Trust me on this: All relationships are built on a foundation of trust. Your customers need to trust you before they’ll do business with you, employees want to be led by leaders they trust, and they want to work for organizations they trust. Leaders need to be able to trust their employees. A lack of…
READ MOREIn Canadian funnyman Martin Short’s biography, I Must Say, Short describes how his wife would ask to speak to his alter ego character Ed Grimley as a way to defuse the tension when they argued. Ed’s sweet goofiness and honesty almost always helped lower the temperature during a heated discussion. A little disruptive humor has…
READ MOREOne of the most effective and efficient things any team can do to improve their communication is to commit to daily huddles. Yes, daily. I’m not talking about formal meetings in the BORED-room, but quick, standing huddles that allow everyone to check in.
READ MOREA series of Harvard Business Review articles looked at the phenomenon of “organizational silence”: Employees withholding information that could be of value to the organization. The researchers found that managers often under appreciate the tremendous cost of organizational silence. Many managers wrongly assume that if employees are talking to them then they must not be…
READ MOREIf you want to brand your business (or yourself) with humor or add some humor to a presentation or to your customer service mix, here’s a checklist of sorts to consider: 1. First, Do No Wrong. Great advice for doctors or would-be corporate jesters. Make sure the humor you use is laughing with people, not…
READ MOREAt the end of the credits for the Pixar movie Monster Inc. (where, incidentally, the monsters discover the joy of laughter), 49 names appear below the heading Production Babies. These are the 49 babies that were born to Pixar employees during the making of Monsters Inc., and it’s Pixar’s way of celebrating the new additions…
READ MORE
