Using State Management on a Team of Zombies
To say we were all exhausted would be an understatement. After nine almost 16-hour days, managing 150 high school students, even the Energizer Bunny would probably tap out. My 20-person staff had one more day of the 10-day program. I needed the team to show up with the same amount of energy they had on […]
When Employee Engagement Goes Too Far – Scary Sixes
Robyn works at a large cosmetics company where meetings happen every day, all day. Others on the team describe her as loud, excited, and never-ending. In meetings, there is often no reason for Robyn to answer questions, but she does anyway. Many times, the questions aren’t related to her job, and she doesn’t even have […]
Apply Two Hat Theory for Better Customer Service
I don’t usually show annoyance in my face, but the flight attendant on a recent flight was so oblivious to how she was treating me, that I couldn’t help myself. It all started on a six-hour flight from Seattle to NYC. Within an hour of taking off, I finished the water in my canteen. I […]
Good Leaders Don’t Waste Downtime – 4 Things to Do in December
In August, we spoke at 28 different events. In September we spoke at 13, and in December we spoke at 0. Some might look at December and think of it as a chance to exhale from the never ending travel and speaking that happened in the Fall. But as the CEO of Swift Kick, I […]
The Failed Promise of Open Office Spaces
Innocently enough, a co-worker of mine recently asked me about a meal replacement shake I was having for lunch. While I was explaining the finer points of the ingredients, another co-worker overheard our conversation from her desk in our open office space and chimed in. Moments later, another co-worker made a sarcastic comment about my […]
Swift Kick’s 3 Steps To Creating A Culture Of Connection
A core value of Facebook is “Move Fast.” “Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. We’re less afraid of making mistakes than we are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We are a culture of builders, the power is in your hands.” A core value of Apple is “Saying No.” […]
3 Signs Your Team Culture is Rotten
The team had nicknamed their boss “Lunch Box” so they could talk trash about him in the company chat room without him noticing. As if that’s not sad enough, what’s even sadder is that Lunch Box didn’t even know his team had nicknamed him Lunch Box. Sometimes he’d jump in on the conversations, thinking they […]
7 Ways To Stay Engaged With A Virtual Team
I pulled over in the middle of nowhere on I-80 next to a herd of cows because it was the only WiFi signal I was able to find for the last 40 miles. I tethered my phone to my laptop and dialed into our team’s daily 10:10am huddle. In looking at myself in the reflection […]
3 Steps For Leaders To Recover Gracefully From Mistakes
I live and die by my work calendar, so I was annoyed that one of my team members had missed her one-on-one meeting with me. It is so easy to keep track of appointments, meetings and deadlines using a sharepoint calendar, so there is no excuse to miss something like this. Not only did this […]
Two Ways to Make Sure Your Employees Aren’t Wasting Time at Work
Our team was wasting two hours of time after each training. That means with the 90 trainings we did in 2017, our team wasted a total of 180 hours. That’s almost a month of wasting time! What happened? After every training, we had a process of sharing all the training photos on our Facebook page […]