Ever heard the advice, “You really need to love your job”? It’s usually offered unsolicited by an overconfident boss who thinks the rank and file will find it inspiring, or somehow turn their drudgery into a rewarding experience. Does it work? Of course not. You can’t order people to love their job. That just gives [read more]

I once hired a consultant, and the first thing out of his mouth was a lie. Seriously. I brought him in to lead a 3-day long-term strategy session for my business unit. When he kicked off the first day of meetings, he introduced himself and started into a story about an experience he had at the [read more]

Sometimes living up to your company’s values requires more than just knowing what the right thing is and wanting to do it. In those cases, a little creativity sometimes helps. Here’s an example that will hopefully give you some ideas for how to respond when you’re in your own pickle of a situation. Martin Nuechtern [read more]

In early 2001, the stock market was still reeling from the dot-com bubble and burst a few months earlier. The economy was uncertain, and even many traditional companies were in turbulent times. Procter & Gamble was one of them. It had been less than a year since the company’s stock had lost nearly 40 percent [read more]

Most business school professors know their students can learn a great deal from the practical experience of local business leaders. Dr. Art Shriberg at Xavier University was one of them. He regularly invited senior executives from local companies to speak to his students. And with nine Fortune 500 companies headquartered within a few miles of [read more]

Every company has them—Corporate Values Statements. Sometimes they’re called Company Values and Principles, or simply What we Believe. But values are only words on a piece of paper until they’re tested. That is, until someone is put in a difficult position of choosing between doing the hard right or the easy wrong. The easy wrong [read more]

My podcast guest this week is Jathan Janove, who stopped by to share three fascinating stories from his new book, Hard-Won Wisdom: True Stories from the Management Trenches. Today, Jathan is an organizational consultant, management blogger, and contributor to HR Magazine. But he spent 25 years as an attorney litigating some fairly salacious workplace problems, which we’ll [read more]

At 5:46 A.M. on January 17, 1995, a massive earthquake shook the city of Kobe, Japan, killing over 5,000 people, and leaving 300,000 injured or homeless. Measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale, it was the worst earthquake Japan had experienced in over 70 years. One of the hardest-hit parts of the city was Rokko Island, a manmade [read more]

Giving feedback is a lot easier when the misstep is obvious once pointed out. Unfortunately, people sometimes have difficulty seeing even an obvious mistake when they’re the ones committing it. What can you do when others can’t (or won’t) see the error in their ways? Tell them a feedback story about someone else. One of [read more]

In 2010, I had the pleasure of working with Courtney Minor. She’d just been promoted and was working with a new team on an important project. The day came when she, along with her teammates, had the opportunity to present their work to the leadership team, which I was a part of. Presenting to the [read more]