As Cindy and I worked to learn and understand what each member of our Executive Leadership Elite Think Tank had as core values for their organizations, we had intense conversations with all of them regarding how they kept those values in front of their teams; how often and in what setting did they c...
Throughout our professional lives, Cindy and I had seen a wide range of values defined by the organizations we were part of. A few either had no clearly defined values to speak of or they just never referenced them. Others had a couple of values listed in a policy manual or on a bulletin board but d...
I blocked my calendar on the afternoon for February 24, 2022 to roll out that new handbook for all the team members working with Craig and Kim. Having done similar roll-outs several times in the decade leading up to it, I had a picture in my mind of what to expect - and I dreaded it! While my goal w...
Having been a few years since I handled all aspects of human resources for an organization on a daily basis, and never dealing with an ownership transition, I left that initial dinner meeting with a list of items I’d need to dig into prior to their upcoming acquisition date. As much as I never liked...
I wrapped up Leading With A Clear Purpose by sharing how having our own extremely clear purpose helped us push through the Covid mandates that prevented us from capitalizing on the momentum we had built in our business going into 2020 and doing much billable work for anyone in the second half of tha...
As I opened the second part of Leading With a Clear Purpose, I made a strong case for how much each of us are attracted to being part of something that matters. I’m convinced that this applies to everyone at any level of any organization. I realize that there are plenty of folks who do what they do,...
On October 6, 2014, I started working for a new organization for the first time since I was 19 years old. Truth be told, I thought I would spend the rest of my career there. I was doing similar work to what I had done in manufacturing but this was for a family-owned business with just under fifty em...
In 2012, I made my first significant career change in more than a decade. While I had a hand in various human resource tasks and projects during the dozen or so years I led our facility’s behavior-based safety process and supported many of our company’s locations across North America that were activ...
If you’ve ever seen the 80s TV show Cheers you’re probably hearing the theme sound in your mind right now, wrapping up with the line “where everyone knows your name…” Whether it’s a friendly neighborhood basement bar in Boston, your favorite local restaurant in your own hometown, or the place you ea...
In looking at turnover rates and profitability of organizations, it's hard to miss the continuing trend towards companies needing and seeking a better culture. The good news is there’s increased interest in serving well from the values statement we have on our walls. The bad news is, it’s hard to ...
Did you read the subject line and sing the next phrase in your head? I kinda still am… But unlike the wheels on the bus that go round and round, the seats on our organization’s bus absolutely should not! And if we want to get really serious about the business succession planning we looked at last ti...
Since you’ve accepted the responsibility of leading your team, I’m going to assume you’re taking what we’ve dug into up to this point to heart by identifying what you really value and defining exactly why those things are meaningful to you - so don’t prove my faith in you wrong here! With that work ...
