The Value of Unlearning & Relearning

If you’re not sure how difficult and even awkward it is to unlearn and relearn something, try writing with your non-dominant hand. It’s very difficult when I (Cindy) give it a try!

It was Alvin Toffler, an American Businessman and author, who said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be th...

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The Value of Getting it Right

Whether it’s the technical skills a new team member needs just to become competent in our respective industry, the leadership skills that are so very needed for anyone with responsibility for getting results through a team of people, or even the skills that are critical for our best do’ers to pass t...

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The Right Message From the Right Person…

I won’t speak for you but it sure seems like my parents became exponentially smarter as I moved from my late teens/early twenties to being an adult who had to be responsible. So much more of the advice they gave me resonated and could be immediately applied! I just can’t understand why it took them ...

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Value the Process

The first fundamental lesson in Josh Waitzkin’s book, The Art of Learning, is to Value the Process.  If you’ve been following here you may have read my (Cindy) last blog, Outside Growth, Inside Growth and remember that in his book Josh offers some foundational principles we can apply to The Art of L...

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Who Are You & Where Do You Think You’re Going?

Now that we’ve looked how much profitability is wasted when an organization spends money on the wrong training, or even training that isn’t absorbed or applied, let’s get serious about an approach we can take to make sure we’re providing the right training for our team members, for their current rol...

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Training That Can Be Absorbed…

Several years ago while working with a group of extremely skilled employees in a construction company, one of the most senior guys was grumbling about some of the new folks who had been hired. He was frustrated because they didn’t know everything he expected them to know right away and shared that “...

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The Cost of Using the Wrong Tool

As I mentioned before, painting the picture of the tools you can provide a potential team member to grow within the organization once they come onboard can play a significant role in the recruiting process. Failing to make good on those promises though, sooner than later, will be a direct contributo...

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Not Just Any Training Will Do…

To this point, we’ve looked at a number of profitability killers that are affecting nearly every business. Through this process, I’ve been intentional about making a case for how effective leadership - while often viewed as something soft or intangible - can make an immediate and measurable impact o...

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Providing the Right Support

If we’re going to build profitable succession plans, creating advancement opportunities that are a bit outside the traditional approach of promoting (read: pushing) our best team members into supervisory or management roles primarily based on their technical expertise and work ethic will play a sign...

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Outside Growth, Inside Growth

Growth can be a vulnerable area, especially when we are working hard to grow on the inside.  In a way, it reminds me of a hermit crab.  The hermit crab is well protected by its shell, until it outgrows it.  As the shell starts becoming uncomfortable, the crab knows it’s time to look for another shel...

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A Profitable Succession Plan

As the foundation was being laid for what I believe is still the greatest nation on Earth, Thomas Jefferson penned these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Lif...

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Promotions Are Usually Based On...

If we’re going to have any real shot of avoiding the cost of a poor promotion, recognizing the right candidate to promote isn’t just a nice idea, it’s something we have to do effectively time after time. Not only will that help capture so much of the profitability that’s far too often lost in the pr...

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