The Yes Blog

Improve Accountability in Your Team – 1

“How can I improve accountability in my team?” That’s the question we get again and again. Sometimes that question comes in different words. And when we dig in, we often find this is the question underneath. Looking for Accountability in Your Team A breakthrough in accountability on your team could become your company’s unfair advantage. […]

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Receiving the F-word: Feedback

We get a lot of people asking us about the ‘F’-word. Feedback Almost every question we get is about how to deliver effective feedback. And that’s a great question. Often overlooked and at least as important… How to receive feedback. People who receive feedback well perform better. They learn and grow faster. They develop more […]

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MGW #24 – How To Fire People

MGW #24 –  How To Fire People Welcome back to the newly relaunched Mighty Good Work with your hosts Aaron Schmookler, Co-founder and Trainer of The Yes Works and Kristin Adams, Co-director of Startup Grind and first time founder of ALL2.  Last episode we discussed shifting both the thought process surrounding, dialogue about and facilitation of […]

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MGW #23 – How to Retain Talent

MGW #23 – How to Retain Talent Welcome to the Mighty Good Work relaunch. The focus hasn’t changed – this is still a podcast for people who want to make work a place worthy of the time we dedicate to it and for leaders and aspiring leaders who are committed to inspiring the same.  We’ve […]

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Team Maintenance: Teams Need Tune-Ups

Team maintenance is easy to overlook. You’ve got stuff to do. Your team has stuff to do. THE PROBLEM People are the best part of your business, and they’re the hardest part. Your team has an operating system, an engine, that defines the way it functions. Company culture. And Deloitte gives us a few striking […]

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How to deal with fear of the unknown so work can be fun

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 […]

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Why No Feedback Is Very Bad Feedback

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 […]

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Who Is Accountability For?

Accountability: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions Who’s it for? Accountability is one of the biggest concerns for leaders today. It’s a word I hear multiple times daily. At The Yes Works, we very often get the question, “How do I hold people accountable?” People resist accountability when they […]

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Why Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Says who? Often, it’s said to be Peter Drucker — management guru for the ages. Why? How does culture eat strategy for breakfast? Who do you imagine will perform better… A team of competent, motivated, collaborators without a plan at the start of the day, or a team of arrogant, […]

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Empathy Without the Pity Party Pitfall

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, […]

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How can you boost your company’s profits by an average of 24%? HR Magazine says spending $1600 per employee can do just that. Where to focus your training efforts The present matters. And largely, it’s taking care of itself. The future of your firm relies on innovation. Not necessarily innovation with a capital “I”. It […]

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To Succeed In Change Management, Take a Lesson From the Kite

“The only thing that is constant is change.” — Heraclitus If change is so constant, why do we suck at change management so badly? Right now around the country, change initiatives are failing by the dozen. A few of these initiatives fail because they are ill conceived notions. A few fail because they’re poorly planned. […]

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