Communication

Today’s Tuesday Reading, More About Questions, continues our discussion from the past two weeks.  As we’ve noted there, being able to ask good, well-formed questions is as important to a leader as being able to listen well.  Today, we’ll focus on crafting our questions, on asking questions, and finally on those terrible questions we should […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, Asking Good Questions, continues the series begun last week.  There we noted that asking good questions is as important as listening well.  After all, a major part of a leader’s job is initiating and building relationships, collaborating to craft a vision and strategies, developing an understanding of the work and desired results, […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading begins a short series of readings on the subject of asking questions.  It was Voltaire who said, “It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers.” Mark Suster, entrepreneur turned venture capitalist said it this way:  “The ability to ask questions effectively is one of […]

I suspect that we all have heard enough about Secretary Clinton’s decisions, first to use a non-government email server for both her government-related email as well as her personal email, and subsequently about the processes followed to preserve or delete emails.  And, that you like me want to be done with it.  Even with that as […]

Last week I was attracted to a short piece [1] on networking by Marc Thompson.  Thompson is an author, leadership coach, and investor.  The article’s title, “Why Jeff Bezos, Tony Hsieh and Al Gore Told Me to Stop Networking,” was what caught my eye.  Thompson notes at the beginning of the piece that the typical advice […]

“Humble listening” is among the top four characteristics of leaders.     – Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”     – Henry Ford “To be able […]

For the past three weeks, the Tuesday Readings have focused on one or another facet of employee engagement.  Today, we shift the focus a bit and turn our attention to “Employee Morale.”  Our author is Vi Bergquist, CIO at St Cloud Technical & community college.  Vi’s essay was a recent weekly reflection in one of […]

The past two Tuesday Readings have focused on employee engagement, first, on February 10, 2015, focusing on what employee engagement is and then on February 17, turning to a set of five expectations that employees have of their supervisors.  The data shows that if these expectations are met, engagement will increase.  And, that’s a good thing.  […]

Last week’s Tuesday Reading, “Employee Engagement – What?” focused on what employee engagement is.   According to Kevin Kruse in Employee Engagement 2.0, “Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.  This emotional commitment means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company.  They don’t work just for a […]

This week, at least in the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, traditionally a day of giving thanks for the harvest (that provides our food) and for the preceding year. History suggests that this celebration goes back in the United States at least to a 1621 feast in the Plymouth Colony celebrating a good harvest […]