Fear of the unknown is one of the great performance killers. It doesn’t have to be. Embrace the Fear We’ve got a choice. We can freeze. Or flee. Or fight.  Most of us clench our jaw, grit our teeth, hold our breath, and try to face down the fear. That’s the circumstance in which fear […]

We recently conducted a workshop on cultivating a high-performance, collaboration culture at HR West in Oakland. Here’s a teaser. Feedback is a critical component. A Common Critical Feedback Error At one point, a CEO in our workshop loudly bragged. “Here’s what I do. My executive assistant knows she’s doing a good job when she doesn’t […]

Empathy is a relatively new buzzword in discussions of corporate leadership. And it’s a good thing. Without empathy, leaders cannot profoundly effect employee engagement, motivation, and performance. With empathy, they can. Empathy alone can be disastrous. It’s important to be able to relate to one another’s feelings, to understand where one another is coming from, […]

People often undermine their own leadership development by looking to established leaders for help solving problems that they can solve on their own. It’s a part of human nature, and a personal-risk mitigation play. “If I ask the boss for the solution, I won’t be responsible for any failure.” Put another way, “I won’t get […]

The Dress Code Situation For years, General Motors had a dress code in their employee handbook that was 10 pages long. Whoa. “What’ll I wear today?” Glancing through the closet. “Wait a second, wait a second.” Sitting in the reading chair and picking up a ten pound employee handbook. “Gotta do a little source research […]

There are a number of factors contributing to the prevalence of mind-numbing corporate training programs out there that don’t lead to change. In this video, 4 reasons and remedies.It’s not a lack of great information. And it’s not a shortage of well-meaning corporate training providers. I blame school. It’s the model we all have for […]

Today I’m thinking about the unconscious communications we all make. Someone says or does something in our presence. Then, quick as a flash, we give them a non-verbal micro-response. It might be a sound, a gesture, a facial expression. These non-verbals go by so quickly, we may not even know they happened. Like it or […]

With just 5 cents, you can make a major upgrade to your company culture. And are you ready for the kicker? You don’t even have to spend the five cents. You can keep your money and still get the upgrade. Look in the sofa cushions, grab five pennies, and read on. COMPANY CULTURE There’s a […]

Ok. Here it is. The single step you need to take for world-class collaboration: Always move the action forward. (Repeat.) If it’s immediately clear to you how this sentence applies to collaboration, then thanks for reading. If you’ve got an eyebrow raised, allow me to elaborate. An Adeptability Collaboration Guide Though we all collaborate every […]

There are essentially two ways to go about selling anything. Either sales strategy can work if we define “work” as “lead to a sale.” One way will leave you and your client happier, more satisfied, and with a stronger relationship. The other will not. To illustrate this, let me tell you the stories of my […]

If you’ve got sales reps working for you (really, if you’ve got anyone working for you), and you’re getting all the accurate information from them that you need, when you need it, then read no further. If you need any more accurate information than you’re getting, when you need it, read on.   A SALES […]

I made a new friend. One day, we almost killed each other. Then, we spent that afternoon together in misery. Next, we formed a company to teach others to do what we had done — at work. You can do it too at your work. I’m getting ahead of myself. Meeting: Adam and I worked together […]