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A common complaint I hear from people is that they feel that management doesn’t listen to them, tends to impose decisions and doesn’t let them know what’s going on. Management on the other hand thinks that employees are overreacting, should adapt more quickly to change and thinks that they do give employees an opportunity to […]

As part of our leadership training, we use a coaching simulation to teach managers how to be coaches. Here are some of the insights from that simulation: 1. Good coaches don’t have to be the best players – In most professional sports, the coaches are not former elite players. Sometimes a great athlete or a […]

Last week I spoke to a group of high school students who were planning to enter the workplace directly from grade 12. I thought I would share some observations with listeners who might also benefit: – First Impressions are crucial – most people still judge a book by it’s cover so make sure you set […]

Sometimes managers can get lulled into complacency thinking that just because employees keep their heads down and keep their thoughts to themselves that they are happy, when in reality they may be masking disatisfaction. Q: How do you identify a passive person? A: A passive person is actually defensive, it’s just that they choose to […]

Sometimes managers will tell me that they find it difficult to deal with conflicts between two employees – because of the conflict, the employees don’t work well together and the manager may find that flexibility is dimished because they have to keep the employees separated. So the question is – what should the manager do […]

The issue of overprotective parents has been noted in schools and organized activities and what many people may not know is that it is spilling over to university, college and even the workplace. At first I was amazed to hear that parents of children in their late teens and early 20’s were setting up meetings […]

There is a tendency whenever a problem pops up to think that revising the policy and procedure will fix the problem. Often its a knee jerk reaction to an employee who abuses a rule or guideline or a manager who is inconsistent. Often the result is that everyone gets punished for the transgressions of the […]

Being approachable is a constructive and beneficial characteristic of anyone in a leadership role. A production manager at one of my clients had a pretty tough, almost mean expression on his face – that was his default expression. I knew from talking to him that he was actually a good guy but that facial expression […]

When we talk about conflict, for many people what comes to their mind is disagreement, arguement, stress, and difficult. If instead we viewed conflict as essential for healthy and productive workplaces and relationships, then we can harness the positive side of conflict. Conflict is often associated with change – something is changing and all of […]

I hope you had a chance to attend the Personal, Career and Leadership Success seminar this past week – it was a smashing success! This coming Monday we will go back to workplace issues… Effective Teamwork – How you can make better decisions as a team Q: What are some of the reasons that teamwork […]