Category Archives: Relationships

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6 Thoughts On Building High-Performing Teams

Building a high-performing team isn’t as simple as it seems. The ingredients are difficult to understand. Even harder to understand is how everything works together.

Just think about Moneyball. It was once thought that high-performing sports teams had the best players on the team. Billy Beane proved this theory wrong.

Rather than finding the star players, Beane looked for undervalued players. These players’ statistics had a high on-base percentage that was overlooked in traditional scouting methods. 

We do the same in building our organizational teams. We look for team members who are the most talented, can seal the deal, and more.

But what if we’re looking at talent wrong? What if there’s a better way to build a team? I believe we need to rethink the current paradigm of talent and shift to another way of scouting for talent.  Read more...

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4 Ways To Unplug And Recharge

Being in the IT world, I know a thing about unplugging (or shutting down) systems and restarting them. It’s one of the first things I ask users: Have you restarted your computer? It’s a line they hate, but the step also frequently works.

Author Anne Lamont once wrote:

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

When I read that, I think of rebooting workstations or servers. It’s a brief unplugging and coming back up. But…

Lamont recognized that we need to unplug for a period of time. It is hard to unplug in this high-tech world of always on, always connected. 

Yet unplugging is vital to our health and relationships. We must be willing to disconnect from the world before we crash, burn out, or destroy our physical or mental health.  Read more...

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How To Be A Grateful And Appreciative Leader

As a team member, feeling appreciated beyond the paycheck is important. You put a lot of effort into fulfilling your job requirements, finding things to do, and making the organization money. The daily grind can be mind-numbing.

Add to that working for a leader who doesn’t show appreciation can destroy any motivation they have to continue working hard. As the leader, it falls on you to make sure your people know that you are grateful and appreciative of their hard work.

I think back to some of my roles where I had a leader who didn’t show their appreciation. It was just demands for more output. Nary a thank you, great job, or I see you were said. At times, there were even threats despite my best efforts. 

I look back on those days and think about what I longed for as an employee. I wanted to feel appreciated.  Read more...

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5 Ways To Lead With Empathy

Empathy sounds like one of those touchy-feely words. It’s what those woo-woo leaders do. But it’s not.

Leading with empathy is something every leader should do. It not only endears you to your employees but it forms stronger connections between you, employees, suppliers, and more.

Why wouldn’t you want to lead with empathy?

What Is Empathy?

Some of us may have the wrong idea of empathy. We don’t understand what empathy is or how to use empathy. Let’s get clear about what empathy is.

According to the dictions, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. That means you, as a leader, can connect with your people on an emotional level. You can share in another person’s grief, stress, anguish, frustration, and more without letting it overcome you.   Read more...