Blog Posts

The lessons learned about A Culture Of Learning from when I was kidnapped as a child and brought to an American Indian Reservation. The famous dictionary producer Mirriam-Webster once named “Culture” as “The Word of the Year.”  I am sure that most experts on Employee Engagement were not surprised by Merriam-Webster’s choice.  Indeed, legendary management expert Peter Drucker was one of the first to get it right years ago when he coined the phrase “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast.”  While Drucker first said this decades ago, the words still ring very true in today’s workplace landscape, especially ...

I recently had the honor of giving the Opening Keynote at The Doolittle Institute in Niceville, Florida. In their words, “The Doolittle Institute has the privilege of providing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education to thousands of underserved students, many of them military personnel. These hands-on programs include robotics, coding, computer-aided design, managing job stress, time management, and others. One of our primary goals is to inspire and educate our country’s future workforce.” About half of my audience were in uniform. Needless to say, I was inspired to bring my “A game” and deliver a kick-ass keynote speech. ...

I just returned from an amazing 30-day cruise of the Indian Ocean, which included ports of call in 12 different countries. While at sea one day exercising on the cruise ship deck, and prompted by a sunlight reflection off the water, I spied a sealed bottle floating on the surface of the ocean. It immediately made me wonder if there was a message in the bottle, and if so, I pondered what the odds were that the message would ever be read. So many organizations are mistakenly using “messages in a bottle” to communicate to their employees. As a ...

We’ve all seen it or experienced it firsthand: Someone is speaking at a meeting or presenting at a conference, while half the audience members are looking down, openly fiddling with their smartphones.  As a keynote presenter myself, I find this audience behavior especially frustrating.  I’m up there passionately speaking about ways to truly help people improve their day-to-day experience at work, and the messaging is lost on an audience that is simply not listening or being fully present.  Even when event planners ask participants to silence and put away their cell phones, people can’t seem to part with ...

Hundreds of millions of workers worldwide dread going to work every day. But for those workers who have to work with a jerk or workplace bully, going to work is unbearable. All of these office jerks are Actively Disengaged employees whose behaviors contribute to their coworkers’ depression, anxiety, health problems, despair, and insomnia. The workplace negativity becomes even more palpable if the jerk is one’s manager or a member of Senior Management. Furthermore, the jerk’s toxic behavior becomes contagious, infecting many others who may begin mistreating others as well. In addition, the watercooler gossip mongering is equally infectious, resulting in ...

When asked about the single greatest detractor of workplace productivity, most employees, and especially managers, will incorrectly cite workplace meetings or meeting mismanagement. While it is certainly true that a great amount of productivity is lost to these things, the real answer is workplace interruptions, especially given the push to open-office floor plans. While this design trend was intended to facilitate more communication and collaboration, it no doubt carried an unintended downside. The lower cubicle walls, communal snack bars and break rooms, and removal of office doors bring heightened interruptions, as well as concerns over keeping information confidential. A study ...

Ever worked with a coworker who consistently needed to be right? Even when shown clear evidence to the contrary, some people cannot admit when they’re wrong. Simply put, working with that type of person is not fun. Unfortunately, a stubborn attitude can create conflict in the workplace and threaten coworker comradery. Instead of letting yourself get pulled into an argument, try these 4 surefire strategies to successfully work with these know-it-alls: 1. Let them win. Rather than expending energy and time trying to convince them otherwise, redirect that energy toward a workplace issue or coworker that is far more important ...

As an entrepreneur, I have always admired companies whose innovation creates wonderful industry disruption. Take Uber, for example, which has completely turned the taxi industry on its head. Despite their innovation and resourcefulness, entrepreneurial organizations can also fall victim to the 7 Deadly Sins of Customer Engagement, as did Uber with my recent experiences. UberX is the least expensive option for Uber transportation and the most popular, but there are other types of Uber vehicles too, such as luxury cars and large SUVs. As Uber rolls out other options, the app makes it easy to accidentally order a more expensive ...