[email protected]

847-612-8420

Free Consultation

The Leadership Caffeine Blog

Explore by Category:

Customer Service Hell and Lousy Leaders

Jun 1, 2012

I confess to not understanding the management and leadership thinking that leads to the many unpleasant or at best, sterile experiences with retailers, healthcare providers and so many others types of organizations. It’s almost as if someone is in charge of ensuring a level of engagement with employees that is somewhere just north of rude and way south of pleasant. Here’s a glimpse at a few of those policies and my suggestions for some well-deserved quality time for the executives behind these policies:

read more

Just One Thing-Do Something Extraordinary for Someone on Your Team

May 30, 2012

The lowest cost, highest return investment in the workplace is to help move someone closer to realizing his/her professional dream. This is simple and powerful and with creativity, often within your control to pursue for someone on your team. Here are some thoughts on why you should do this and how to get started. Remember, it takes “just one thing” on your part to make a difference!

read more

New Leader Tuesday: You Will Be Tested-5 Ideas to Help You Succeed

May 29, 2012

You will be tested many times during your first go-round as the individual responsible for others. Know that everyone is watching your responses to these tests.
Handle them properly…even adequately, and your credibility for leading will rise. Get them wrong and you’ll become just one more faceless first-time supervisor in the process of being turned into grist inside the organization’s cultural mill. Here are 5 ideas to help you successfully navigate these tests:

read more

Integrator Leaders-People Who Get Stuff Done

May 26, 2012

Regular readers know my perspective on those who lead without authority. I’m a huge fan. These are the people who turn good businesses great and who power teams with the kinetic energy created by their constant motion.

read more

New Leader Tuesday-Beware Under or Over Managing

May 22, 2012

The first year of your first job responsible for others (supervisor, lead, manager) is the early-awkward phase. Your technical or functional expertise and someone’s perception of your potential for leadership got you here. Your as of yet undeveloped or at least under-developed communication and coordination skills are what will carry you forward. Here are 5 suggestions to help you get this right.

read more

Just One Thing: Services ARE Performances

May 20, 2012

Few things evoke as much negative emotion in otherwise kind and gentle souls as a bad experience as a customer. Focus in your mind on your last really bad customer service experience and you can sense the tension in your neck growing along with the rise in blood pressure. That bad experience becomes “the company” for us. What do your team’s performances say about you as a leader and about your firm?

read more

Leadership Caffeine™: Listen with Intent

Apr 24, 2012

Yesterday, a valued colleague described a fascinating professional interaction and used the phrase, “listening with intent.”While I imagine it is something on the level of “seek first to understand,” the phrasing works for me. It connotes a significant and deep personal investment in focusing on another human…something lacking from most of our interchanges in life and in the workplace.

read more

Leading in the Matrix-7 Ideas to Cultivate the Right Skills

Apr 11, 2012

If speed, adaptability, learning…and the need to innovate are more than buzzwords and corporate clichés, but in fact are the requirements for success in this fast-moving world, then building cultures, teams and people capable of succeeding in the matrix must be a priority.

read more