When it comes to writing a blog, one of the unfortunate realities you have to deal with is addressing online plagiarism (for those who aren’t familiar, online plagiarism is when someone posts your content on their site without proper attribution for who created it). In most cases, this occurs because some malicious site owner wants to use the content you created in order to increase traffic to their own site.

However, as is the case with most interactions, sometimes the line isn’t so clear and it’s hard to know whether the offending act was done intentionally or merely out of a lack of awareness. It’s this kind of situation that a friend and fellow blogger recently found herself in and which she sought my advice about to figure out what she should do to address it.

In this case, my friend had come across a website which had taken a recent post of hers and re-published it in its entirety on their blog without her permission. What’s more, the only attribution given for the post was a vague ‘article source’ link – something few readers would bother to click on in order to find out who wrote the piece.

Following our conversation about this situation, she contacted the site owner and thankfully, ended up with a satisfactory resolution for both parties.

Of course, bloggers and others who create content online are not the only ones who have to deal with this problem. Indeed, most of us have at one time or another faced a similar situation of having someone take advantage of our contributions or worse, taking credit for the work itself. And unfortunately, few of us are lucky enough to see these situations resolved in an amicable fashion that reinforces our sense of teamwork and fair play.

So how do you address a co-worker whose taking credit for your work without creating a new source of conflict within your team and workplace? Here are three steps you can take to ensure a successful and mutually-beneficial outcome. Click here to continue reading »”How to Handle A Credit-Stealing Co-Worker”

Have you ever had an employee come to you with an idea or proposal to address a particular situation to which you answered with one of the following replies?

“That’s a great idea, but let’s shop this around a bit first.”

“I agree that we need to change this, but I’m not sure now is the best time.”

“It’d be nice if we could offer this, but I don’t think we can afford to right now.”

All of these responses sound understanding and appreciative of the employee’s input. And yet, notice how the use of “but” in each reply serves to effectively stop any further discussion or deeper examination of the proposal beyond this initial encounter.

Granted, there are times when leaders need to hold back eager employees because the measures they are suggesting might not be the best in terms of addressing a given problem the organization is facing. Unfortunately, such responses can also inhibit your employees’ sense of creativity and with it, your organization’s ability to innovate if the motivation behind this resistance is based on factors other than ensuring the collective success of your team.

With this in mind, here are four questions leaders can ask themselves to find out if they are letting their ‘buts’ get in the way of helping their team to succeed and thrive. Click here to continue reading »”Is Your ‘But’ Getting In The Way Of Your Team’s Success?”

As a gardener, I enjoy this time in the summer because you get to step back from your garden and appreciate what all that hard work you did in the spring and early summer has given rise to. This time of the year is also an ideal time to review how the plants are faring in your garden so you can anticipate what changes might need to be made in the upcoming fall or spring.

Walking by the various gardens around my house, I noticed how certain flowers planted a few years ago were now doing a great job filling out what used to be bare spots in the garden. At the same, I also noted which perennials would need to be transplanted in the fall given how they were beginning to outgrow their current place in the garden.

Now, it wasn’t always the case that we had a thriving garden full of multi-coloured blooms and various kinds of foliage. In the first few years when we started working on our garden, it felt more like a losing battle with nature given how many plants we lost to pests, problematic growing conditions and who knows what else. Although it was frustrating, those early years provided us with some valuable lessons about our garden, lessons we’ve since used to create a garden we could enjoy and admire.

After reviewing the steps I took over the last few seasons to get my garden to this point of abundance and sustainability, I noticed that there were some interesting parallels that could be drawn to the process of how to go about creating a strong and successful team. And so, I’d like to present these four valuable lessons I learned from my garden which can help you through the process of building and developing a successful team for your organization: Click here to continue reading »”4 Lessons On Team-Building I Learned From My Garden”

If there’s one thing that many of us share as a common goal or objective it’s to be successful in our endeavours, whether it’s being successful in our career, helping to build a successful organization, or being successful in our efforts to raise happy and fulfilled children.

Of course, while we all aim for success and get inspired from reading or hearing about the successes others have achieved, a recent conversation with a friend brought to mind thoughts about how we define what success means for ourselves and for those we lead.

Michael is the president of a small business company he started seven years ago after being laid-off from a company where he worked for almost a decade. As is the case with most entrepreneurs, he started up his company not only to put his skills and experience to full use, but also to answer the lack of opportunities present in his industry by creating such options for himself. Of course, like most small business owners, Michael has endured his own share of highs and lows, but now his company appears to be entering that sweet spot we often associate with a maturing organization.

We got together recently for a cup of coffee to catch up and share stories about our kids and work. During our chat, Michael told me about some of his team’s recent accomplishments and other developments underway after which I congratulated him for the successes his organization had achieved.

While he thanked me for the kind words, he seemed more distracted than satisfied and so, I asked him what was wrong. Michael said that although he was proud of his team’s efforts and happy that his organization had attained these objectives, he didn’t feel as successful as those around him were praising him to be.

He went on to tell me that while he wouldn’t want to go through the grief of starting a company again, when he achieved a goal or milestone in those first few years, he really did feel like he was successful. Now, though, he admitted that the attainment of these goals felt more like “part of the process of growing an organization” than something that would make you feel personally successful.

As we compared his past accomplishments with those made more recently, it was clear that Click here to continue reading »”Do You Have A Meaningful Relationship With Success?”