A few days ago, my wife and I decided to take the kids to the beach, to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather that’s been absent in previous years. Admittedly, I did question whether I should bring along my laptop to use some of that lounging-around time to do some writing and such. It only took a moment’s consideration, though, for me to dispel the idea, preferring instead to use this time to watch my kids build sandcastles, or simply floating in the water while my mind drifted off. After all, spending time in such carefree pursuits is what we often associate with taking time off work to enjoy our lives.

Unfortunately, many people are either feeling guilty about taking time off work to go on vacation or worse still, forgoing it altogether in favour of staying ‘on the job’ in order to try and diminish the number of issues currently found on their plates. Many leaders have been very public about their decision to skip taking a vacation this year, rationalizing that it would be unwise to be away from the office given the problems arising from today’s economic climate.

And yet, the reality is that the only unwise thing about these situations is thinking that you’re helping your team by not taking time off from work, a decision that can prove to be more harmful than beneficial for you or your organization. To help prove my point, here are four reasons why you should be going on vacation this summer. Click here to continue reading »”Thinking Of Skipping Your Vacation This Summer? Think Again”

As my kids revel in the freedom that comes with summer vacation, reflecting on my daughter’s end-of-year report card got me thinking about how we offer feedback to our employees. As was the case in previous years, she once again earned grades well above the class average. Of course, that’s not to say that there’s no room for improvement as her social studies mark was just barely higher than the class average.

In most cases, this is where a parent is supposed to ask the child why they’re not doing as well in this subject as they are in others. In fact, I recall from my own childhood that such differences in my grades would spur on comments of how I wasn’t ‘applying myself enough’ in this particular class. Indeed, sometimes these lower marks can move the focus from how well our children are doing in other classes to worrying about why they are having difficulties in this one particular subject.

I think this is why we all dread feedback from our leaders or other superiors – since our childhood days, we’ve become accustomed to getting ‘reviews’ telling us about our weak spots and being told what we need to do to ‘apply ourselves to do better’. Compare this to the number of times we were cheered on for those areas we accomplished in, or being asked what exactly allows us to succeed in these fields that we could perhaps use to address those areas that we’re not so good in.

Granted, there has to be an understanding that even if we try Click here to continue reading »”3 Tactics To Improve How You Give Feedback To Your Employees”

One of the themes I’ve been writing about on my blog is the importance of focusing on our strengths, of nurturing those innate abilities/talents people bring to our teams or companies to benefit both our businesses as well as our employees. This got me to thinking about the relationship between what our strengths are and what we define as our passions; of how those strengths not only allow us to succeed but end up defining that internal drive we all have to pursue a specific goal or objective.

To help demonstrate this connection between our strengths and passion, here are three stories of individual pursuits in the field of sports, business and the arts.

Jon Montgomery – Gold Medallist, 2010 Vancouver Olympics

As with most people, Jon Montgomery had big dreams growing up, of what he’d like to do with his life. And one of those dreams was being able to represent Canada at the Olympic Games, and especially winning a medal for his country. So, he figured his best bet to making that dream a reality would be to take up playing hockey and working at landing a spot on the national team. However, he would soon learn that Click here to continue reading »”Finding Our Passion Through Our Strengths”

When we look at the various examples of effective and successful leaders, one of the traits we see that they share in common is exhibiting a strong sense of confidence. Now by confidence, I’m not referring to pushy, aggressive, or self-serving behaviour. Rather, I’m pointing to those leaders who create this air of calm reassurance about them, who are clearly happy with their lives and are comfortable with who they are; those who we often refer to as being “natural born leaders”.

Ironically, confidence is not something you’re born with, it’s something you develop from inside. And confidence is certainly not linked exclusively to positions of authority, but is something that everyone can nurture and develop in themselves. But how exactly do we foster this feeling of confidence, especially in those moments where we feel it starting to wane? To answer this, let’s look at the common traits found among those who exude a sense of confidence: Click here to continue reading »”Confidence – A Habit Worth Building”