Management - Leadership

Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s General Manager, described in Moneyball the need to rethink his team’s business (baseball) and make a scientific investigation of the sport by determining what qualities in an athlete converted into wins or baseball...

Companies invest millions in training and developing their employees. But all too often, those investments don't pay off because leaders fail to factor in employees' talents.

Quick poll – if you’re a manager, how in touch do you think you are with your team members’ day to day reality? 50 percent? 80 percent?

An interesting pattern begins to emerge when you look at which issues leaders seem to struggle with clearly identifying as areas of weakness or risk within their organization.

Surveys, surveys, surveys — wow, do I get sent a lot of research and surveys.

Who gets recognized in your organization? Just the superstars – the top 10 percent high performers?

"Peter," my friend Byron emailed me a few days ago. "I haven't been diligent about working out over the past five years and I'm trying to get back in the gym and get myself into a healthier state.

To get the best coaching outcomes, always have your 1-on-1's on your employee's turf not yours. In your office the truth hides.

By Steve Chandler and Duane Black Judge others by their questions rather than by their answers. —Voltaire The hands-off manager doesn’t spend a lot of time giving advice. Instead, he perfects his ability to ask questions.

What do ROWE and incentives have in common? More than a little. At least that’s the hypothesis I’m floating out here.

I’ve recently been writing about business leadership and strategy, and I began thinking about something one of my mentors taught me about being an executive.

Something snapped the other day when I read the TLNT post on HR’s “first official standard” on cost-per-hire – after two years of work by a 42-member committee.

They didn’t do anything special for your birthday. They didn’t remember your anniversary. And after you invested so much time, they didn’t take your relationship to the next level. Check, please!

In today’s post-recession environment, businesses are operating with pared-back workforces. Picked to the bone, the burden is placed more than ever on the best-of-the-best people who remain.

You know the crazy thing about drowning? It doesn’t look like you’re drowning! Read this from Coast Guard rescue swimmer Mario Vittone: Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help.

It’s not just the organization’s or the talent managers’ job to motivate employees. Individuals play a significant role in their own motivational outlook.

The “it’s not my job” attitude is more than just an employee career killer; it’s a symptom of a much larger organizational problem. Workers who simply do their jobs and nothing more do not contribute to company growth.

What exactly is “employee engagement?” Most definitions I see somehow reference “discretionary effort.” But my latest favorite definition of employee engagement comes from the HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn: “Discretionary effort that you don’t have to ...

Some people tell me that I get obsessed about certain subjects — like employee engagement, for example.

What does an Easter egg hunt have to do with employee entitlement? Plenty. You see, an entitlement mentality is not innate, rather it’s learned and often ingrained into an individual.

On a daily basis, I track several dozen news and online sources for employee recognition, engagement, motivation and the like. I’ve read more dry and boring reports and stories than I care to admit.

Charles investigates why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. He takes us to laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.