MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP

1 Thing Your Employees Need to Hear You Say

Can you guess what it is?  If not now, maybe you will after I share my experience a few years back. When I worked as a District Manager, I often traveled with the Regional Manager or the VP of Operations to our various stores.  It was natural to greet the store managers and say hello to the associates.  However, I noticed my companions wouldn’t say hello to most of the employees in the store.  In fact, they hardly noticed any of the employees.  The Regional Manager and VP, dressed in suits, and holding their briefcases,…

How to Take Charge of your Business

How to take charge of your communications, calendar and projects. No, the following is not an advertisement.  Though I will begin this post with a disclaimer.  I’m a big fan of Microsoft Office, including Outlook.  Have been for years.  Granted, with my work background and usage, I am an expert user of Outlook, so the critique some have of not knowing how to use all the functions has never slowed me down.  Those who are not fans of MS Office (including Outlook), have strong feelings on the subject.  Just spend a little time on the…

Can’t Keep up? 3 Ways to Simplify Your Workflow

If you’re reading this post hoping to learn how to simplify your workflow so you can ADD more work to your day I hope you’ll reconsider. The whole point of simplifying is just that – to simplify. So you have mental space in your day to do important things like thinking and planning. Simplifying should free up some energy so you can tackle all you have to do with more vigor and have a little oomph leftover. Who couldn’t use more oomph? A reality for us all to learn is that we can’t do everything….

The Work Life Manifesto: Say Goodbye to Your Crazy Boss For Good

The idea for The Work Life Manifesto came from a blog post I wrote earlier this year. It was about saying thank you in the workplace and it was a popular topic on social media. It always struck me as strange that in personal relationships when someone is with an abusive partner, friends & family insist the person being abused leave immediately. But when the hostile environment is in the workplace, the opposite holds true. People don’t believe it’s really happening, or they tell you to stick it out or the worst one, they say “that’s just the way…