Building a high performing team for many organizations is just a crapshoot. Business owners and managers often bet the house when they hire the “ace”- a top performing super-star - only to find out he or she doesn’t fit in with the rest of the team. Stephen Shapiro, one of the foremost authorities on innovation and collaboration, has just published a new book called “Personality Poker” that describes how businesses can turn the team building gamble into a sure bet. Join me for the next Workforce Trends Blog Talk Radio Show when my guest Stephen Shapiro reveals why:

• Opposites do NOT attract and that leads into dysfunctional relationships
• The person you like the least may be the person you need the most
• The Golden Rule is wrong and how it may alienate others
• Most organizations are “cults” that stifle creativity, individuality, and innovation.
Learn how leaders can assemble a high performing team using each person’s strengths resulting in better outcomes, more efficiency, and higher productivity.

About Stephen Shapiro: Stephen Shapiro's insights apply to virtually any organization, big or small, he has contributed to shifting the innovation culture for such Fortune 500 organization as Staples, GE, BP, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity Investments, Pearson Education, Nestlé, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Over the years, Stephen has shared his innovative philosophy in books such as 24/7 Innovation and The Little Book of BIG Innovation Ideas and has been featured in New York Times, Newsweek, O-The Oprah Magazine and Investor’s Business Daily. As the founder and creator of a 20,000 person internal innovation practice within Accenture, and advisor to hundreds of organizations worldwide, Stephen possesses a rare and extensive arsenal of tools allowing him to arm any organization with the knowledge they need to shift their most threatening challenges.

Why are some people happy, successful and effective at work while other very capable people fail? What do they know that the rest of us don’t?

Join me for this week’s Workforce Trends show when Jay Forte introduces his new book, The Greatness Zone. Jay will reveal his simple formula for success - self-awareness. Self-awareness, according to Jay, differentiates top performers from those individuals who spend their life hopping from job to job looking for a better job, a different workplace, a better life.

Tune in, call in Wednesday at 10 AM EDT. Learn how you can find your Greatness Zone. Learn how you can identify candidates and employers who have discovered living in The Greatness Zone.

Do you know if your company’s intellectual property is protected? Is your social media and online content protected? Who owns the materials generated by employees, contractors, and users?
Attorney Erik Pelton, founder of Erik M. Pelton & Associates, will discuss steps to identify I.P. and notify others about it, and why intellectual property is one the hand easier than ever to create, and on the other hand easier than ever to steal. Erik will discuss steps employers can take to create policies that will help ensure that the company’s intellectual property is accounted for and protected.

Getting people together face-to-face is getting more difficult and expensive. Advances in technology, increases in bandwidth, and affordable solutions are changing the way business schedule on-site meetings, doctors deliver care, and students attend classes. Join me on this week's Workforce Trends Blog Talk Radio with my guest Mark Edward Pearlstein, the National Account Manager at BenComm when we discuss how the latest technology is improving the ability to schedule and conduct business with face to face meetings in real time, anywhere in the world with minimal training and investment.

Social media is fun, free and easy. More people use it each day for business as well as for pleasure. But despite the promises of using social media for recruiting, marketing, and employee engagement, employers must not ignore the employment law implication associated with privacy, confidentiality, and discrimination. Join host Ira S Wolfe on this week’s Workforce Trends Blog Talk Radio show when he interviews Bill Egan, head of the Labor & Employment group at Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ira and Bill will discuss the problems, liabilities, and legal pitfalls of using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media in the workplace. The show will be live at 11 AM EDT. Have a question about social media policy? The call in number is 646-200-3752. Don’t have a question? Just call to share how social media is or isn’t working in your workplace.

Out of work candidates complain that employers are offering sub-standard compensation? Employers say candidates don’t have the skills and attitude required to do the jobs? Despite high unemployment, a surprising number of employers say they are getting an underwhelming response, and many are having trouble filling open positions. Join host Ira S Wolfe on this week’s Workforce Trends Blog Talk Radio when he speaks with 3 successful small business executives who are having trouble filling open positions. My guests this week will be Dave Hatter, President and founder at Libertas Technologies, LLC, Scott Kerschbaumer, Co-CEO of ESSpa Kozmetika Organic Skincare, and Mike Kleinberg, CFO of Solera Salon, Inc.

