One of the enjoyable parts of managing people is holding brainstorming sessions. These are opportunities to be creative, think of new ideas, approach ideas from a different perspective, or collaborate to solve a problem. A brainstorming session is an opportunity for you to mentor your employees in creativity and find out which members of the [...]
May 2, 2011
Secrets to Taking Over an Orphaned and Abused Team
Any manager who has taken over a team from a previous over bearing boss knows the challenge it is to establish trust, regain buy-in from the team, and rebuild loyalties. It is no small feat when you have a team of discouraged employees, who have likely been through hell with a former boss, and to [...]
April 28, 2011
Share Your Team Successes
If your team is known as a high performance team, the chances you will suffer employee or budget cuts decreases. You often receive the best projects. People come to rely upon you and have faith in your abilities. Upper management notices your performance and you become a case study for other parts of the company. [...]
April 27, 2011
Admit You Don’t Know
One of the mistakes many new supervisors make is being afraid to admit that they don’t know something, don’t have the information, or don’t understand something being asked of them. Many times, they put on a show of bravado, acting like they know everything and can do anything. You Undermine Your Position When You Act [...]
April 26, 2011
4 Ways to Generate Excitement From Employees
Creating an exciting place to work is one step towards having a highly motivated and productive staff. There are a number of ways to motivate employees, but we want to go beyond just motivating them and find a way to excite them about the work ahead. There is some intrinsic value in accomplishing work, but [...]
April 23, 2011
6 Ways You Can Mentor Your Employees
As a manager, you are often called upon to be in a mentoring role for your employees, but how do you identify your mentor role and fulfill it properly? As you mentor an employee, you will find yourself fulfilling one of 6 types of mentoring: 1. Relationship Mentoring Managing interpersonal relationships is a challenge for [...]
April 21, 2011
4 Tips to Make Goals Attainable
Employees thrive on achieving goals as long as you create goals which they can attain. Attainable goals can be stretch goals – they can be designed to get an employee to work outside of their comfort zone, to try new things, learn new skills, and work hard than they have ever worked before, but they [...]
April 20, 2011
Sometimes You Need a Little Crap to Grow
As I was working in the garden this week and laying some cow manure, I thought about how we need crap to grow just like our plants. Find out how to withstand lifes crap.
April 15, 2011
Help Your Employees Fail Cheaply
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, projects and tasks due fail, and employees in charge of them fail. If we were all perfect in everything we do, we’d all be incredibly wealthy. As a manager, you must understand how much responsibility to give an employee and how to help an employee handle when projects due fail. [...]
April 14, 2011
When to Know It Is Time to Apologize
One of the ways true leaders set themselves apart is the humility to understand when it’s time to apologize. A good leader knows when to stand up and fight and when its time to disarm an opponent and create a path to reconciliation. The next time you are ready to defend yourself and put up [...]



May 9, 2011
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