You consider yourself a hard worker. You’re responsible at work. Everything you do is high-quality, meticulous and very neat. When you have a task to complete, you are fully committed to finishing it even before the deadline. When someone asks you to prepare a report, you verify it a couple of times, checking whether your …
Category: Leadership
Team building that really works
Team building can sound scary to a lot of people. It’s typically associated with meeting your coworkers in order to do mundane or ridiculous stuff, like singing a song or holding each other’s hands. Something that is meant to be fun but that some of you will consider a nightmare. Something that is meant to …
Reasons why team building fails
Team building exercises are one of the most commonly used group-development ventures in many organizations. However, not everyone is convinced of their value. Some people actually question whether those indoor or outdoor activities even work at all. Most of us tend to just assume they are in fact quite powerful, but now it’s to time …
Delivering negative feedback. The one that really works
One study conducted by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman found that 74% of employees who received negative feedback already knew there was a problem. It shows that employees are not blind to their weaknesses. Perhaps they are just not sure how to improve their skills or they don’t realize how their problem affects the rest …
How to have a productive one-on-one with your boss?
One-on-one meetings are useless. They take the quality time that could be spent on real work away from employees. That’s what you often hear about one-on-ones. But these meetings are actually crucial not only from a manager’s perspective but also from your point of view. They can help you get your career to the next …
How to organize the worst one-on-one meeting?
A one-on-one meeting, 1:1, 1 on 1, a one-to-one, a check-in, whatever you call it, it is one of the most important meetings, looking both from a manager’s perspective as well as an employee’s perspective. Unfortunately, those kinds of meetings are the subject of frequent complaints. They became the victim of corporate jokes. People treat …
The Peter Principle. Why is it a bad idea to promote top performers to leadership positions?
In 1969, a professor of education, Laurence J. Peter, and a playwright, Raymond Hull, published a book entitled The Peter Principle [1], which described a management concept called the Peter Principle. It discredited the model of promotion in hierarchical organizations. Laurence J. Peter observed that a person who is competent at their job will earn …
How to deal with toxic people?
You walk into the office feeling energized. You drink a cup of coffee while having a delightful chit-chat in the social room. You’re about to start your daily duties feeling motivated and cheerful. But there is this one person or maybe even a few of them who will definitely kill your positive attitude. They will …
3 types of toxic people that will kill your team’s motivation
You probably actually met a few toxic people in your career. Those who were like the cancer of the workplace and disrupted your well-being, happiness and motivation at work. You avoided scheduling meetings with them, making eye contact with them and you always walked out of the break room the second they walked in. In …
Is it worth hiring a star? The myth of talent portability
There are many companies which boast about hiring the best of the best. Looking for stars sounds like a great business approach to staffing your company. Who wouldn’t want to work with people renowned in their field of expertise or known for their successful careers? Managers also tend to believe that hiring stars is the …