Month: July 2018

This Is My 300th Blog Post

#300 938 days ago, I started the Excellence In Retail Blog. I launched this knowing that I had something to say but I was not sure or confident how to say it. But there I was with a website and some ideas so…I just…started. This morning I wrote my 299th blog post. I didn’t realize that I was so close to hitting this milestone until a few weeks ago when I actually looked at my post count. At that time I set a personal goal to hit 300 by the end of July. As I stretched for this goal, I was determined to keep writing content that I thought was relevant and important [not just to write fluff to get there], as wellRead More

Teaching People How To Treat You

Teaching People How To Treat You About three months ago I was consulting with a retail organization and the VP of Stores asked me to visit with him. He wasn’t a person I was directly working with on that project so it was a little unusual but he explained to me that they’d recently promoted two people to District Manager level roles who were having a difficult time assimilating into their new position with their teams. He asked me if I could spend two days with these two new DM’s to identify the issue(s) they were having and give them some guidance. “Yay!”, I said. I missed being in the field, with customers and the hard working people who drive the business. SoRead More

If You Want To Be Successful – Don’t Do These Things

If You Want To Be Successful – Don’t Do These Things Most of us really enjoy reading articles that discuss the habits of successful people. They can be the catalyst for self-reporting and correcting behaviors that may not be helping us move forward. However, the problem with those types of articles is that they give you conditional promises. Sometimes you have to be in the center of a perfect set of circumstances in order to achieve what you want to but because the planets are not aligned – now is not the time for success – and you remain where you are. I am a big believer in perseverance so, I still believe that we need to work each day to give ourselvesRead More

Silent Signs You Are On A Great Path At Work

Silent Signs You Are On A Great Path At Work It is a tenet of legitimately great leadership that we need to be actively interested and invested in the growth and career path of people we are lucky enough to lead – especially our high-performers and those who show they are high-potential. However, it is not unusual – unfortunately – if you are very strong, ambitious, and competent for some newer leadership or leadership whose priorities are a little blurry to instead invest time and energy in poor performers or “fixing” toxic employees and leave some of the better people to their own devices. Should it be this way? No, but the reality is most leaders and organization still function this way. It’sRead More

When Verbal “Tee-Ups” Are Given – Beware!

When Verbal “Tee-Ups” Are Given – Beware! Recently I had very interesting interactions with two strangers. One person contacted me through LinkedIn and the other person contacted me through Twitter. I tend to get a lot of emails and direct messages and I make it a point, unless it clearly has nothing to do with business, to respond to all messages. One person started with LinkedIn message and then started texting – no problem…my cell number is clearly listed on my LinkedIn headline. But they kept telling me how honest they were in the midst of their communication. “I am honest, “I will be honest”, “Just trying to be honest”. Oy vey…it was too much and my mind’s warning alarm went off. TheRead More

Poisonous Leadership Practices

Poisonous Leadership Practices I was catching up with a friend of mine the other night and we covered a variety of topics during our conversation. We got to the topic of work and I asked how things were going. She mentioned that her new[ish] boss was “weird” but she was waiting for a friend who was planning on recruiting her to another organization. I asked her what “weird” meant. In this context, weird means not accessible, tone-deaf to the needs of anyone that manager didn’t hire, they are profoundly wishy-washy when it comes to approving time off of work, they definitely promotes a culture of favorites, and are – in general – a zero-charisma communicator during interactions. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only timeRead More

Supporting Creatives In The Workplace

Supporting Creatives In The Workplace The creative genius is “both more primitive and more cultured, more destructive and more constructive, occasionally crazier and yet adamantly saner, than the average person.” – Frank X. Barron As a Learning & Development leader, I am frequently asked how I am able to cater to the various learning styles of people. When I ask the person who surfaced the question to clarify – they usually mean the VARK system of learning. VARK stands for “Visual, Auditory, Reading, and Kinesthetic”. This system is thought to have had something to do with the self-esteem movement of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. So lots of people have clung to their original assignment that they are a certain type ofRead More

The Significance Of Choice

The Significance Of Choice So many of the conversations I have with junior- and mid-level talent revolves around how idle they feel their career trajectory is. So, I ask them a lot of self-reporting questions around this: What projects have you taken on that are stretch-assignments for you? Did you ask for this assignment or was it given to you? What is your understanding as to why you were selected? Were you given meaning & purpose as to how this assignment fits in with the organizational or departmental strategy? How do you – typically – go above and beyond your job description? Tell me about the last time you did and what was the reaction by your peers and the person you reportRead More