Wise words from Anne Frank

Challenge for today: Ask "why" at least three times. Open up the possibilities. Don't accept the status quo. Look for what's next.

Your Most Skilled Leaders Are Leaving

For decades, companies have been able to hire leaders away from other companies; but with the Boomers leaving corporate America at a rate of 6,000 people a day... that's all about to change.

Is your company prepared? Who is in your leadership pipeline?

Can One Employee Take Your Company Down?

Your company is doing great work. It is creating jobs where they didn't exist before... you are contributing to the betterment of society... have you considered whether or not one employee could bring that all to a screeching halt?

Since February of 2017, with the recording of Travis Kalanick's (former CEO of Uber) poor behavior as he berated an Uber driver, displayed all across America, there have been frequent episodes of bad behavior demonstrated by numerous corporate leaders. In just the last month we've seen:

• Adam Neumann, the CEO of WeWork was forced to step down after the filing of the company's pre-IPO paperwork shone a light on suspect financial dealings which ultimately benefitted Mr. Neumann to the tune of millions of dollars. The IPO was withdrawn, the company has laid off over 4000 employees, and its estimated value dropped 40 billion in the blink of an eye. See more here.

• The Houston Astros baseball team fired their assistant General Manager for verbally attacking 3 female reporters after a pennant win in October. In addition to a social media onslaught faulting the organization and how it handled the incident (initially accusing one reporter of fabricating the incident and then taking 3 days to admit to it and holding the AGM accountable), the team will be fined by Major League Baseball, and the way that the incident was handled is now inviting scrutiny of the company's culture, which will result in further public relations embarrassment and could see the departure of many others in leadership positions in the organization. This incident, and the stress it caused the whole organization, may have just cost the team the 2019 World Series. See more here.

• The CEO of McDonald's resigned this past week, saying this: "Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on." The values of the company? The values, that as CEO, he was most-responsible for upholding? See more here.

Now, you might argue that these are people in positions of power and it is often the case that with power comes the belief that you are above "following the rules." But a leader is also responsible for the "unwritten rule" that he or she sets the acceptable behaviors and culture of an organization through their example.

When Does It Start?

We cannot assume that only those in the "higher echelon" are behaving badly (and costing their companies money as well as reputation). Think of the myriad of "little" ethical violations that occur in companies daily: taking home office supplies, failing to report a breakdown in product or process because "it's not my job," refusing to cooperate with another department or colleague, giving a customer favorable terms over other customers, the list could go on and on. At what point does a "little" ethical violation bloom into something that is egregious and damaging to your company financially or reputationally?

These types of incidents are precisely the reason why The Training Doctor created its Leadership From Day One development approach. By developing leadership behaviors such as ethics, decision making, and self-management early in one's career, incidents like these should not occur down the line. If all of your employees are immersed in a culture that supports the good of all (the company, its employees and customers), you'll make a bigger impact on the world and sleep better at night.

Are you at risk?

As a business owner, do you presume that your employees are behaving ethically? Do you know your organization's culpability from actions committed by your employees? Especially your senior/leader employees who have more of a "platform" to do harm to the company?

It is never, never too soon to start developing leadership characteristics in your workforce. Don't wait until you've already promoted someone to a leadership role to start to foster the skills they need to lead themselves as well as others; it is harder to rewire behavior than it is to develop it from the start. When you start leadership development early in your employee's careers, it becomes an ingrained and reflexive behavior as they move up through the ranks.

Go to our contact us page if you'd like help establishing a leadership development program that starts with everybody. Today.

Convenience Over Quality

We'll modify this sentiment and say "easy of use at the expense of thinking."

❔ Do you know someone who is so reliant on their GPS that they couldn't return to a destination a day or two later, without it?

❔ Do you know someone who gets their news by scrolling through Facebook, rather than reading a newspaper? (I had a conversation with someone last week who did not know what Brexit was!)

❔ What else have you observed as an example of ease-of-use vs. quality or applied thinking? Please share in comments ⬇️

Truly Learning Requires Multiple Exposures to Content

How many times do you give employees training on the same topic? If you answer "more than once" I'll be shocked. How long did it take you to learn to ride a bike? Drive a car? Log in to your voicemail?

Moving from conscious incompetence to unconscious competence takes many, many exposures, but for some reason, in training, we take the one-and-done approach.

