundation of responsive, respectful leadership that significantly improves their chances of...Modeling Respectful Behavior: Whose Job Is It?
When I’m working with a new client and making a case for modeling respectful behavior in the workplace, there is an inevitable hurdle to clear first: acknowledging there is a problem, so leaders stop passing the buck on accountability. If I’ve heard this complaint once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. Every time I show managers and leaders the data that clearly demonstrates our workplaces are...
Disrespectful Behavior at Work: When the Facts Offend
Recently, I gave a talk at a major HR conference where I referred to data demonstrating that, while the frequency of and sensitivity to disrespectful behavior at work has been steadily increasing over the last 20 years, there appears to have been an uptick following the election of Donald Trump. I concluded this segment of my talk by saying, “I think we can agree that from an HR perspective,...
6 Steps to Rebuilding Respect at Work
When I published my most recent book, The Respectful Leader, in 2016, employee surveys were giving us early warning signals of disrespectful behavior increasing in the workplace. Leading up to the U.S. presidential election, the political climate and the amount of incivility in public discourse continued to heat up. Shortly afterward, disrespect started to rocket upwards in the workplace. Over...
Lack of Respect: A Hidden Culprit Behind Gun Control Inaction
America experiences a mass shooting — defined as 4+ victims killed, including the shooter — on an average of one per day. In the first few weeks of 2018, there have already been nine school shootings that resulted in serious injury or death. According to many studies, this is unique to our country; no other developed nation comes even close to having the level of gun violence that...
How the #MeToo Movement Will Influence Company Culture in 2018
After the recent thunderstorm of high-profile sexual harassment allegations in the media, the #MeToo movement is shaking down bad behavior in the workplace and demanding action. In the process, this spotlight has revealed how destructive and costly sexual harassment is to individuals and to the reputations of corporations who’ve turned a blind eye to these serious situations. In a recent Inc....
Gregg Ward Talks Rebuilding Respect on “Good Morning Washington DC”
Gregg Ward was fortunate to be invited back on ABC New’s “Good Morning Washington DC” program where he shared his six-step plan for rebuilding respect at work, based on his book, The Respectful Leader. Admit it! Admit that respect has been lost and the relationship is broken. Acknowledging there is a problem is the first step to solving it. Agree to do something. Working...