Reasons Why Poor Employee Performance May be YOUR Fault (Part II)

May 31st, 2011

Last week I discussed one reason why poor employee performance may be the leaders fault. The following are two additional reasons that employee performance may suffer and what you can do about it.

Expectations are Not Clearly Defined

Our experience has shown that across different industries people are hired but the results that are expected from these new employees are not clearly defined. In most companies the on-boarding process is weak and inconsistent. Employees are hired and expected to navigate this process on their own. The results are many times disastrous and expensive.

Consider these examples of expectation misalignment. Many of the companies we work with have expectations of Business Development but fail to explain the parameters or the numbers they are expected to achieve. Read more »

Four Leadership Lessons I Learned from a Colonoscopy

April 8th, 2011

doctor holding clipboardYou may find it hard to make the connection between any medical procedure and leadership, let alone a colonoscopy! I know I would have never put the two together until my recent experience.

I heard most of my life how awful a colonoscopy could be.  The prep is difficult, the drink you have to take is horrendous, and…it’s a colonoscopy! Guess what? I found it wasn’t so bad after all.  Was it the most fun experience I’ve ever had? No. Was the drink I had to drink delicious? Of course not…but it wasn’t that bad either.

The day before you can only have fluids to ‘clear your system’.  I actually enjoyed drinking the fluids and enjoyed the broth I ate.  I felt energized rather than depleted by the process.

When I arrived for the procedure – the process was seamless. I was seen within 15 minutes of arrival and greeted by the staff who were organized, pleasant and competent. The drugs were as wonderful as I had heard and I awakened in a totally alert state with no grogginess at all.

My husband played taxi cab driver for me and stayed with me all day to ‘be sure I was ok’, A friend called in the afternoon to check on me to see how it went.

As I went through this experience I found some parallel’s to effective leadership today.  Call me weird, but here are the four leadership lessons I learned from a colonoscopy: Read more »