[Coaching Tips for Great Leaders] Leading from the Heart

I don’t  live in Marin County, California even though my son goes to grade school there. And I’ll confess that I am more likely than not to be Marin-a-phobic.

So if this post reads a little too new age, dharma breath, hot tubs, and organic tofu  – in other words, all the stuff you might associate with Marin – be aware that I am one of the most earnest and pragmatic people around.Read the rest

[Career Coaching Tips] Your Job: Leave or Stay?

Signs of a slow recovery abound which should mean that some form of job uptick will occur. While it’s pretty clear that a rising economic tide will not lift all ships – some jobs, for example, are likely lost forever – the 18-month logjam in the job market appears to be breaking up.

The question for many, as people start to take new jobs with other companies, and their jobs and other jobs as well start to open up, is easy: Stay or go?Read the rest

[Trick or Treat] The Trouble with Incentives

As a senior at Tigard High School, the Prom Queen was selected by a canned food competition between the three high school classes. The goal was to incent students to both show school spirit and bring in canned foods for people who were less fortunate and needed the food to eat to live.

Both competitive and adventuresome sorts, my class’ winning solution was to tin-cup class members for cash, and then ditch school to go buy canned foods at discount retailers that sold marred (but perfectly eatable) canned goods at a discount.Read the rest

Is a Job Still A “Job”

Where communications abilities takes us a host of other trends and patterns follow.

For better or worse it’s given us a world where you can be tethered to work by iPhone or computer, and share information via short text bursts and immediate access And as this week’s Wall Street Journal chronicles in “Why E-Mail No Longer Rules“, changes in the nature of communication have changed how we fundamentally think of a host of related relationships – such as jobs.Read the rest

[Coaching Tips] The Secret to Your Success

While the exact formula for what makes someone successful in work over a period of time is still cloudy, the outlines through research are taking shape. Those outlines can begin to inform who you hire, who you work with, and – if you’re prone to introspection – what your own personal profile looks like.

These trends and factors didn’t just pop-up today: in some cases, as in the importance of emotional intelligence, they’ve been building for decades as the old control and command models of management gave way to greater teamwork and collaboration norms.Read the rest