Humanity is in crisis. This Friday we saw the largest US government bailout of business in history. The very next day, European leaders met in Paris to deal with the newly acknowledged global economic crisis. Setting aside the larger societal problems of global warming, pollution, drinking water shortages, terrorism, war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, poverty and [...]
Enter any organization and you will hear a leader from the Baby Boomer Generation expressing frustration over a co-worker from Generation Y. When you think about it, this issue is probably less of a values gap then it is a leadership gap. Generation Y was parented by Baby Boomers. It is apparent that a different [...]
Employee engagement is dependent on leadership style. There are leaders who inspire their teams and bring them to life and there are those who perpetuate presenteeism and disengagement. Recent workplace surveys tell us that one of the most important drivers of employee retention and engagement is a competent and visible senior leadership team that is [...]
Is employee happiness at the top of your leadership team's agenda? It will be. As the plethora of evidence mounts regarding the benefits of happiness in the workplace, astute companies are taking notice. What do they know that you don't? Read on. Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychologist at the University of California has concluded that there are [...]
Like millions around the world, I have been watching in amazement as Olympic and world records are shattered one after the other in Beijing. Watching US television coverage, we have all been given a glimpse into the life of the greatest Olympic athlete of all time. I am speaking, of course, about Michael Phelps. His [...]
The recent passing of George Carlin has meant the loss of one of our generation's sharpest observational critics. Many people mainly remember Carlin for his more notorious comedy bits, but I often found his jokes as insightful as they were funny. I was recently reminded that he is credited with coining a term that has [...]
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her best selling book Eat,Pray,Love describes a discussion with friends about the vibe of different cities. The friends suggested that each city has a word that defines it and identifies most of the people who live there. Whatever the majority "thought" might be is the word for the city. If you've read this [...]
This story has mainly been told in the Midwest, where a motivational speaker V.J. Smith was so touched by a Wal-Mart cashier that it ended up changing his life, and the lives of thousands of others. Smith was so impressed by the warmth and genuine personality of Aaron "Marty" Martinson that he began to talk [...]
Norman Plate remembers sitting in his first-grade class, appreciating the gifts of his teacher and knowing that he was called to teach. Yet subtle messages throughout his early years led him to believe that the field of medicine would be a more appropriate career choice. Finding himself with less aptitude for the sciences than liberal [...]
In my last blog I wrote that Gallup research reveals American employees feel they spend only 12% of their time playing to their strengths, yet working from strengths is a pathway to human flourishing. Employees who find "flow," the perfect intersection between skill and challenge, are maximizing their performance. Building a strengths culture is a [...]
