When it’s time to talk to a team member about performance or behavior, you’ll get better results if you do it without the adjectives. Your job is to describe the performance or behavior and their results so you and the team member can have a conversation about how things will change. When you use adjectives » Read More
Tag: Management
Boss’s Tip of the Week: Conversation is Power

Conversation is a boss’s power tool. Conversations are the most effective way to influence behavior and performance. One-way communication is not a conversation. Only conversation is conversation. This is only one of 347 tips in my ebook, Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time. Just promoted from individual » Read More
Watch What You Say
Are you responsible for the performance of a group? If you are, what you say is important. Words matter. One danger is that common words and phrases can have unintended consequences. Here are three to watch out for. Be honest On great teams, teammates trust each other and the team leader. Great customer relations are based » Read More
Leadership: You don’t have to wait for the future of work
Annie was exactly the kind of boss you want at your company. Her team was a top producer. People loved to work for her. Some team members had been there for more than a decade. The ones who left almost always left for a great job somewhere else. That “somewhere else” is important. “Slave ship” is the best » Read More
The Fix is Never In
I remember the first time someone cried in my office. I didn’t handle it well. My job that day was to fire Dorothy. It had been a long time coming. I inherited Dorothy, and she’d had “issues” for a long time. Her work was never up to standard. There were behavioral issues, too, and they affected the » Read More