Second Life is a 3D virtual world technology that lets users create digital personas, or avatars, and mingle with others in virtual worlds. Many executives and business owners mock Second Life, but real-life organizations like IBM, Northrop Grumman, U.S. Navy, Starwood Hotels, and Toyota are actively engaged. What value are they finding in Second Life? Is Second Life just another fad or is it a precursor to our future. Join me on this week's Workforce Trends Blog Talk Radio Show when Thomas Samson, Client Services Partner at Teamwork Dynamics, Inc., shares how he personally uses Second Life for executive coaching and how how he helps other businesses get a life in Second Life.

Executive time has become more precious. Companies have become more widely dispersed.
Travel is more challenging than ever. As companies look to boost business productivity and manage costs, visual conferencing and online collaboration keeps looking better and better.

Fortunately technology has evolved to the point where an employee working from home has the capability of being face-to-face with co-workers, bosses, customers, and vendors online – simultaneously – without ever hopping on a plane or sitting in traffic. According to the research firm Forrester, 34 million Americans are working from home at least part time. If everyone who could work from home did work from home, it is estimated that the U.S. businesses would save an estimated $700 billion annually. As a result of technology and economic need, the number of employees working from home is expected to double before the end of the decade.

This convergence of rising travel costs, unreliable air transportation, and falling “telepresence” costs will lead inevitably to a decline of business travel. That decline is coming at a time when the need to meet and collaborate is increasing, not decreasing.

For all these reasons, I’m very pleased that my guest for this week’s show is J.W. Penland. J.W. is CEO at IOCOM, which just launched its revolutionary Visimeet technologies. Visimeet is a game-changer. It levels the already flattened playing field between small and large business and puts a leading edge productivity tool onto the desktop of every employee and business owners.

Tune in on Wednesday August 11 at 11 AM EDT when J.W. Penland joins me to talk about how visual communication solutions will change the way we do business.

Who should listen? Executives, small business owners, health care providers, recruiters, HR, entrepreneurs.

Maybe it’s just me but it seems lately that a lot of really smart people in powerful places are doing some really dumb things. By now most people accept the facts that intelligence by itself doesn’t make you rational. Thinking rationally demands mental skills that some of us don’t have and many of us don’t use. The problem now has gotten so bad that one expert even coined a term to describe the failure to act rationally despite adequate intelligence: “dysrationalia.”

So what’s behind this rash of smart people making really bad decisions? Join the discussion on this week’s Workforce Trends Blog Talk Radio show with my guest Peter Winick. Peter’s passion is finding what makes thought leaders tick. He’s spoken one-on-one with many of the best in business today: Richard Branson, Micheal Eisner, Marcus Buckingham, Ed Wallace, Michael Gerber, and dozens more.

Peter describes himself as “an entrepreneurial-minded leader who leverages the power of internal and external relationships to accelerate growth within emerging and high-potential companies that have powerful intellectual property.” His accomplishments includes successful start-ups, turnarounds, and M&A (in the b2b services sector)—with results driven by practical strategy, focused execution, and a disciplined method of cost control.

Join me on Wednesday at 11 AM EDT on Workforce Trends Blog Talk Radio to hear thought leader Peter Winick discuss why smart people do dumb things. The show is live and call-ins are welcome.

Despite prolonged high unemployment, employers are struggling to find qualified candidates? How is this possible? Is the U.S. as poorly prepared for 21st century work as it's reported in the media? Will the U.S. need to learn to live with with both a severe skills shortage and high unemployment?

Join me with my special guest Edward E. Gordon on the July 21 Workforce Trends Show on Blog Talk Radio. Gordon describes the future of U.S. economy as one of “abundance and poverty.” Whether you’re an employer, manager, human resources professional, or an employee working in a rewarding career or a dislocated worker seeking another job, you won’t want to miss this show. Edward is the author or co-author of 17 books including, Winning the Global Talent Showdown, The 2010 Meltdown, Skill Wars, FutureWork, Closing the Literacy Gap in American Business As President of Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago and Palm Desert, California, he is a human capital management expert who applies a multidisciplinary approach to today's complex workforce and economic development issues. President of Imperial Consulting Corporation, and author of the important and visionary book Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline, Edward E. Gordon describes how even in a recession, the USA, Canada, and the rest of the world face a talent shortage in many fields and will share his ideas for solving the talent crisis.