Coaching & Motivating

How to manage the office Eeyore

May 13, 2022
Every office tends to have one: that glum, withdrawn and isolated loner. They remind you of Eeyore, that fictional character in the Winnie the Pooh stories, the pessimistic donkey who is perpetually gloomy. How do you manage an office Eeyore?

Key phrases for rewarding teams

April 8, 2022
A team rewards system can be tricky, even a political landmine if your words aren’t chosen very carefully. Try these guidelines and corresponding sample phrases come from Linda Eve Diamond’s book, Perfect Phrases for Building Strong Teams.

How to create no-stress urgency

March 25, 2022
You know you need to light a fire under your team, but you don’t want to sap their productivity by piling on stress. Can pressure and support coexist? The answer is yes, thoughtfully. Here are some ideas for how to approach this situation.

‘Not good enough. No!’: Essential tips for managing a perfectionist

March 25, 2022
When considering the various types of problematic personalities one might encounter in a work environment, dealing with a perfectionist may not sound all that bad. However, actual perfectionists (not just ones who pay lip service during interviews) can cause their share of office chaos.

Stifle your staff’s blame game

March 25, 2022
Technology leader Nickolas Means gave a talk in 2008 about the lessons we can learn from one of the great engineering disasters in history: the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in March 1979.

Rate your skills with those stubborn, hard-to-manage employees

January 28, 2022
Managing someone with whom you have a personality clash can be difficult. But good managers know how to separate emotions from the work at hand. Use this self-audit to see how well you do at this task.

How ‘prediction culture’ undermines your leadership

January 12, 2022
One of the conversational habits leaders can succumb to is constant forecasting. In the book Conversation Transformation, authors Ben Benjamin, Amy Yeager and Anita Simon dissect this tendency.

Avoid martyrs—and avoiding becoming one

November 10, 2021
Do you work with a martyr-leader? Or do you suspect that you might be one? Let’s examine the criteria.

5 tips to help employees combat burnout

September 23, 2021
It’s hard to hold on to employees these days. Workers are leaving jobs at near record rates. One of the most frequently cited reasons for quitting is burnout or stress. To retain your current employees, find ways to reduce the degree to which burnout drives dissatisfaction. These five tips can help.

How to coach a salesperson

August 16, 2021
The modern-day business of sales (for the most part) no longer features the drudgery and limitations experienced by the salespeople of lore—young Willy Loman, the Avon Lady, etc.—but that same self-starting, independent, highly motivated attitude is still very much in play.