Need to learn to coach your employees? Take this four-hour class! Want to improve your close-rate on sales calls? Here's a 40-minute online tutorial!

Giving folks exposure to information is NOT training. (I don't have to tell you that.) Yet that's how most training is conducted.

In Failure is Growth...

So many people are afraid to fail - will people laugh at me, judge me, pity me? But we learn more from our failures than our successes. And no one is good at everything they do, the first time out. So what, exactly, are you afraid of? Learning?

First-rate intelligence

It's an important skill/attribute that someone in a #leadership position MUST possess. There is so much information coming at us each day (each hour!) that it is truly important to be able to take it all in, "measure" it, reason through it, and make a decision. 

3 Free Leadership Development Resources

Note: This article originally appeared on Forbes.com
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/09/26/how-to-develop-your-future-leaders-for-next-to-nothing/#69afc9ec2d11

Are you a business owner or managerwho knows you need to startdeveloping the future leaders of your organization, but you’re paralyzed by theidea of where to begin? No worries. This article will help you get started withno cost and minimal effort.

When people learn that The Training Doctor helps companies to develop their leadership strategy, we often hear, "Yeah, but we have no money.”

There are a LOT of organizations - big and small - in this same situation. And the good news is - leadership development does NOT have to be expensive or time-consuming. Here are three resources (and we have PLENTY more to share, if you are interested).

Reading and Discussion Groups

The best activity your company’s futureleaders can master is to be knowledgeable about business in general and yourindustry in particular.  A businessleader needs to know how a business works, not how a job is done. Assist yourup-and-coming leaders by subscribing to industry journals and general-businesspublications such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, or the Wall StreetJournal.

More importantly, form weekly orbi-weekly discussion groups around an article or two that you think isparticularly enlightening or that would be good for discussion. If you reallywant to go the extra mile, pre-formulate discussion questions that get awayfrom opinion (What do you think of that?) and lean toward critical thinking(Could that happen to us? What would we do, if that happened?).  It’s important to have your future leadersthinking about “the big picture,” and your company in the context of yourindustry and business in general.

Job Rotations

Job rotations are traditionallythought of as an activity reserved for “hi-pos” (high potential individuals).Why?

It’s important that your futureleaders understand how your business works, what departments areinterdependent, and especially how you make money. They cannot learn thesethings if they are stuck in the silo of their own department or role.

A job rotation doesn’t have to beextensive or lengthy, but it should give the “visitor” a thorough understandingof another department’s work processes, priorities, and constraints. Imaginehaving a customer service representative work in the sales department for aweek. They could travel on sales calls, learn about your competition,understand better about contracts and pricing and the customer lifecycle, andon and on. Wouldn’t that make them a much more knowledgeable and helpfulcustomer service rep? Now imagine the reverse - a salesperson on the phones inthe customer service department for a week. Wow.

When people have a perspective onthe whole organization they do their own jobs better, have better collaborationskills, better communication skills, more empathy, a better understanding ofthe constraints or opportunities throughout the organization, and are not justfocused on the role that they do at their own desk.

Tuition Reimbursement

Finally, my third free leadershipdevelopment recommendation is to institute a tuition reimbursement program.Now, this isn’t exactly cost-free because it will take a bit of money to hire alawyer and/or accountant to set it up correctly (for instance, the rules aredifferent for C-corps vs. LLC’s) but once that process is done, the payback isextraordinary.

First, you have little to managebut the reimbursement process because participants are engaged more with the institutionwhere they are taking classes. Second, you are able to take advantage of a taxcredit of slightly over $5000 per participant. Third, courses often requireon-the-job projects, which means that your company reaps the rewards of betterproject management or a better HR communications strategy, for example.

And individuals often feel loyaltyto those companies that help them to further their career and their education, soan added benefit is that you’ll see increased retention (which mutes thosecynics who worry “What if I train them and they leave?”).

Bottom line: You CAN afford todevelop the future leaders of your organization with little cost and minimaleffort by starting reading and discussion groups, instituting job rotations,and offering tuition reimbursement, for everyone, not just for those employeesyou think are “high potential.”

For more great suggestions for leadership development follow The Training Doctor on Twitter or LinkedIn.

How are we preparing our future workforce?

Young people don't want jobs... apprenticeships aren't a "thing" anymore... and EDUCATION is not enough to create a skilled workforce. We need to change the system and the handoff from school to work. 

