REPOST! Don’t Want to Wake Up With Regrets? Create a Mission Statement

This post was originally published on August 30, 2013 and has been updated. Mission statements are critical to directing success.  Companies have them, why don’t individuals?  Having one can help you focus and reach what you want to accomplish in life by answering the who, what, why and how of you.  Its not a mission statement unless it is written down. Whether or not you are trying to make career or college decisions in your life, everyone needs to have a personal mission statement. The exercises focused on identifying finding your talents, passions and values, for career purposes are a good starting place to help

2 Keys to Being a Successful Leader Instead of a Doer

A production line worker is promoted to line supervisor, yet he is still running the line like the rest of his team. A department Vice President is still solving day-to-day issues and is drowning in a to-do list that has nothing to do with leading the people in her department. At every level of the leadership hierarchy, I see it often.  Leaders not leading.  Yes, they are busy doing, but they devote little to no time leading people.   And if they just led more, it would actually shorten their to-do list! They were stars at their functional roles, so what

Does Your Team Talk in Metaphors?

One of my favorite things to do for companies is to help them understand what distinguishes high performers from average and/or low performers in their organization. The purpose of this could be for a variety of reasons, but oftentimes, it is to help companies create a profile and tools to select the right talent. We ask the clients to provide us with the opportunity to talk to high, mid and low performers.  We ask them a series of job analysis questions and watch them work for a bit.  While we watch them work, we ask them questions about what they

Bullying Doesn’t Just Happen at School: Workplace Bullying

I recently saw an article about a nine year old boy in Denver who took his own life after being bullied during his first four days of school. My youngest son is eight and I can’t imagine him ever feeling like his only choice is suicide. When my oldest was in elementary school he was bullied by another child at his daycare. While he has always been a very headstrong child, the bullying continued to the point where he had put up with enough. Together we sat down with his martial arts instructor, who is phenomenal at working with children

Forget the 401K Plan, Does Benefit Package Address Getting Rid of Debt?

“According to Make Lemonade, there are more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. alone. The average student in the Class of 2016 has $37,172 in student loan debt,” sites a June 2018 Forbes article. Furthermore, check out the consumer debt picture (this is separate from student loan debt) in America from Business Insider: The debt issue is a problem on so many levels, but for employers, it is impacting thoughts and decisions about what a desirable benefits package looks like in order to recruit and retain employees. Is the savings piece of your benefits