Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go - Revisited

Still, one of my favorite leadership and culture books. Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go, by Beverly L. Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni, is a book that all leaders should have, not on the bookshelf, but on your desk as an ongoing reference. Below is my original review of this must-have book.

It only happens every few years. I’m talking about leadership books that come out that I like so much that I read it with a highlighter. I use them in staff development and lend them out to others who want to improve themselves and/or their staff.

A few years back it was Creating Magic by Lee Cockerell. Then came From Bud to Boss by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris. Now – I've had the great privilege of reading a pre-launch copy of Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want by Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Help Them Grow is the type of book that makes you think, “Hmm, why haven’t I been doing that?” It’s a straightforward roadmap on how to help your staff develop without you having to take control of the reins. Let your employees grab hold of those reins and become responsible for their own growth. Wow . . . what a concept, right? Can you see your time being freed up?

Kaye and Giulioni say that “your role is more about prompting, guiding, reflecting, exploring ideas, activating enthusiasm, and driving action”. This book shows you ways to incorporate these career conversations in your everyday work life. 

Notice that last sentence that says “everyday”. Leaders don’t have time to hold extended annual appraisals that package up everything from the entire previous year – and shouldn’t – heck, they don’t remember about what you’re talking about half the time anyway! You’re already having everyday conversations with your employees (hopefully), so just change the tone a bit. You don’t need a bunch of checklists and forms. Conversations and asking questions are the keys to development.

This book gives you actionable steps to “focusing on what the employee needs to experience, know, learn, and be able to do”. Too often, leaders think they have to have all the answers (and they avoid the topic if they don’t), when what they actually need most are the questions, permitting the employee to be a first-hand participant in their own successful development.

There’s so much more to this embracing book than I have time for here, so my suggestion to you is to go to Amazon to order yourself a copy or two – others are going to want their own.

Paying People to Quit

As launch week, for the new book Under New Management, is drawing to a close, I have

the honor of hosting a guest blog by author David Burkus. Under New Management has been wildly successful this week and I encourage you to get a copy today.

Paying People to Quit: The Cost of an Unengaged Hire

Possibly the most counterintuitive process to appear in recent years is the idea of paying people to quit their jobs. Not only are some leaders finding it beneficial to company performance, but research suggests these incentives may even have a positive effect on the people who stay.

One benefit of paying people to quit is obvious: it screens out people who would probably end up quitting anyway. In a purely logical world, as soon as people figure out that they've made a bad decision in coming to work at a company, they would leave. However, humans are not logical creatures. As such, we’re subject to a cognitive glitch that makes it difficult to quit the things we start. Economists often refer to this as the 'sunk costs fallacy.' Sunk costs represent the time, money, or effort we’ve already invested in a course of action. Money has already been spent, and there’s no getting it back whether we continue down the same course or break away and go our separate way.

Rationally then, the moment we realize we’ve made a mistake, we should change our course of action. But we don’t do that. In one of the original studies on sunk costs, Hal Arkes and Catherine Blumer (both of Ohio University at the time) asked undergraduate students to envision the following scenario and make a choice:

Assume that you've spent $100 on a ticket for a weekend ski trip to Michigan. Several weeks later you buy a $50 ticket for a weekend ski trip to Wisconsin. You think you'll enjoy the Wisconsin ski trip more than the Michigan ski trip. As you're putting your just-purchased Wisconsin ski trip ticket in your wallet, you notice that both trips are for the same weekend! It’s too late to sell either ticket, and you cannot return them. You must use one ticket and not the other. Which ski trip will you choose?

Surprisingly, the majority of students choose the more expensive Michigan trip even though the Wisconsin trip would be more fun. Despite the fact that the full $150 was spent and couldn’t be recouped students were influenced by how much had been spent on the trip and that led them to make a less enjoyable choice. We’re biased toward throwing more money or more effort at a less enjoyable — or doomed — cause if we’ve put significant effort or money behind it already. Jobs are no different.

It takes time to find a job, and when you’re hired, if you suddenly realize the job isn’t right for you, your sunk costs exert pressure to ignore that realization and continue. Offering a quitting bonus can help offset the sunk costs building up in the mind of the future underperformer. 

