How to check in with your employees

You want employees who are happy to work in your business.  You want to know that they look forward to coming to work, enjoy what they do all day long, and value your role as their boss and mentor.  We have already talked about the importance of “checking in” with your employees, to find out…

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Virtual Meeting Etiquette: update to my course

My online course on how to run better company meetings has been receiving regular updates in the COVID19 generation. The latest is a lesson and worksheet on the proper etiquette for virtual team meetings. As managers you want to ensure your meetings are just as effective remotely as they are in person. See a preview…

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Best of 2020

That’s right: this is a summary post.  The best of the year from my blog posts, YouTube videos, and products.  Blog Posts The four most popular posts of the year touch on all the main topics: keeping happy and productive employees, trusting your clients, (not) offering discounts, and, of course, remote working.  The only two…

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The only two things that your employees need to know

Each employee you have does multiple things, with multiple steps and tasks, and multiple potential outcomes and consequences.  How do you, as their manager, instruct them, guide them, and keep an eye on their work with so much to juggle? You do that by focusing on the only two things that your employees actually need…

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Some people choose the generic option

Let’s be honest with one another: we all want to be the “premium” offer.  When we think of why people buy from us, we are hoping they won’t say “this is the cheap, generic option”.  But then, some buyers do want to buy the generic offer.  What is the difference between our offer and the…

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Business Continuity: Why and How

The following is a recording of an online conversation I had with Tanya Osensky about business continuity: what it is, why it matters, and how to do it. I shared this as part of my Events list, but I am receiving always more questions about this subject matter, so it is worth highlighting as its…

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Competitive Advantage: Know Thyself

This saying from ancient Greek, “know thyself”, is often used as a warning against boastfulness. That’s good advice when it comes to describing your competitive advantage.  You don’t want a value proposition that merely says you are better than the competition. Indeed, you don’t want a value proposition that talks about your competition at all. …

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How to always learn from failure

It is a common trope that failure is a lesson. The question is: are we learning it? In school, we had lesson plans, curricula, lectures, and homework. To truly learn our lessons from failure – or mistakes, or problems, or imperfections – we need a lesson plan.  When you find that something has gone wrong…

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How to communicate with your remote team

Get out of email: we covered that in the last blog post.  And you can’t just pop your head around the corner and ask a quick question since you are all working in different locations.  The question remains: how do you replace these communication methods and still maintain good communication habits? While you can’t simply…

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Four Simple Rules For Successful Remote Teams

How many times have you heard the phrase: Remote working is the new normal. Do you know what the new normal actually is?  The New Normal is knowing that we could have to adapt our work practices very suddenly, at any given moment. The New Normal is the realization that we can’t predict disruption and…

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