3 Things to Do When You’re NOT Looking to Make a Career Move

HR professionals know the War for Talent is real. So, what does that mean for individuals who are comfortable in their current jobs? It’s simple; don’t get too comfortable. I received a call from a colleague once who said a hiring manager had reached out to her about me. Apparently, she had seen our connection on LinkedIn and asked if she thought I might be interested in a job. I wasn’t even looking, but was offered an opportunity that turned out to be enjoyable contract work and nice supplemental income. Now more than ever, recruiters and hiring managers are seeking

Leaders Should Be Learners

Guest blog written by: Steve Graham The Commitment: Leaders set the tone for an organization.  They must be agile in their responses to the ever-changing marketplace and business climate.  Leaders are charged with growing organizations, and learning is a part of the growth process. Learning can take various shapes within an organization.  It can be organic, formalized, personalized, or on-demand.  Whatever the shape, learning needs to be part of a leader’s commitment to improve both personally and professionally.   One big lesson of learning is how to use failure.  The old saying, “Failure is not an option”, is not realistic.  Even

Explain Your Why. Don’t Assume Why.

After a particularly long doctor’s appointment with our seven-year-old, the topic of his prescription (he has epilepsy and takes a medicine to control his seizures) came up. The nurse practitioner came back in to say she had sent it to the pharmacy electronically. My husband said, “We need it written in 500mL increments.” She looked at him like who do you think you are, trying to tell me how to write a prescription. I looked at my husband and tried to telepathically tell him, “Explain to her why you are making that request.”  I may or may not have also

The next activity you need to do with your leaders: What needs to start, stop or stay?

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” Max DePree Feedback is a critical to any successful performance management and development process.  With trends in feedback moving leaders towards less formal mechanisms of feedback and away from a formal performance appraisal, we still need to be thinking about how to define the current state of someone’s behavior and performance in order to direct what we want to see. And sometimes we can formalize things and still make them feel “casual”.   A way to do this is to have a 1. Start 2. Stop 3.  Stay session. To do this:

What If You Were Mystery Shopped?

One of my clients is a small retail chain in North Alabama. Each month I send out an email communication to their store managers and I always include an article that I feel is relevant to their business to give them some food for thought. This month the topic was “If your store were mystery shopped, would you pass?” and the article included a sample mystery shop survey that has 35 questions. I challenged them to “shop” their own store and be brutally honest in their answers. Would they pass the test? And if not, what can they and their