Use Projects To Make Improvements
Do you think in terms of projects when making improvements in your department? You, as a leader, can embrace the concept of projects to move your department closer and closer to your vision of excellence. But before creating a project, leaders should have a vision first. Most, if not all, leaders can list all the […]
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Avoid Standard Work Stagnation
Is your organization suffering from standard work stagnation? Standard work and operating procedures can sometimes get out of hand. As a leader, you can put so much emphasis on them that it takes away some of the innovation and flexibility in your work group. Standardizing work is important in an operational environment. Organizations put a […]
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Triage Employee Behaviour Problems
How should you as a front line leader triage employee behaviour problems? As a leader, when determining the consequences to apply to a behavior or performance issue, you’re going to do the same thing that a nurse does in the emergency department – triage. Triage in a hospital means the nurse assesses the severity of […]
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Serve Colleagues Like Your Boss
Most of us know you should work hard to keep your boss happy. Happy boss, happy career. But have you considered putting the same level of attention into keeping your colleagues happy? Some leaders avoid being helpful to their colleagues, thinking that their only job is to keep their boss happy. Some might even think, […]
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Supporting Behavior Change
When you give an employee feedback you have to always follow up. As a leader, how do you follow up on a corrective conversation to sustain the positive changes that you’ve asked an employee or team member to make? If they make the change, but you don’t recognize it, there is a chance they might […]
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Doing Nothing Is An Option
Not everything needs your immediate reaction. When do you know it’s the right time to do nothing? Most front line leaders are action oriented. They want to jump in, they want to fix things, they want to make a decision or solve a problem. However, sometimes being action oriented can cause unintended consequences. Remember, doing […]
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Are You A Creator Or A Victim?
How you react to the challenges you face says a lot about you as a leader. I’ve noticed over the years that some leaders play the victim card while other leaders create a future that is very magnetic and causes people to want to follow them. You can either be that creator, that entrepreneurial leader […]
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Employee Of The Month Is A Bad Idea
I want to confront something that companies, even to this day, still do, that I think is a horrible idea. Employee of the month. There’s different variations of this same concept. You might have crew of the month, team of the month, or location of the month. It all starts out innocently enough. The leader’s […]
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Retaining New Team Members
Great news! You just hired a much-needed new person to join your team. But if you don’t do a good job making them feel welcomed, they likely won’t stick around. In a competitive job market, hiring people is tough enough, but keeping them is even more difficult. And organizations with lower wages and more grueling […]
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Taking Over After A Bad Boss
It can be a challenge to follow a bad manager but you can help the team excel and enjoy a more positive future. How do you take over a department from a weak leader who preceded you? First of all, assuming that you’re going to be more effective than the previous person leading the department, […]
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