Leaders Decide Challenging People Grow or Go

Photo by Anthony Tran One of the most stressful parts of life is dealing with people that have high-conflict personalities. And, if you have to manage one, your life just got worse. It is a leader’s job to manage and decide whether these types of team members can grow or have to go. In a moment, I’ll share a few simple steps for making “grow or go” decisions. Upcoming Webinar. Last year in my article One Narcissist You Want Off Your Team I described one of the worst types of personalities you might encounter as described by Bill [...]

By |2019-11-07T15:11:57-05:00October 24th, 2019|Bullies & Misbehavior, Human Behavior|
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Entitled Leaders May Help Homo Sapiens Go Extinct

Photo of Referee Scott Foster by Isaiah J. Downing It has always bothered me how the very leaders who refer to government programs as “entitlements” behave entitled themselves. By entitled I mean they act as if the laws, rules, and ethics they talk about apply to everyone else, not them. And entitled people hate referees, but more about that in a moment. What concerns me today is how our younger generation is being impacted by the increasingly visible entitlement behavior displayed by their parents, politicians, celebrities, wealthy business leaders, and professional athletes. I ask myself, “If we do [...]

By |2019-05-30T12:06:02-04:00May 30th, 2019|Bullies & Misbehavior, Human Behavior, Uncategorized|
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A Few Reasons We All Lie

Yes, we all tell lies even though we don’t like to admit it. And I think the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves because they often do the most damage to others – quite often unintentionally. On Sunday a rather odd, but timely, thing happened to me. Right after I watched a mother deal with a six-year old child who had told her a lie, I spotted a June 2017 National Geographic magazine on a shelf. On the cover were the words Why We Lie. Of course I was intrigued. In my Blog last week Remember One Thing [...]

By |2018-10-04T08:38:59-04:00October 4th, 2018|Bullies & Misbehavior, Human Behavior|
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Leading the Bullies Among Us

A few weeks ago I was at a meeting with over 200 people in the room. The last item on the agenda was for the group to agree on a future meeting site and there were three locations to choose from. As the speaker began to briefly describe the second choice a familiar voice boomed his interruption from the back of the room, “Only vote for that one if you like to watch grass grow!” There were a few chuckles and then the speaker finished his presentation and a vote was had.  As no surprise to me the second location [...]

By |2017-05-19T19:54:46-04:00March 8th, 2017|Bullies & Misbehavior, Human Behavior|
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Deal With Problems One-on-One, Not in Group

Last week I saw this recurring behavior, again. And, every time I see it, I recognize it as a symptom of a supervisor who is avoiding conflict. It is something all supervisors, including me, have done at some point in our careers. What was it? It was a “training” for a whole team of mostly experienced, competent people on a topic that only one person was deficient. As I looked around at the faces of the people in the group, I saw each person become more and more disengaged. It was a waste of valuable time. A few years ago [...]

By |2018-01-02T20:15:45-05:00March 2nd, 2017|Bullies & Misbehavior, Conflict Resolution|
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Final Thoughts About Trump’s Brand Value

Last November I wrote about how I thought Donald Trump was not running for President, he was running to increase the value of his brand name. In that article Trump is Running for His Brand, Not for President I postulated that because of the free media attention Trump knew he would receive, he would stay in the campaign until he started to lose, and then take his toys and go home. Since then two interesting things have happened. First, he won the Republican Primary, much to my and many others’ surprise. But, second, like relatives staying too long on a [...]

By |2017-05-19T19:54:47-04:00October 20th, 2016|Bullies & Misbehavior, Human Behavior|
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The Business of Begging

Denver - Near Corner of Curtis and 16th Street (Photo by the Author) What a weird title for a blog, right? Well, I just spent four great days in Denver, mostly downtown, and I came to realize very quickly that next to restaurants the most common business at street-level was begging. And, if you spend any time watching beggars practice their “craft,” you can see they understand the customer need they are trying to satisfy, the importance of location, and how to deliver a compelling message. We stayed at a hotel on Curtis Street and frequented the 16th Street Mall [...]

By |2017-05-19T19:54:51-04:00October 19th, 2015|Bullies & Misbehavior, Human Behavior|
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A Letter from Your Ego

This is your ego writing. Steve has been talking to people about ego these last few weeks and thought it might be helpful if I wrote a guest column – so here it is. I am an important part of your brain and my louder voice controls much of your success. And, when you do not listen to my quieter voice, I can quickly undermine your success. There are many stories of how my fellow egos have completely destroyed careers, but that is not why I am writing you. I want you to understand me better so you know how [...]

By |2017-05-19T19:54:52-04:00June 30th, 2015|Bullies & Misbehavior|
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