The Massive Cost of Recruiting You Never Knew About
Do you think you know how much it costs to recruit a manager or executive? You might take a moment to calculate the costs of advertising and agency fees, the time it takes to screen resumes and interview candidates, and the cost of onboarding. But if that’s all you’re thinking about, you’re barely scratching the…
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Creating a Culture of Accountability, Not Blame
If you’re a leader, you’ve probably heard the quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Unfortunately, when it comes to which one gets more attention from executives, it’s strategy, without question. This is perhaps because, to most executives, strategy is easier to manage. What many leaders fail to realize is that if they aren’t managing their…
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What It Means To Put People-First (Case Study)
I’ve been speaking and writing a lot about a seemingly counter-intuitive concept: putting employees ahead of customers and profits is the surest path to exceptional customer service and financial success. It’s also the most fundamental (and most frequently missed) pre-requisite to building a pipeline of leadership and talent within an organization. But what does that look like……
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6 Essential Leadership Qualities
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution the most common criteria for promoting people to leadership positions has primarily been their technical ability. Naturally, new managers tend to do the things that got them promoted, that is, they do the most challenging work themselves and leave the leftover tasks to less technically competent workers (those…
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Surprise! You’re a Mentor.
Whether you know it or not, people are watching you. They’re learning from you and trying to infer the motives of your actions. Now, if you’re a leader, its safe to assume that others are watching you about five times more closely than they normally would—dissecting, analyzing, and categorizing everything you say and do, as…
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The Building Blocks of Purpose, Vision, & Values
When an organization’s purpose, vision, and values live only on its office walls, it’s impossible for that organization to be any better than mediocre. The companies that stand out, and that are rockin’ their industry, have their purpose, vision and values tattooed on the hearts of their employees (not forcibly, of course 😊). In other…
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Greatness Lies In The Answers To These 3 Questions
What is greatness? Most of us want to be great in some way, but we all know that it’s a pretty exclusive club to get in to. So most people don’t go for it. Some because they don’t feel they could ever attain greatness. Others might want to attain greatness but do not know how.…
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5 Essential Practices of Great Second-in-Commands
I served as the third-in-command in a large branch of a fairly dynamic service organization. When I recently told my leader that I was transferring to serve as the second-in-command at a different branch of the same service organisation, he told me “Go show them what it means to be a first follower.” I was…
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