A couple months ago I wrote an article about how to avoid allowing a mistake to challenge your sense of self-worth. This month, though, I realized I left something out of that conversation. It focused on the personal benefit of learning to accept that mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. This month,…
Recently my 8-year-old son came home from school and asked me if I knew how many uses for the peanut George Washington Carver had discovered. After silently thanking his teachers for encouraging his love of random information, I admitted that all I knew was that it was a lot. “More than 300,” he told me…
Since the title of this article is slightly ambiguous, let me elaborate. If your question is, “What’s the best way to win an argument – loud angry shouting, or calm reasoned discourse?” then I can answer that right now. Do the latter. Problem solved. But what we’re talking about here is the method by which…
The issue of loyalty is one of the bigger generations tensions in the workplace, and no matter what industry you work in, it tends to follow the same basic pattern, and endless cycle of older, more experienced people bemoaning the lack of loyalty they see in their younger and less-experienced colleagues. This tension is as…
Making important decisions, acting like a leader, being a person your colleagues can count on to get the job done – all of these are qualities associated with “taking initiative.” So if there’s a lot of extra initiative lying around, odds are you’d like to take some of it for yourself. Doing so, however, can…
You’ve certainly heard people talk about ethics before. Companies everywhere talk about doing business in an ethical manner, and you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time with wildly unethical people. Now obviously, what constitutes “ethical” can differ significantly from one person to the next, so finding a solid definition of ethics is…
Last month, something happened to me at an event that hasn’t happened in well over a decade. I wish it were something cool like audience members throwing money and candy at me as they cheered “Bravo!” and “Encore!” But that’s never happened, and probably never will. No, this thing was far more mundane, and far…
In the last several months I’ve spoken at a few dozen conferences. And at every single one of them – big ones, small ones, and basically every industry there is – the people at those conferences have been talking about exactly two things: supply chain, and the labor shortage. Your company probably is, too. Those…
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. I also wanted to be a builder (which was my Lego-inspired term for ‘construction worker’), and I also wanted to dig up dinosaurs. I have done none of those things, and it’s perfectly OK. I chose a different path, and I’m happy with it. …
To be fair, there are probably more than three things all employees want. Most employees would probably take a million dollars if you felt like giving it to them. Or a jetski, the ability to talk to animals, telekinetic powers – the list goes on. But in this article we’re going to talk about three…