For both the employee and the employer, sunk costs make it difficult to end a doomed relationship. Companies that pay people to quit are acting rationally and ignoring sunk costs. They realize they can’t really head off a future problem by investing more time and money in someone who isn’t a good fit. When a company pays an employee to quit, it’s often doing so in the belief that even if they accept the offer, the company is getting a good deal. By giving the employees most likely to be disengaged the option to leave, companies save a lot in the long run. According to research from the Gallup Organization, disengaged employees are less productive, more likely to steal from their employer, skip work, and negatively influence customers and other employees.

At companies that have implemented this policy, only about two to three percent of people who get the offer take it. When people stay, not only does the company get to keep the money, but they might even get a more engaged and productive employee. So what happens to everyone who stays? The answer to that question points to the second reason why paying people to quit works: cognitive dissonance.

'Cognitive dissonance' is the term psychologists use to describe the discomfort you feel when two ideas conflict in your mind, as well as your attempts to reconcile them. The theory of cognitive dissonance was first proposed by Leon Festinger, a social psychologist who worked at a variety of universities, from MIT to Stanford.

Jack Brehm, another social psychologist, built on Festinger’s theory with a phenomenon he labeled 'post-decision dissonance.' Brehm theorized that after we make certain decisions, we modify our beliefs to strengthen the validity of that decision. In a famous experiment, Brehm asked 225 female students to rate a series of common household appliances. The students were then asked to choose between two of the appliances they’d rated to take home as a gift for participating. Brehm followed up with the students and asked them to complete a second round of rating the same appliances. Oddly, the students’ ratings had changed. In the second round, most of the participants rated the appliance they’d chosen as a gift higher than they’d rated it in the first round, and likewise rated the rejected item lower than they had before.

While it may seem counterintuitive, offering disengaged or unsuitable hires the opportunity to self-select out can lead to greater engagement and productivity from the employees who remain, as well as increased profitability for the company as a whole.

*****

David Burkus is the author of the new book, Under New Management. He is host of the Radio Free Leader podcast and associate professor of management at Oral Roberts University. Please visit his website at www.davidburkus.com.

Flip Flops in the Office

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about things his manager does that drives

him nuts (many).  The one issue that really struck a cord was flip flopping.

I've had a couple of managers throughout my working years that were pros at flip flopping. Whether it was making changes to a new SOP and eventually flipping right back to the way it was originally written, or telling me to do one thing and then completely going off when it's being done.  

Now don't get me wrong.  There's nothing wrong with changing your mind.  Things change. Circumstances change.  I totally expect it.  But to be a good and trusted leader, you must take the time to think things through.  Knee jerk reactions have a bad habit of coming back on you.  People start to wonder what the interpretation of the day is.  You may think it doesn't affect you, but it affects your team and the way they do their jobs and the way they think about you, whether positively or negatively.  Flip-flopping will eventually lead to people throwing up their arms and giving up and negatively impacting the culture.  Then everyone's productivity goes down.

I think a lot of it comes down to time management.  Throughout the last 20 years or so I can't even count the number of times I've heard how "busy" people are, and that's their excuse for not reacting or thinking through.  Everyone is busy, but time is an important factor in good leadership.  You have to make the time.  Leaders are role models, whether that means good ones or bad ones.  The easier you make your teams job, the easier you're going to make your job.

The Treasure in Books

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates loot on Treasure Island

and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life."

This is one of my favorite Walt Disney quotes.  A lot of quotes we see, no matter who they come from, tend to be just soundbites.  But they're just comments with little actual meaning and left up to the reader to interpret.

But this quote leaves little to figure out.  Reading is important.  It's important all the way through school . . . and beyond.  Anything you want to learn more about is probably in a book.  The Internet can be a great resource, but it doesn't take the place of a great book.

Whether we're trying or not, learning never ends and we all need to feed that learning.  I'm always talking about this with leaders.  Things change, people change, cultures change, and there are a number of author's out there that keep up on these changes for us.  All we need to do is pick up a book here and there.

Take a look at some of these author's writings and build your loot:  Mark Miller, Bill Treasurer, Julie Winkle Giulioni, Lee Cockerell, Cheryl Bachelder, Ken Blanchard, Chris Edmonds, Kevin Eikenberry.  Now get out there and pick up a book.

Why Have Good Character?

Few parents REALLY know how to prepare their children for work life.  Even fewer take the

time. Joanie B. Connell’s new book, Flying Without a Helicopter, will give them a needed boost towards their child’s journey of self-awareness to prepare them for success, not requiring them to take years to figure it out.

