More than twenty years ago, I learned what’s proven to be one of the most impactful lessons I’ve ever heard around communication from a friend who was a practicing veterinarian. He explained that he could kill my dog and as long as he told me the right way, I’d bring every other dog I ever owned bac...

An article from Harvard Business Impact called “Good Leadership? It all starts with trust.” opens by saying, “Trust is one of the most vital forms of capital a leader has today.” The author then defines trust as “a belief in the abilities, integrity, and character of another person.” A Forbes articl...

Earlier, I mentioned the HR Manager I worked with for over a decade providing a great example of having the confidence to connect with others and build relationships through the process. Whether it was during his time managing the human resource department locally or after he accepted a role based o...

Do you remember the story about Goldilocks and the Three Bears? I can’t exactly recall how she got into their house, or even why she was in the area to begin with, but I do remember that she was tired and needed a nap. In trying each bed in the place, she found that Papa Bear’s was too hard, Mama Be...

I truly believe that one of the most essential qualities of leadership is serving the team we’re leading. Unfortunately, the idea of serving those team members is often mistaken for catering to those team members, which doesn’t serve anyone!

As we worked through that quality of service in the last ...

Think back to the mission statement I shared as I opened the last post; “Delivering customer satisfaction with empowered employees using continuous improvement to get it right the first time, every time.” The piece about empowered employees sounds warm and fuzzy, but what does that really look like?...

As we look at this group that represents the final 25% of our equation, it’s unlikely that quality will be the issue. The folks with this Reserved and Task-Oriented behavioral style are very CONSCIENTIOUS about performing everything they do with accuracy and precision. The work that they do nearly a...

Now that we’ve covered some things we can do to apply The Platinum Rule when we have those candid conversations with our folks who have those first two primary communication styles, our more Outgoing and Fast-Paced team members, we’re doing to need to dial it down a bit as we prepare to chat with th...

As we move from the DRIVEN folks we looked at last time who only make up about 10% of the population to this next group who are just as Fast-Paced and make up around 30% of everyone we’ll ever interact with, there are some very key differences we need to consider as we prepare to have a candid conve...

Through the last several posts, we’ve taken a hard look at just how important it is to have candid conversations with our team members when they’re not keeping it between the ditches rather than ducking the issue and hoping things will get better on their own. While we’ve looked at some very specifi...

We’ve been looking at different scenarios where team members aren’t performing to the level they’re capable, whether that be through their words or their deeds. In some cases, it can be very intentional. But there are certainly times where they’re just not aware that more is needed. 

For the most p...

In the last blog post, I shared a story about a fellow who thought the owner of the company rigged the soda machine to squeeze a few more nickels out of him. Then I shared a little bit about how the negative comments he made about the owner openly in front of his supervisor and many of the team memb...