Mentoring vs. Coaching

Organization’s Big Challenge

3 Ways "We" Have Destroyed Young People's Ability to Think

Here are three ways education has undermined thinking in theyounger generations:

The primary education system has changed quite a bit in thelast 50 years and many of those changes have resulted in young people'sinability to think critically and instead to rely on cues and memorization.

1 - Memorization

For decades we’ve been lulled into believing that memorizingand recalling information is learning. And perhaps, in anindustrialized world, recall was all that was necessary. When theindustrial age was ruled by manufacturing and work was repetitive, perhapsremembering the steps in a process and executing them properly was "theskill." We are now in a knowledge economy (and have been for at least 20years!). We pay people to think. We pay people to make decisions,solve problems, innovate and synthesize. In direct opposition to this, oureducational system (and generally our corporate training system) focuses onteaching learners to memorize information so that, with the proper prompt, itcan be recalled; educating/training does not teach us how to useinformation in a variety of ways and circumstances or (heavens!) use it in away that wasn’t taught at all (extrapolating).  

2 - Cramming

Somewhere along the line, we have lured young learners intobelieving that “cramming” is a proper methodology for learning. Duringexam week at colleges, the libraries and dining halls stay open around theclock to accommodate the learners who are staying up around the clock studying– this only reinforces the idea that the last-push to learn is a crucial time.

Typically young people prepare for a test or exam the day beforethe exam – which means that they are simply working from short term memory,which generally is good enough if the measure of one’s learning is being ableto spot the right answer on a multiple-choice test - but not enough if weexpect them to use that knowledge "out in the real world."

Real-world application is built from learning over multipleexposures to a concept or process, not a cursory review of the keypoints. 

3 - Testing

Thanks to the introduction of Scantron Bubble Sheets in the50's and 60's - everything became a multiple-choice test. The bubble sheetswere extremely helpful to teachers and administrators as class sizes grew andrecord-keeping became more stringent.  Unfortunately, they took morethan they gave. This type of testing fueled the usage of the 2"learning" strategies discussed above AND undermined the value of theteacher's input into student's testing.

Prior to a machine grading tests, teachers had to read eachresponse, giving the answer critical thought. Very often they would addcommentary to the grade, rather than simply marking an answer wrong. They mightremind the student where the correct information was found or help them toremember how the concept they got wrong was similar to what they werethinking. Sometimes they would give partial credit if the student was onthe right track but then veered off before their final summation (this is theonly way I passed geometry, believe me).

Prior to a machine grading tests, even when a student got ananswer wrong - they were learning. They had coaching, correction andrefinement from their teacher based on how the teacher graded thetest. Once the Scantron bubble sheet became de rigueur in public schooleducation, students simply received their grade with little to no explanationor intervention.

Unfortunately, I can spot factors that led to the demise of thinking skills (and there may well be more that you are thinking of!) but I am not sure what the remedy should be to reverse the trend. Given class-size and teacher pay, it's not reasonable to take efficiencies away from public school teachers. Instituting "study skills" classes in college is smart - but it's usually an elective and addresses a small population of the students (plus, by the time students are in college, it is remedial - we should be teaching study skills at about age 11 and continue it until the end of high school - see my article on 3 Keys to Ensuring Learning for more on this topic).

I think the rise of AI and machine learning will make theseshortcomings even more apparent in coming years, as all of the "easy tospot" answers will be gobbled up by robots and the critical thinking willbe the domain of humans.

Your thoughts?

Note: This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-ways-we-have-destroyed-young-peoples-ability-think-miner-ed-d-

Encourage Contrarian Thinking

Very often leaders are emboldened by people who are in agreement with their ideas.

• That sounds great! I'll get right on it.

• Brilliant idea! No way we can lose this one.

• This will really knock the competition on their arse.

The employee you REALLY want on your team is the one that says, "Hold up! I see three ways this can go sideways. Did we think this through? Did we ask for input from customers (nod to New Coke), vendors (hello State of NC), or our employees (here's looking at you, Google).

As a consultant, I believe that part of what you pay me for is my ability to "see the other side;" to bring questions and alternative perspectives to your organization. When I worked as an employee my approach was always to ask, "How can I break this?" much like testing a new software... what if I did this? or this? or this pressure is applied?

