06 March 2010 ~ 1 Comment

Leadership, Writing & Office Politics

Activity on The People Equation has been light recently due to my many offline projects. Here’s a quick run-down on what’s been happening and how you might benefit from knowing about them:
The HR Happy Hour Tackles Leadership
Earlier this week I was a guest on the The HR Happy Hour radio show (Episode 35: The Leadership [...]

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05 March 2010 ~ 0 Comments

Mentors: Your Words Matter

In January  I wrote a post for National Thank Your Mentor Day in which I publicly thanked several of the people who had mentored me over the years. Not surprisingly, they all reached out to thank me for the recognition. Here’s what was surprising: not a single one of them remembered the advice that I [...]

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03 March 2010 ~ 11 Comments

25 Free Leadership Development Resources

As part of my gig as a guest on the HR Happy Hour’s Leadership Show , I agreed to pull together some leadership resources for the Happy Hour listeners.  When I talk with clients about leadership development, they often say one or both of the following:
a)      We don’t have the time to develop something
b)      We [...]

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03 March 2010 ~ 6 Comments

Twitter Round-Up: Leadership

Tomorrow, I’m going to be a guest on the HR Happy Hour radio show.  The topic is Leadership Development.  Of course, it’s a huge topic and time will be limited on the show, so I decided to create some resources on my blog for the Happy Hour listeners to check out after hearing the show. [...]

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14 February 2010 ~ 0 Comments

Awesomely Simple

Book Review:
Awesomely Simple: Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action
By John Spence
In the introduction to his book Awesomely Simple, author John Spence declares: “everything in this book is from real life: you’ll find no fluff, no grand theories, no intellectual back-flips.” Readers who want complex organizational theories or a rigorously annotated bibliography will have [...]

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26 January 2010 ~ 3 Comments

Stepping Into the Abyss

It’s great when a fellow blogger inspires me to get revved up on a topic. And so it is with Mary Jo Asmus’ series on the role that employees should play in helping their leaders improve.  Last week, in response to her post “Bad Manager or Flawed Human?” the discussion on her blog was lively.  [...]

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26 January 2010 ~ 1 Comment

Leadership’s Ring of Fire

As part of an ongoing series on Positive Office Politics, Mike Henry from the Lead Change Group writes a thought-provoking essay on the ties that sincerity and authenticity have to building trust.  Need to get caught up on the series?  Start at the beginning with Jane Perdue’s blog Life, Love and Leadership. From there, check out my [...]

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14 January 2010 ~ 5 Comments

Employees Can’t Get No Satisfaction

With a clumsy nod to the Rolling Stones’ classic tune, it appears to be true: since 1987, workers have become steadily less satisfied with their work.  This is according to research results released last week by The Conference Board.  What’s more, it’s not a generational thing: satisfaction is decreasing amongst all ages groups.  While the [...]

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26 December 2009 ~ 0 Comments

Taking a Break

I was out in the stores early this morning snapping up some after-Christmas sale items. In what appears to be a developing theme with me, I overheard another conversation with Human Resources implications in the store this morning. (Blog series, perhaps? See my other HR eavesdropping observation here.)
Overheard:
Employee: “Do I really need to take two [...]

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20 December 2009 ~ 5 Comments

The Card Playing CEO

Now, here’s something you don’t see every day:  a company CEO sitting in the firm’s break room playing cards with his frontline employees. 
Or do you? 
This is the question I’ve been pondering for awhile after I witnessed this exact scenario at a client’s headquarters a few weeks ago.  After making a few discreet inquiries with other [...]

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