Get out of your office or your cubicle, step away from your desk and invest time in building relationships and partnerships with people. This thing, the entire life and our careers and businesses within it is a people game first. Everything always starts with people so look for ways to build partnerships, synergies and proactively resolve any difficulties or challenges …
Greatness does not tolerate laziness
If you aspire to go beyond mediocrity and dream of greatness, you will need to act accordingly and work hard each day. During this (possibly never ending) journey, you will need to prioritize and sacrifice some of the activities that are not as productive and valuable towards realization of those massive goals. There will be weeks, months, even years where …
Sabotaging your job interview
Have you ever intentionally sabotaged your job interview? And I don’t mean you could have been a bit less lazy with your resume or a cover letter, I mean, intentionally, half way through the process decided that that opportunity wasn’t it and you have found ways to “throw” the interview and the entire search process? Well, I did, twice and …
Making a bad hire
Hiring is tough. It takes too long; we reject great potential colleagues; advance those who are not; and during this process we don’t have the complete picture of those who are applying (nor do they of us) and for those reasons, it is inevitable to make mistakes. We have all hired someone who wasn’t the right fit for our culture, …
Top 3 reasons why people settle
There are many reasons why many of us decide how to respond and react to opportunities. They range in many respects, but overall, many can be grouped under one of these three primary areas: 1. CONFIDENCE – if you lack confidence in your own abilities, it’s a no go from the start. No matter what you want to accomplish, if …
Rules of engagement
Learn the system and the rules of the game before you begin playing it. Same applies to your organizations, industries or markets. Learn what works, what doesn’t, how are decisions made and who is able to influence the outcomes and contribute to performance. Once you have done your homework, leverage what you have learned for your future actions in service …
Why relationships matter
Whether you are a senior executive with decades of relevant experience in your field or a rookie who started today, you should always proactively invest in building relationships and meeting new people. Go out there, meet others, provide value, speak at events, ask questions and most importantly, listen and learn from those who may be further ahead in business, career …
I should have said “no”
I should have said no! How many times have you felt this way? The moment (or soon thereafter) you have committed to someone on a project, task, event or a service, you have regretted it. The ability to say no to people and manage your time improves with age and experience (like many other things), and it should be something …
Delusional optimism
Being optimistic, positive and confident is always a better option then the alternative. However, it is important not to ignore challenges, problems and issues you and your organization (perhaps even the entire industry) are facing today. Delaying, postponing, deferring challenging conversations and decisions will almost always come back to haunt you with even a higher price tag. Face the music, …
Discipline and why it matters
The mother of all success is discipline. Think about your major accomplishments over the last year, five or ten and you will see that they (whether personal or professional) were heavily dependent on your ability to be disciplined. Did you complete a degree; get that new job; change your career entirely; move across the country or across the world; have …