Contrarian thinkers - and similarly, devil's advocates - aren't negative for the sake of being negative; they are thinking ahead to the future and to ramifications of your, or your company's, actions.

If you are a leader and a developer of future leaders, here are three ways to encourage contrarian thinkers:

1. Always have two meetings: Don't make decisions at the first discussion of a new idea. Simply have an open discussion about the idea (new product, new process, new hire) and allow a few days for people to think about it. You might even want to charge your attendees with coming to meeting #2 with at least one "argument" against the idea. This process will prevent ideas from becoming run-away before they've been thoroughly vetted. Yes, it will take more time to make decisions, but they will be good (or at least better) decisions.

2. When addressing your followers, always ask, "What am I missing?" This is especially important to ask of people on the front-line. They are the ones who are actually doing the work and have a pulse on what customers, vendors, and fellow employees are thinking and feeling.

3. Praise those who come forward with their opposing views. When you ask the "what am I missing?" question, always thank the person who offers their negative outlook. Your job is not to argue the opposing view, but to give it consideration. You might even ask open-ended questions to gather more information, such as "do you have an example you could share?" or ask of the group, "have others seen this same phenomenon?"

By engaging in a conversation, purposefully asking for opposing views, and thanking the contrarian for offering their insight, you are encouraging others to do so in the future; which means you are building a stronger company and a community of forward-thinking employees which helps your organization to foresee and mitigate potential risk.

NOTE: This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-risk-part-3-nanette-miner-ed-d-/

Cohorts

Promoting Within

When you promote someone to a leadership role - they know your history and culture and have a sense of loyalty to the organization that you won't find in an external hire.

You Need a Leadership Development Program that Starts at Day 1 - and here's why

We wait too long to start leadership development. A 2016 meta-analysis of leadership development programs determined that most leadership development begins at age 46 AND leadership development almost always begins after someone is appointed to a leadership role. That makes little sense. Wouldn't you rather have an employee that learns feedback skills or problem-solving or strategy at the start of their career, rather than at the end?

There are a number of other approaches to as-we-do-it-today leadership development that are illogical - here is a sampling, with the rationale for a "better way."

• Leadership development programs are generally short-term (one week, 10 months) and generic - leaving the individual to figure out how their new knowledge and skills apply to the work that they are doing.
  • You want a development strategy that integrates work with learning and outputs.

• To be cost-effective, companies generally are selective about whom they will send through leadership development - sacrificing hundreds of capable individuals for the development of a few. Do you really want only a few people in your organization to be fully capable in their roles?
  • When leadership skills are integrated with regular activities and duties – starting on day 1 – the costs are minimal and absorbed daily, you don't need a "special event."

• As leadership development is currently administered...ROI is iffy. If your organization has 15 individuals, in 10 different disciplines, who have gone through leadership development this year - how do you associate their output with the learning?
  • When the learning process is integrated with every worker's role and responsibilities, you can easily connect output to increased knowledge and skill through various measure of productivity.

100% ROI 

Whenever I ask business owners and managers this question they are always a bit dumbfounded at the logic of it: Would you rather increase the capabilities and competencies of 15% of your employees? Or raise 100% of your employee's skills by 15%?

If every employee made better decisions, took responsibility for problem-solving, communicated better with their colleagues and other departments, understood who their stakeholders were... and more "leadership skills"... the efficiency and productivity of your company would be boundless.

But that "training" needs to begin on the first day they walk in the door. Your company should have a 3- or 5- or 10-year plan for the development of every employee. It should include skills building in the role they were hired for as well as broader, more business-acumen topics like risk, finance, and strategy.

And most importantly - it should include exposure to all areas of the business. Too many poor decisions are made because HR doesn't understand Ops, or Marketing doesn't understand Finance. When individuals understand the "big picture" of how your company operates - and they make relationships with people in other functions - companies run more smoothly, efficiently, and profitably. But they need to develop those skills at the start of their career, not the end.

The Importance of Teaching Debate

Arguments can be deadly; debate notsomuch

Remember the Debate Club in high school? It was an excellent tool to help young people to start thinking critically about various issues and honing their communication skills to be able to intelligently articulate issues.

Debate requires someone to construct an argument. That argument can be pro or against, but it must incorporate research, analysis, reasoning, and sometimes synthesis and evaluation in order to establish and substantiate one's position.

