Each week after my column appears, it is neat to see the reactions. It also leads to some questions and observations. This column is based on a couple of recent ones.  What if your boss does not appear to appreciate you? This note I received led to a phone...

The August 8th issue of the Wall Street Journal featured an article called “How Tim Cook Made Apple His Own.” I was immediately drawn to this piece because I know that it is hard to follow successful leaders, especially those with very strong beliefs on how things...

There are numerous times in a person’s life when they are at a crossroads. One road is marked comfort. The other road is marked character. When people are asked which road they would take, they often say character. Yet while it sounds good, my observation is many...

Over the years, with the companies I am part of, we have put in place a mid-year check-in with all employees. It starts with me checking in with my direct reports and cascades to everyone in the organization. The questions vary slightly depending on whether a person...

No one goes undefeated. We will all face a disappointment, failure, or some other form of loss at one time or another. How a loss is handled says a great deal about a person. For me, it took longer than I would like to admit to mature to the point where I could handle...

In every organization, there will be situations in which the “fit” is not right for some employees. As a result, employees are let go. In other cases, employees may decide to leave the organization on their own. Either way, how these departures occur really matters. I...

Who is your biggest competitor? This is a question I ask when a business comes to me seeking assistance in improving their performance. The most common answer I hear is a little counterintuitive. Often the main competitor is not another company, but a mindset:...

Life doesn’t always go perfectly. Neither does business. From time to time, mistakes will happen, and we will let customers down. And while service missteps are always upsetting (to the customer and the company), how we handle them makes all the difference. Recently...

Have you ever noticed that when things don’t go well, there’s always a meeting afterward? It’s typical for companies to do a deep dive, analyzing step by step what went wrong and how to fix it. We spend a lot of time, energy, and heartache focusing on what goes wrong....

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.  As work gets back in full swing, many of us are finding ourselves in new territory. We aren’t going back to the same company, the same customers, the same employees, or the same vendors. All of...