Uncrapify Your Pandemic!
Just when I thought 2020 couldn’t throw anything else at me – well it did.
Can Risk Be Eliminated?
I’ve been thinking a lot about risk lately. In all fairness, as I near the end of my second month in quarantine I have been thinking a lot about all kinds of things – poetry, weasels, gymnastics, pancakes, mulch, and you get the idea. But as far as business goes, my brain keeps circling back…
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Rent My Toilet Paper Donkey Pants!
Another month, another wave of uncertainty. Thankfully, some amusing things managed to happen even while we were all figuring out how to telework and take care of our kids and not drive our loved ones insane. Hope you enjoy! Virtual Animal Rentals! A farm in North Carolina is allowing people to rent its animals for…
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The Power of Proper Messaging
Hey everybody! So, this month has been different, hasn’t it? I was supposed to be in seven cities and two different countries this April, and instead I’m doing….well, not that. Also, my daughter’s 1st birthday is in about two weeks, and we have all the decorations you’d need for three birthdays – but since nobody…
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Upside Down Chicken Renting Teleconferencing Fails!
Last month was, for most of us, a monumentally awful one. But that doesn’t mean everything was awful. Here are some things I’ve managed to scrounge up that will hopefully put a smile on your face. Enjoy! Why Video Calls Will Never Be Standard Since everyone on the planet is working from home now, businesses…
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How Should You Respond To A Crisis?
Ah, crisis. It’s a fun word to say, but that’s the only fun thing about it. Crisis brings massive uncertainty, and we generally don’t deal well with that. Besides, crises often bring the potential for something significantly negative without offering the potential for something positive. We call it risk when things might end well but…
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So You Want To Be Famous…
Culled from news headlines this month, here are a pair of stories that should give you hope that you can absolutely be famous (whether or not you should be), and that you can easily lie to whoever you want to as long as the lighting is right. Enjoy! There Is A Record For Everything It’s…
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Striving for Perfection? I’ve Got Something Even Better
Recently I re-did one of my bathrooms. Our home was built in 1990 but somehow decorated in 1970, and after a couple years of staring at that disco-inspired atrocity I was compelled to make it right. So I ripped everything out, including the walls, and rebuilt it. Gone are the flaking brass finishing, the perfectly-maintained-yet-suuuuuper-tacky…
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Headlines: Georgia Shows America How Road Signs Should Be Done
In an effort to make people actually read traffic safety signs, the state of Georgia recently asked its citizens to come up with their own slogans, then published the winners last month. It should be no surprise to anyone that Georgians are hilarious, and some of their best efforts include the following: You are allowed…
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Business Etiquette BLOOPERS!
We recently filmed three new video series for Levity University on Business Communications, Behavior, and Dress Code. Fortunately for your viewing pleasure we messed up a lot. Enjoy!
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Turning Irritation Into Opportunity
I don’t know you very well, but I’m confident that something soon will annoy you. Annoying things are everywhere – obnoxious family members, slow traffic, stupid rules, pointless meetings, and at least 4 billion other things that collectively make all of us occasionally wonder why we don’t just go find an island somewhere and live…
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The 12 Days After Winter Break
In a slight departure for me, this one is meant to be sung to the tune of “12 Days of Christmas.” Hope you enjoy. On the first day after winter break my colleagues gave to me…. A two-hour call with IT. On the second day after winter break my colleagues gave to me…. Two performance…
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The Truth About Making Or Breaking A Habit
It’s the end of the year again, which means that once again everybody is going to at least think about making some major life changes. Eat right, exercise, stop smoking, read more, finally buy that walrus you’ve been talking about getting for five years – I don’t know what your particular resolutions are going to…
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Jeff’s New Year’s Resolutions
Hello, everyone! Well, I’ve been putting this off for a year now, but it’s finally time. Over the past few months I’ve realized that I’m a dull and boring person, riddled with problems and flaws and rickets and probably some other things, which is why I’m preparing to do a complete overhaul as we head…
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The Only 4 Ways to Create a Vibrant Culture
As I’m sure you’ve heard before, creating a good culture is enormously difficult. At least it’s often presented that way. Companies are made up of dozens of moving parts, and those parts sometimes wake up in a crappy mood or get divorced or decide they want to work somewhere else. Structuring everything in a way…
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How to Create An Awful Company Culture
So hopefully you read my companion article about the four keys to creating a good, happy, vibrant, gosh-it’s-nice-to-work-here company culture. Because if you didn’t the title for this one probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. Who would want to create an awful culture? Nobody, really, except for sociopaths and evil supervillains. And yet awful…
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The Benefit of Doing Something Drastic
A couple weeks ago I delivering the opening keynote at an agricultural conference. For those of who don’t know, theirs is an industry currently facing significant challenges. A combination of unusually uncooperative weather and unprecedented policy decisions have simultaneously depressed crop supply and prices. Farming is a difficult business, and farmers today are having a…
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Time to Turn the Tables on Professional Ghosting
In honor of this being the month of Halloween, we are going to discuss how to handle ghosts. Not the spooky, incorporeal kind – the best way to handle that kind is by screaming and running away, unless of course you have a plasma cannon calibrated for the proper ectoplasmic frequency, and I’m guessing you…
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The Simple Difference Between Effective and Ineffective Visions
One of the most important skills a leader needs to develop is the ability to articulate a vision that employees can attach to and rally around. (Indeed, the word ‘vision’ is such a common part of leadership education that I wouldn’t be surprised if you occasionally have visions about creating a vision.) Having a strong…
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Interested in Meeting New People? Give These Ideas a Try!
Meeting new people is a pain. Not that new people are inherently annoying (although some of them are), but figuring out how to meet them is exhausting. Of course you’re interesting and fun and charismatic and you smell great too, and if you could just start in the middle of the relationship, everyone would realize…
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What To Work On When Business Is Slow
Every summer I completely understand why tropical countries tend to move at a slower pace than ones further from the equator. Of course the Vikings went on raiding expeditions – what else were they going to do during nine months of Nordic winters? I live in Michigan, where we only get six months of decent…
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