Debate also requires the debater to master their content, to practice both listening and speaking skills in order to counter the opposing side, and to not only be able to verbalize but also to speak persuasively about their position. These skills are known on Bloom's Taxonomy as higher order thinking skills. Debate takes one beyond the ability to research and "know" information to the ability to construct something and do something with that information. 

One of the reasons that I like to utilize debate in my training designs is because it helps people to understand how to deal with conflict in a constructive and measured way. Countering an opposing argument does not mean name calling, introducing distracting or off-topic issues, or simply blustering louder than one's opponent. That is an argument.  Arguments are rarely constructive and lead to hurt feelings and opposing sides. I can't think of any appropriate situation - in the business world - where opposing sides is a good thing - especially if those two sides are within the same company. 

Debate can be taught in a "learning experience," such as a classroom. This approach is often fabricated, however; for instance the instructor provides a topic or asks for one from the audience and it often is a topic that is already deemed to be controversial.  Another approach would be to teach debate in the regular course of our workplace meetings. Rather than rushing to a conclusion about a topic, stop and ask the group "What are the opposing arguments for this idea / decision?" Encourage attendees to voice their concerns and their arguments in support of those concerns. This will teach your employees that debating is a normal and expected conversational process.  Priming your employees to be accustomed to debating ensures they will be more comfortable voicing opposing viewpoints when decisions really matter.

Case Study: Wells Fargo - how long can you ignore ethics?

Here are some "interesting" facts as a result of Wells Fargo's abuse of customers:

• Fake accounts: 2 million +

• Fines: $185 Million

• Fired: 5300 managers

• Resigned: Two CEO's, John Stumpf and his successor Tim Sloan

• Legal fees: $40 – $50 million per quarter (gosh, if you only gave us that money for professional development - oh the places we could go!)

• Branch closings: 400 by 2019

So many questions! If you use this case study in a discussion with your leadership tip you'll contemplate questions such as:

Was it fair that 5000+ low-level managers were fired or should only the senior executives have been held accountable?

Warning signs – such as customers failing to fund the accounts they “recently opened” – were evident but ignored. What kinds of early warning systems are in place in your organization? How are they monitored?

You can access the complete case study - suitable for printing, here.

Top 8 (useful) Things I Learned in 2018

About two years ago I started keeping a Word document on mycomputer of Things I Learned. Irealized that I learn so many great things each week – that enrich my worklife, or make it easier – and often I forget them just as quickly as I learnedthem.  To ensure that doesn’t happen toofrequently, I started keeping this document, parsed by month because I canoften remember when I learnedsomething, (such as, that webinar onLinkedIn I took back in the spring)even if the actual “what” has escaped me long ago.

One of the things I really love about the list is going back over it and refreshing my memory of great tips, tools and techniques I’ve learned in the last year.  I often find myself saying, “Oh yeah! Why did I stop using / doing that?” 

Here is my Top 8 list of things (culled from over 12 pages of stuff!)I learned in 2018 – I hope you get value from them as well.

1. Google Forms – allows you to create all sorts of things like surveys and registration forms and then lets you put a URL to them in an email as a way to promote or invite. Also allows you to download responses in an .xls format which is very useful.
2. Grouping in PowerPoint – I consider myself fairly adept at PowerPoint but just in the last year I learned that you can click on multiple elements (images, text boxes, etc.) by holding down CTRL and clicking each – to enable all the animations to occur at once. Goodbye “start with previous.” Such a time saver!
3. Royalty free music from www.audiojungle.net and www.artlist.io – both allow you to search both by genre or mood, which is helpful. (Note: As a result, The Training Doctor has its own theme music now!)
4. Free stock photos at https://Burst.shopify.com and https://Unsplash.com (with photo credit) - very edgy and engaging - useful for social media posts.
5. Persona Generator – helps you to “nail down” who your buyer is so that you can craft advertising specific to that “individual.”
6. The center for American Progress  www.americanprogress.org.  Great articles and insight / research on learning, K-12, post-secondary, etc.
7. When recording videos, add 2 – 3 seconds between concepts – it seems like an eternity to you but not to the listener and it is super helpful for editing (like adding a slide or image to support the concept).
8. Trello.com – a project management tool (free) that works like my brain does (it’s very visual, allows you to make “notes” and move them around, assign to others, etc.). Goodbye numerous Excel spreadsheets!