This book is broken down into Problems, Solutions, and Exercises, making it easy to follow and to understand.  Whether you’re a parent, a young adult, or even a manager or business owner, you’re going to read this book and end up with some much needed insight into the TRUE meaning of work and life skills.

My guest blogger today just happens to be Joanie Connell. Think about your own character. Is it appropriate for teaching your children?

Why Have Good Character?

By Joanie Connell

One evening several years back, my husband, daughter and I were sitting around the kitchen table after dinner. My husband got up and went into the pantry and shut the door behind him. I heard a bunch of rustling noises, like plastic bags being handled. I couldn’t for the life of me think of why my husband would go into the pantry and shut the door, and what he could possibly be doing in there. Then all of a sudden I remembered that I had hidden all of the Halloween candy in there! He was eating it! What do you think I did? I covered for him in front of my daughter then I took a turn!

Yes, I still do feel guilty about it, 8 years later. It just doesn’t seem right to tell my daughter that she can’t eat candy but I can. But how many of us do this? How many parents hold their children to different standards than they hold themselves? It occurs in various forms.

• The children should get all A’s, even though the parents didn’t.
• The children should cross at the crosswalk, even though the parents don’t.
• The children should never lie, even though the parents do.
• The children should not drink alcohol before the legal age, even though the parents did.
• The children should perform community service, but the parents don’t.

Children learn character from their parents. They catch us in a lie. They ask why it is okay to tell Grandma that her cake was delicious even though we threw it away. They hear us yelling at other drivers from the car. They see whether we return the shopping cart, whether we come to a full stop at the intersection, whether we download music from iTunes or someone else’s computer.

But we shouldn’t just have good character for our kids. We should have it for ourselves first and foremost. And if we don’t have good character for ourselves or our kids, we should have it because society needs people of character for it to succeed. If we all let ourselves go, looking out for no one but ourselves, cheating the rules, and ignoring requests, we will all lose. Humans are social beings; we need each other to survive. Why not treat each other well in the process?

Joanie B. Connell, Ph.D., is a talent management expert and career coach for people across job levels, ages, and industries. She works with companies to attract, develop, and retain top talent and she works with individuals to improve their success and happiness in their careers. Learn more about Joanie and her new book, Flying without a Helicopter online at flyingwithout.com. 

Refire! Don't Retire

Age is an attitude, not a number.  Anyone who’s “getting older” should read Ken Blanchard and Morton Schaevitz new book, Refire! Don’t Retire.

Too many people use age as an excuse to slow down, stop learning, and retire.  You’ve got a lot more time and adventure in you than you think.  Too many people just give in to time.  Here, you have an outline to refiring emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually.

This book is so full of thought provoking ideas, you’re not going to want to put it down.  I know, I know, “I don’t like to read”.  Well, fine.  Get the book anyway and just go through the Pause, Reflect, Take Action questions at the end of each section.  I guarantee you’ll have a number of “a-ha” moments.

Not thinking about retirement yet?  Read it anyway.  There are many doors waiting in your future (and present) besides the retirement door.  Start your renewal now.  Enhance relationships, stimulate minds, and revitalize bodies.  You have the knowledge and ability in you, you just need some help pulling it out and putting it all together.  Blanchard and Shaevitz are going to guide you.

Don’t plan on getting old.  Plan on living life.  If you’re living too well to look at the clock, you won’t need to know what time it is.  You’ve got the steps to a more fulfilling life, now put it all together and live!

Perception and Pulling the Weeds

Perception . . . it's what ultimately may make or break you.

What customers see, hear, touch, and smell may be the things that put your organization over the top of another.

A good example.  Have you ever noticed the hitching posts on Main Street of Walt Disney World?  Probably not.  That's because they paint them every night if needed.  They're nicely painted, no scratches, no gouges.  Do you think you'd notice them if they were all beat up?  Most likely.  Disney wants to be known as a clean and well kept destination.  And they are.

How many times have you walked into a barbershop, Doctor's office, restaurant, or other business and the first thing you see before even entering are weeds in the planters - that are supposed to hold flowers?  You may also see signs falling down, cigarette butts on the ground, filthy windows, portions of lighted signs that are burned out, hand-written paper signs on the doors and windows, employee vehicles parked where customers should be . . . the list goes on.

The point is, that this is part of the businesses Brand (good or bad), and all of these things form your perception of the service and leadership of the establishment before you even enter!  But it doesn't stop there.  The interior is just as important, if not more.  You may have the better service or the better food, but the guy across the street with the more cared for appearance may have more customers.

