If there’s one thing I’ve learned with absolute certainty over the last thirty years in the workforce, having at least some level of leadership responsibility for the vast majority of that time, it’s that none of us can accomplish all we need to on our own. Whether we’re...

I believe the most vivid memory I have of someone in a leadership role answering cries for help was that of President George W. Bush at Ground Zero just days after 9/11. As he was addressing the crowd, someone yelled that they couldn't hear him and he responded, “I can hear you. I can hear...

Make no mistake, knowing what our team members are looking for from us is not terribly complicated! They will definitely make a point of telling us. That will generally (but not always) be direct and/or verbal early in our process of working to earn leadership with them, but it will get harder...

In so much of what we’ve worked through in addressing each of the profitability killers to this point, I’ve referenced studies listing facts and data emphasizing the specific impact each one has on our bottom line. As much as I want to do that again here, contrasting the overall...

If you think back to one of the first things I called your attention to in this process of addressing these profitability killers, one of the things we covered as we looked at how it all starts at the top - or at least the best returns can be captured when that’s the case - was the...

I completely understand how many issues demand the attention of a business owner, an executive, a manager, and even front line supervisors every single day! But if we’re going to be the leader that truly does provide our team members with what they’re looking for - and deserve - from...

After a couple of references to a song so new as 2016, I feel like I need to mix in something from the hair band era to maintain my street cred so let’s think in terms of Shelter Me by one of the most talented bands ever included in that genre, Cinderella. After naming a list of vices...

If we really are tuned into what our team members are looking for from us as their leaders, we need to be intentional about providing them with the support they’ll need to accomplish their goals. Some of those goals tie right back to daily, weekly, or monthly productivity but those goals...

As we’ve worked through each of these individual profitability killers, my goal has been to provide you with some basic, practical steps you can take in applying specific behaviors that help you communicate with and lead your team members more effectively, making a measurable difference in...

If we’re going to build profitable succession plans, creating advancement opportunities that are a bit outside the traditional approach of promoting (read: pushing) our best team members into supervisory or management roles primarily based on their technical expertise and work ethic will...

In seeing how much profitability we can miss out on when we lose credibility and our team becomes less loyal, and those certainly aren’t the only issues we’ll see if we aren’t holding our team members accountable, one may ask why a leader would even consider allowing this to go...

OK leaders, I’m counting on you to have done the work to address the last profitability killer we looked at, The Cost of Confusion, by taking the steps to set clear expectations for your teams. Even with the most detailed explanation though, we’re not likely to see our team members...