What do fire extinguishers and management have in common?

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a brief workplace safety training on how to use fire extinguishers. As part of the training – perhaps the part the sold me on attending –… Read More →

Leadership: Royalty or Servant?

Which role sounds more like leadership to you: King or busboy? Leadership is a responsibility to achieve results in a sustainable way – this sustainability comes – in part – through a servant… Read More →

Using Incentives to Influence Change (Influence and Change 7 of 10)

Which Kind of Carrot Best Helps Your Cause? External incentives can be a helpful compliment in an overall behavior change strategy, but are often insufficient or even counter-productive by themselves. First, external incentives… Read More →

Find the Right People to Help (Influence and Change 6 of 10)

Do the people you enlist for support help or hurt your cause? Humans are inherently social creatures, which can work to the advantage of the aspiring influencer. Change often involves ambiguity, especially at first.… Read More →

Building Necessary Capabilities (Influence and Change 5 of 10)

How do You Get to Carnegie Hall? (Practice!) You have a change in mind. You’ve identified the key behaviors that will enable this change, and the right people are excited to starting doing… Read More →

Simple (but effective) Ways to Create Motivation (Influence and Change 4 of 10)

 (1 of 10) Decrypting the “Impact Gene” (2 of 10) Find the Behaviors that Matter (3 of 10) Communicate Key Behaviors You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it… Read More →

What is the “Impact Gene”? (Influence and Change 1 of 10)

We’ve all experienced people who get a message across in an impactful and memorable way, who can create changes by inspiring others to act. We’ve heard stories about people who make huge changes… Read More →

Are You Leading or Manipulating?

What’s the difference between truly leading people and manipulating them? Are you being sneaky by using “leadership tricks” or “management techniques” to get people to do things? Are great leaders simply master manipulators?… Read More →

How To Talk Without Saying Anything

“We need to shift the corporate paradigm to align with our value-add strategy, starting with fresh, outside-the-box thinking.”

Huh???

Leadership: Inborn Trait or Learned Behavior?

Clearly LeBron was born with an incredible amount of potential, but if he had never learned and practiced the specific skills necessary to be a basketball player, he would not be the player he is today (we might not have ever heard of him!).