Put yourself in a customer's shoes.  Make a weekly walk through with a clipboard and make a list of everything that needs attention.  Better yet, create a checklist of things to look for so you don't miss any.  Just remember that none of this does any good unless you actually tend to the difficiencies.

Ask For It - Use It

A little bit of soapbox this morning.  I was reminded yesterday of one of my pet peeves - taking surveys or asking for input and not using it.

This is one of the best ways to get people to shut up and shut down.  If you continue to ask and not act you'll completely stop getting meaningful usable information to improve your leadership, customer service, employee engagement, and revenue.

At one of the organizations I used to work for, we were given employee surveys three times while I was there.  Nothing was ever meaningfully acted on with the information that was collected.  While the first survey was completed by a very high percentage of employee's, can you guess what the percentage was completed for the third one?  It was below 50%.

Why should people take time to share their opinions and ideas if they know there will be no action taken?  It's a waste of their time and intelligence.  And it doesn't look well on you either.

Leaders Open Doors - And Provide Opportunity

Still one of my favorite quotes, author Bill Treasurer says, "If your door is always open, how on earth would you effectively get any work done ...?" This is something I've tried to figure out for years, seeing many doors open and little being accomplished.

This is the second time in a year that I’ve read Leaders Open Doors, by Bill Treasurer . . . this being the new second edition.

Treasurer, Founder and Chief Engagement Officer at Giant Leap Consulting, provides us a whole new definition to "open door policy" - one that takes action to open doors for others - one that creates opportunities for others, and yourself. He mixes humor, personal stories, and a profound insight into a book that's very easy to read, understand, and put into practice.

This second edition contains an Epilogue with some engaging examples of gratitude that people have had recalling how past leaders that had opened doors for them. It’s sure to get you thinking about who has opened your doors . . . and who has not.

Leaders are role models and set the tone of the organization. Opening doors for people shows that you care for them and want them to succeed as much as yourself. This book will help you reform your culture by helping you to become a positive and powerful influencer. This is a book for sharing.  Share it, along with your new found attitude, with other leaders and you'll soon have employees that thrive and grow . . . and stay.

. . . and keep in mind - All royalities from this book are donated to children's charities!

Make It So

Mark Twain said, "It isn't so astonishing, the number of things I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so."

Being a leader means that information is coming at you from every direction.  With so much information to decypher, why is it that people remember so many things that aren't so?

Leaders have to realize that they're not always getting fed the best information.  Unfortunately subordinates and number crunchers want to make themselves, or the company, look the best they can . . . even at the risk of a few "fibs".  And what would we rather remember - good things or bad things?

Leadership is not a title.  It's an attitude.  No one becomes a leader because of a name plate.  It takes learning and understanding.  And that means learning to be able to sort through information in order to make the best decisions.  You need to learn to be able to cut through the . . . bad info, and focus on what's right.  It's not always going to be good.  It's not always going to be something you want to deal with.  But it's a skill that will allow you to make better decisions down the road.

Responsible In Change

Part of being a responsible leader is preparing your people for change.  With any good

organization, there should be change.  There will be change.  And your staff can probably sense it, even if you'd rather think otherwise.  So promise change . . . because it’s a promise you can keep.

In fact, you should be taking advantage of this opportunity to make some changes that you've already identified in your area of the organization.  With your preparation, you need to understand that the workforce will be primed for change, anticipating it, and therefore poised to adapt more readily than usual.

As part of the management team, you're also responsible for helping to “sell” the changes.  But this doesn’t mean you just throw people a sales pitch about the positive side of the changes and how wonderful things are going to be.  There's normally both good news and bad news, and both sides of the story should be told.

So let people know what they can expect.  Give it to them straight.  They deserve to know - they're adults, they can handle it.  Plus, you couldn’t fool them for long anyway.

I'm Not Accountable

Most people view accountability as something that happens to them when performance

falls off, problems arise, or results fail to come about.  The fact is, many think accountability only crops up when something goes wrong or when someone else wants to pinpoint the cause of the problem - all for the sake of pinning blame and pointing the finger.  When things are sailing along smoothly, people rarely ask, “Who's accountable for this success?”  Typically, no one starts looking around for the responsible party until something adverse happens.

