Performance appraisals are both one of the most crucial parts of a successful business, and one of the most ignored. On the one hand, optimistic HR experts … Read more
How to Coach Employees Through a Failure
How can you mentor employees and turn a failure into success? There’s no magic switch to flip to transform poor workers into employees of the month. But … Read more
Leaders Live In a Bubble You May Just Have to Prick
Leaders live in bubbles. If your childhood summers were anything like mine, you spent a good deal of time blowing thousands of soapy bubbles through a … Read more
3 Rules to Make Performance Management More Effective
As humans our core values define and shape us and serve as internal beacons to guide our actions and behaviors. It is the same for any organization’s … Read more
You Can Help Managers Be Better Managers
Everyone is aware of friction when it exists in the office. Whether it’s an undercurrent you feel or scuttlebutt around the water cooler, you want to shout … Read more
How Keeping Notes Makes Performance Conversations More Effective
Successful teams are made up of individuals with unique ambitions, strengths, and personalities. The secret to being a great leader is the ability to … Read more
7 Ways to Make Your Project Fail and 7 Ways to Prevent That
Wonder why some projects fail while others are successful? Like the 7 deadly sins, this article from Toledo Solutions lists 7 of the most common ways to … Read more
HR Roundtable: How Can We Improve Feedback?
When we got together for the August Cincinnati HR Roundtable, people were excited to talk about the topic more than usual. We were going to discuss … Read more
Your Execs Are Fooling Themselves When It Comes to the Feedback Office Workers Want
Think your office workers are satisfied with the level of performance feedback they receive? Think again. New data suggests that if you’re still … Read more
How One-on-Ones Can Make the Difference Between Loving and Leaving
It’s a well-known cliché in HR circles that employees quit their bosses, not their jobs. However, having run many employee surveys and regularly studying … Read more
10 Must-Have Features For Your Performance Management System
HR departments across nearly all industries are constantly trying to improve systems and processes to help increase employee engagement, recruit and retain … Read more
Use Feedforward to Make Performance a Partnership
You may not like getting feedback, but you can’t deny its importance. Receiving robust feedback – even when it’s negative in nature – is a key driver … Read more
The Most Common Mistakes Managers Make and How to Fix Them
I’ve trained thousands of managers in different industries, with different levels of seniority and experience, with teams large and small. And, while they … Read more
Fail Fast and Take the Heat Out of Failure
I recently met with a client responsible for organizational development in the financial services sector who was seeking ideas, information, and input from … Read more
With Practice and the Right Approach, Feedback Can Be a Gift
Annual performance reviews are controversial. Some people praise them in public, but most hate them in private. For starters, they are a waste of time — … Read more
When the Going Gets Tough, Here’s What to Do
Every business and staff member go through tough times that might lead to distractions, a drop in motivation or a change in priorities. The only certainty … Read more
3 Questions Every Manager Should Be Asking Themselves
Even though I was a teacher for 25 years, I was not a model student. And whenever I was in trouble at school, I knew it not because of my teachers’ words, … Read more
What If Everyone Had a Personal Coach at Work?
What’s better than a performance review? If you said a poke in the eye, you’d be right there with the vast majority of workers. Kris McGuigan … Read more
Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect. Deliberate Practice Does
“Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” – Malcolm Gladwell, Canadian writer and journalist. Per the classic joke, we all know how to get to … Read more
6 Steps to a More Effective Performance Management Program
Traditional methods of managing performance aren’t working anymore. Companies are moving away from traditional performance management tools, like … Read more