Most of us grew up hearing about the Golden Rule, which is basically about treating others how you want to be treated. The Golden Rule is an incredibly powerful spiritual law. In fact, some version of it is found in every major belief system, from Judaism to...

I read lots of research. That means I regularly see formulas like N=500 or N=600 or N=1,000. The N stands for number, and the number afterward stands for how many people are included in the data. In essence, for research purposes, the larger the number the...

Many businesses are desperately seeking good employees right now. Yours may be one of them. But even if you’re not feeling the impact of the talent shortage yet, there’s a chance that, right now, you have employees who are thinking about quitting. So here’s the...

We learn by doing. Recently a personal situation came up that I did not know how to handle. I called someone to ask for advice. The advice I received was to be compliant with the process that people with expertise were recommending.  It seems the more experience...

As leaders, we don’t want to set aside just one day out of the year to show employees the love. We need to do that every day. But Valentine’s Day is a good reminder to take a step back and assess the quality of the relationships we’re building with our employees—and,...

It seems that even after all these years, I still find those “aha!” moments. By that I mean situations in which I suddenly become aware of something and wonder why I did not know it sooner. When this happens, I try to move from “I should have known this...

“We used to worry about money, and we lost it; now we worry about people, and we make it.”  —Tom Badal, former environmental service manager at Holy Cross Hospital, Chicago, Illinois Tom, who has since passed, summed it up very well. He made this...

Some see a solution to every problem. And some see a problem with every solution. I posted this quote on my LinkedIn account some time back, and it received many views.  Over the past several months, I have had the great opportunity...

What are some red flags that show a leader and/or a company is in trouble? There are many. Two that resonate with me are a) a leader saying, “You stole (or are trying to steal) my employee!” and b) an obsession with the competition. Let us start with the first...

Do you filter out the positives? My experience over the years has been that many people reject or minimize positive feedback. Do an experiment. Go up to someone and provide them with a very specific compliment about something they have done. You will most likely hear...