If you take a look at dictionaries, most provide a definition of accountability that promotes a pretty negative view.  Webster’s defines accountability as: “subject to having to report, explain, or justify; being answerable, responsible.”  Notice how the definition begins with the words, subject to, implying little choice in the matter.  This confession and powerless definition suggests that accountability is viewed as a consequence for poor performance, something you should fear because it can only end up hurting you.

Since most people experience accountability this way, it’s no wonder they spend so much time shunning it and explaining and justifying poor results.

Lead Positive

Kathy Cramer’s recent book release of Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders

See, Say, and Do, had me from hello.  I don’t often spend too much time reading introductions prior to getting right into the book, but this time I found myself captivated.  Just from those first few pages I could have put the book down and been happy – but I was intrigued.

Within the first short page, she sets the tone with a quote that I’m going to find myself using (with acknowledgement of course) often, “When you Lead Positive, you offer a competing vision of the future by reframing problems into possibilities and appealing to a higher sense of purpose”.

The concepts of this book are so simple to understand and to put into play.  You’ll want to read it with a highlighter so you can go back to review and share.

Positive leaders aren’t as plentiful as one would think.  Many talk the talk but don’t quite walk the walk.  Using Kathy’s ideas will help you walk the talk.  Using asset-based thinking (I’ll leave that for you to read about), you will learn to use the Lead Positive framework of,

·         See – ‘zeroing in on what is working, strong, and possible’

·         Say – ‘speaking to the mind, heart, and spirit’

·         Do – ‘starting a positive ripple effect’.

Using the self-assessments throughout the book will help you and encourage you to better your own positive outlook and leadership ability so it can be passed on to and through others.  It’s a great playbook to use with leadership training or for refocusing your own leadership talents.

Leading Valiantly in Healthcare

Healthcare leaders are typically a different type of breed from say, manufacturing, financial, or retail leaders.  There is more often than not, a much bigger sense of intrinsic motivation.  But even that begins to take a back seat sometimes.

If you are new to healthcare – it is never too early to start charting your course.  If you are a seasoned leader - you still have room to learn and refresh.  This is where the new book, Leading Valiantly in Healthcare: Four Steps to Sustainable Success, by Catherine Robinson-Walker is going to make a difference.

With so many – and continual - changes in healthcare regulations and technologies, it is easy these days to be caught up in the “bottom line” mode.  Robinson-Walker’s book gives you the tools and references to spark that passion and courage that is so desired by today’s staff, patients, and customers.  She pulls from her years of experiences and interviews to show you how to “adjust our leadership strategies based on new circumstances, additional information, and new learning” in order to lead with valor.

Robinson-Walker’s six leadership seductions and cycle of leadership valor combine to help you to pause and look at the various challenges you may find yourself in and to increase your self-awareness - thus making better quality decisions.  In part, leading with valor means responding to challenges thoughtfully, individually, and fully.  In leadership – especially in healthcare - there are no one-size-fits-all decisions.  It really requires an open heart and mind.

This book will help you to become a more confident and courageous leader, fostering integrity, self-control, and character.  If you are motivated to sharpen your skills and open to trying new approaches (stepping out of your comfort zone), this book is the guide that you will want to read, practice, and learn from.  It just may make the difference that you have been looking for.

To Tell Em Or Not

Customers react to bad service in many different ways.  The two main ways are to either talk to a supervisor or just leave without telling anyone.  Which would you rather have happen at your organization?

If an upset customer leaves without telling anyone, you're probably not going to see that person again . . . and they're going to a few of their friends who are then going to tell a few of theirs.  You'll never know what the issue was and you'll never know that it needs to be fixed.

If an upset customer stops to talk with you, sure it's taking time away from your own agenda and you have to have personal contact, but realize that they're taking a personal interest and time to let you know that you have a problem.  The only way to fix the issue is to know about it, right.

If you don't have readily available means to let customer contact you, you're missing out - big time - plus you're ticking them off even more.  If people want to complain, they're going to search and find a way.  But, on the other hand, what about the people who want to say nice things or share ideas that could make other customers' visits better?  They may take a quick look on the Internet for a contact, but if they don't find it quickly enough, you're not going to hear from them.

This is all a part of your organizations Brand.

A means of personal contact, phone numbers, and emails - ensure that they're readily available at the "point of sale", your website, and brochures.  Good customer service sells.

The Company Doesn't Owe You

A little bit of soapbox today.  Be thankful for your job.

