From the category archives:

Leadership

Corporate Culture and Consistency

August 11, 2011

My husband, the love of my life, had brain surgery earlier this year. The anticipation, wondering if it was benign or cancerous (it was benign and he is almost fully recovered), praying that the neurosurgeon would not suddenly get the shakes, being in a hospital away from home and having no family nearby all added [...]

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Why Men Ask More Questions Than Women

June 20, 2011

  I picked up one of my favorite books to re-read last week: Talking from 9 to 5, by Dr. Deborah Tannen. Tannen is a linguistics expert, and has written several books to help us understand the differences in how men and women communicate in the workplace. There was a section of the book that [...]

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More Money Leads to Poor Performance

May 11, 2011

Yes, you read the headline correctly. And it flies in the face of everything most of us have been taught about motivating employees. By the way, I don’t believe motivating employees means you need to hold their hands all day and fix their problems – especially when one of their problems is that they don’t [...]

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The Simplest And Best Advice About Delegating I’ve Ever Heard (PG-13)

February 16, 2011

If you struggle with delegating work to your employees, you’re not alone. Entrusting parts of your business, your blood, sweat, money and reputation is scary and you wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t have a fair amount of trepidation about it. However, if you are an entrepreneur, you simply can’t afford not to delegate. What [...]

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Do You Should On People

February 3, 2010

Great Expectations…we learn early in life that expectations can bring great joy, satisfaction and reward; and unfilled expectations can be equally disheartening and damaging to perceptions and relationships. When we live a life of expectation and build a business around expectations, we look to others to fulfill those needs. We expect our children to love [...]

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Choices And Lessons

December 16, 2009

As most of you know, there was a bit of drama yesterday regarding one of my blog posts. To those of you who reached out to me via blog comments, on Twitter and in direct messages I thank you! As I write this, I’m  feeling deeply appreciative of my friends and colleagues. And so, I’d [...]

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Charlie Brown Business Sense

December 7, 2009

Forget business for a moment. Let’s talk Christmas trees. Have you ever been to a tree lot with a perfectionist? That one’s too big. That one’s scrawny. That one has a gap on the left side where a bird had a nest. Too small. Too short. Too green. Too pine-y. Too spruce-y. And after hours [...]

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The Gossip Grapevine Part 3 – Yellow-Bellied Cowards

December 4, 2009

In the Old West, the ultimate insult to any man was to call him a coward. Being “yellow” meant you were less than a man and you didn’t have the guts to do the right thing. One of the most infamous cowards of the American old west is Robert Ford, known as “The Coward Who [...]

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The Gossip Grapevine Part 2 – Minimizing The Negative Impact of Gossip

November 19, 2009

Old School Why do we love to gossip? In the first post on gossip, we found out that people gossip because it is a way for them to find support, feel justified and to protect what they feel is being threatened. But regardless of the reason for gossip, it is still destructive. Gossip is here [...]

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Stupid Things My Boss Says

November 13, 2009

I have a friend who faithfully watches the hit tv show The Office and reports the shenanigans of the unruly, stupendously inappropriate, sexist, megalomaniacal boss Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell). In case you haven’t seen the office, here is a quick snapshot of the brilliance Michael Scott brings to his company. When I watched [...]

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Vampires Friends And Sales

October 29, 2009

So I’ve got a couple of friends who are emotional vampires. Take “Sherry” for example. We started out as great friends! We’d laugh together, shop together, support each other and just hang out. Something started changing though. Sherry started having drama in her life. Serious drama. This happened, that happened and “it’s so terrible.” Over [...]

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Is Winning Everything

October 20, 2009

October, 1996, an upset happened in the boxing world that no one expected. Heavy-weight champion Evander Holyfield hit Mike Tyson, knocked him out and Evander won the much anticipated match.The media, the fans and Mike all asked for a rematch. They got it on June 28, 1997. It was a $100 million rematch. We had [...]

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Are You Being A Zax

September 11, 2009

As a child, you might recall reading the Dr. Seuss story called “The Zax” in which two Zax found themselves coming from opposite directions only to come face to face; neither of them were willing to budge or to change. As one Zax stated “For I live by a rule that I learned as a [...]

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Walt Disney And Leadership Filters

August 20, 2009

August 18, 2009 – Day 2 What would your cup of joe taste like without a coffee filter? Filters on camera lenses create astounding camera effects. There are filters that do really important jobs: water filters, chemical filters and even nuclear filters that provide ventilation for flammable gas mixtures in nuclear waste containers. Filters do [...]

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Magical Business Results From Disney

August 16, 2009

August 16, 2009 – 10:30 am I am on my way to Disney for the Disney Institute 5-day program “Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence.” This is the first in a series of blog posts about my experiences and I hope to bring you an insider’s peek into what makes Disney so great and how you [...]

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Mickey Nemo & Small Business

August 12, 2009

When I think of Dori, small business is not the first thing that comes to my mind. But after a couple of conversations with Stacey Thomson, PR Manager for Disney Institute, I will be thinking about Disney and small business for a long time. In case you haven’t heard of it, Disney has a world-renowned [...]

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