It’s a fact of life, when you’re nice to people, they’re nice back–it’s called The Law of Reciprocity. And, the more people you’re nice to, the more people you have out there who are looking for an opportunity to be nice to you. For example, how many times have you heard someone say something like:…
USA Today recently ran a review of a new book written by Dr. Stuart Brown, a 76 year old psychiatrist, titled, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. According to Dr. Brown, play is extremely important during periods of prolonged stress like now when we’re not sure when this…
All of us have dreams, but not everyone’s dream comes true. The question is, why? The song, When You Wish Upon a Star provides two important insights necessary to answer this question. First, as the song says, “When your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme.” Having your heart in your dream…
The road to achieving your dream is usually long and difficult with numerous obsatcles and setbacks along the way. What can make the journey even more difficult is that there are few, if any, guide posts along the way to tell you if you’re making any progress. There will be times when it will be…
Many people tend to use the terms management and leadership as if they’re interchangeable. Seth Godin, in his latest book, Tribes, points out a very important distinction between the two terms. Leaders have fans–excited followers–because leaders show a generous concern for the welfare of the people who follow them. Managers, on the other hand have employees–unexcited non-followers–because their…
It’s a long held belief that the immediate boss has the most influence over how much discretionary effort an employee is willing to apply toward his or her job. Towers Perrin, in their Global Workforce Study which included nearly 90,000 workers from 18 countries, found this not to be true. The study found that while…
Several subscribers have let me know that they were offended by the faux foul language contained in the YouTube video that Harry Paul and I had produced to promote Instant Turnaround! First of all, let me say that if the language in the video offended any of you, I am truly sorry. The reason we…
It’s a pretty straight forward relationship: If people are not recognized for their hard work, they stop working hard. This begs the question: what is the best way to recognize someone for a job well done? A survey recently published in USA Today found that the most preferred way people want to be recognized is…
Last Wednesday I attended my daughter Nancy’s graduation ceremony at Arizona State University. President Obama was the commencement speaker and his address mesmerized an entire football stadium full of people for 27 minutes. In essence, he told the graduates that chasing after the traditional brass rings—big money, material possessions and status—would probably not give most…
Far too many American business executives are using the state of the economy as an excuse for doing nothing to get us out of this recession. They’re sitting back and waiting for something to happen rather than taking the initiative to make something happen—they’re waiting for the economy to get better, for economic stimulus money…