Things that have happened this year and people that I hear and have heard talking, has again gotten my mind wondering where people get some of their thoughts from.

For instance, is there ANY company that OWES you a job?  I can't think of one.  But on the other hand YOU owe your company your best work . . . whether you like the job or not.

Unless you own the company, you're expendable.  When it comes to bad economies or budget cuts, for whatever reason, you may be dispensable. Lets face it, these are just the facts of life.

In his book, It's Called Work for a Reason, Larry Winget explains that, "Many people have become so dependent on their company, on society, and on others that they think they are owed a living.  They think the company is there to serve them instead of the truth, which is that they are there to serve the company".

Whether you're a manager, supervisor, or the guy that started in the mailroom yesterday, don't get caught up in these "entitlement" thoughts.  So what can you do?  Do your best, stand out, and take personal responsibility.  These are the things that are going to make you a success, whether it's at your current job or your next.

You're not owed a job . . . so make your leaders WANT to keep you.

What The Heck Is Going On?

What ever happened to, "innocent until proven guilty"?  Why has it morphed into just the opposite?

When Paula Deen was recently reported to have used the N-word - she was immediately chastised by losing sponsors before all the facts and issues came out.  When Trayvon Martin was shot, people immediately took to the streets in protest - without knowing ANY of the facts.

These two cases are currently being scrutinized in the media and legal system, meaning, we don't yet know the full extent of guilt to any of the parties involved.

Don't we find this in our everyday business life also?  How many have had leaders that jump to the conclusion and react instead of act?  It's the "easy" way out.  Sweep it under the rug and hope it goes away.  Problem is, that often makes it an even bigger issue to deal with and it ends up taking on a life of it's own, sucking up time and resources on it's way.

Leaders.  Stop.  Look at all the facts.  Act instead of react, and put yourself on the right track to making the right decision.

Keep It Out

As we get closer and closer to election time, we hear more and more "stuff".  And that's exactly what it is.

Have you ever wondered how no one is ever wrong when it comes to politics?  Why is that?  Because we never know ALL of the facts on why someone did this or didn't do that or thought this or that . . . NEVER.

Politics boils down to one thing - opinion.  Anytime someone speaks of politics, it's mostly the way they've developed "information" in their own head.  No matter what, you can't win the argument.  So what purpose is there to purposely bringing non-winnable arguments into the office?

I say, go ahead and have your opinion.  Everyone's entitled to it.  But don't bring it in the form of a controversy   There are so many other things in the office that we can constructively put that effort towards.

Oh, by the way . . . the same goes about religion.

"Remarkable" Workshop

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Kevin Eikenberry Groups' Bud to Boss Workshop.  They certainly lived up to their tagline of "You Are Remarkable."

While other leadership training workshops tend to be canned and uneventful, the Bud to Boss facilitator, Valerie Plis, tailored the two days to the attendees' personality's and needs.

Some would look at the agenda and think there's nothing new that's going to happen here.  But I was very pleasantly surprised.  I didn't believe anyone could come up with so many new and creative ways of leading.

One of my favorite elements of the workshop (and of most attending) was the ease of understanding that Bud to Boss makes of the DiSC model.  Valerie used the entire group of attendees to illustrate the quadrants so we could experience it first hand.

Another of my favorites, that we used continuously throughout the two days, was:

• acknowledge the (issue),
• ask questions,
• set expectations.

By doing these three things, you can effectively deal with most any problem.

And lastly, the Bud to Boss ABC's of Coaching (accountability, belief, conversation) opened all of our eyes and gave us a good stepping off point to becoming remarkable leaders.

Would I recommend this workshop for new leaders?  No.  I'd recommend this workshop for leaders at all levels.  So take a look at the workshop link above and find a workshop near you.

Don't Fight It

Don't fight CHANGE. It happens. It must happen in order to grow.

You can try to ignore change, but it doesn't stop it. You can try to stop change, but you're just fooling yourself. You can try to insulate yourself from the effects of change, but that's just speeding up career death. You can't fight change and expect to be successful.

Watch out for these 7 warning signs of change resistance. You're:

• still using the old rules to play the new game.



• ducking new assignments.



• trying to slow things down.



• working hard to control the uncontrollable.



• playing the role of victim.



• hoping someone else can make things better for you.



• absolutely paralyzed, like a deer in the headlights.

A good leader makes responsiveness to change your PERSONAL mission. Be a Change Leader!