Top 7 Phrases Every Leader Should Have in His / Her Vocabulary

One of the problems with being a manager is that no oneteaches you to be a manager. Mostfolks who become managers do so because they are technically competent at whatthey do, and they get promoted. Therefore most managers are learning by trial and error and committingsome atrocities along the way, while learning.

In a (small) effort to stem the carnage, here is a list of 7phrase every manager should use liberally in their everyday conversations withemployees – and why.

Thank you

For a long time when I was a newmanager, my thinking was that I should intervene only if someone neededguidance / correction - otherwise they “knew” that no news was good news.WRONG. Not only is thanking someone for doing their job well, polite, it alsogoes a long way towards employee satisfaction and loyalty. Would you ratherwork for a boss that acknowledges your good work, or ignores it? No brainer.But it took MY brain a long time to figure that one out.

May I give you some feedback?

I learned this from a consultingclient who is still in my Top 3 of favorite clients, although we haven’t workedtogether in a dozen years. I think he is a favorite because of this verytechnique (and he’s funny, whichalways scores points with me).  At thestart of our relationship he said “At times I’ll want to give you feedback andI’ll always ask your permission first, OK?” Well sure, who’s going to say no to that? So throughout our 4 or 5 yearsof working together he often asked, “May I give you some feedback?” to which,again, I always said yes. What I thought was remarkable about the technique wasthat after a while, it went both ways. Because he had garnered so much respectfrom me by using this technique, I eventually returned the favor by offeringhim feedback when I felt he could benefit from it. And of course, by asking first“May I give you some feedback?”

Walk me through your thinking...

Part of being a leader / manageris helping your employees to grow in their capabilities. No one becomes morecapable if you simply issue commands at them and expect them to comply. Youneed to give employees some autonomy to make decisions and take the lead intheir work. But of course, making decisions can lead to making mistakes. Ratherthan berating or correcting, asking the employee to “walk me through yourthinking,” helps you to realize why they thought it was a good decision andthen allows you to correct that thinking so that they are better informed inthe future. (WHY did you do that?! issimilar, but more aggressive and less open-ended.)

What else?

This phrase is a good one to usein tandem with the one above. When conversing with employees, they may believethey are taking up your valuable time or abbreviating what they aretransmitting to you because they think, of course you know the preamble, theywill just get you to the “point.” Asking “what else” shows that you have thetime to hear them out and – more importantly – gets them to delve deeper in totheir thinking and rationale.  In mymind, asking “what else” is a lot like a psychologist asking “and how did thatmake you feel?” – it makes the employee pause and go deeper in their thinking.

In my experience...

Sometimes managers areknow-it-alls – do it my way because I’ve been on this job for 15 years and knowwhat’s best. But of course, that doesn’t help your employees to understand the“why” behind the directive and also doesn’t endear them to you.  A simple change in phrasing gets to the sameend-point but in a more collaborative and supportive way. Rather than issuing acommand, simply deliver the same information with the preamble, “In my experience…” 

For example, rather than telling anew salesperson “Never interrupt the customer,” you’ll say, “In my experience,when the customer is interrupted, they either don’t care to share the rest oftheir story or they start the whole story all over again – neither of whichhelps us to move the sale along.”

How can I help?

As mentioned a few times now, as amanager it is your job to grow the capabilities of your employees. When yougive them autonomy and enable them to make decisions they oftentimes will fearthat asking for help means you were wrong about them – that they really aren’tready for the responsibilities you’ve given them. It’s important to proactivelyask “how can I help?” which opens the door for them to share where (or why)they are stalled. This is a much smarter behavior (on your part) than waitingfor the individual to fail and then asking “What went wrong?”

What’s working?

Much like phrase #1 – saying Thank You – asking “what’s working?” focuseson the positive and helps you to understand what your employee appreciates orenjoys about their job. Again, because employees are often afraid of violatingyour valuable time, they will only come to you in “dire” circumstances – whenthey need help or there is a problem; but you want to hear about the wholeperson and everything that is going well in their job. This helps you toidentify their strengths and interests which allows you to develop them inareas where they will be successful.

These7 tips will make your job as a manager somuch easier, by opening up the lines of communication and adding positivity tothe workplace.  You will reap long-termrewards by being a manager who shows respect and is respected by theiremployees.