Photo courtesy of curtis.kennington

This past Tuesday, I had the opportunity to appear as a guest on the Real Recognition Radio show, which airs every Tuesday at 1PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on the VoiceAmerica Business channel.  In this week’s episode, titled “A Better Workplace Conversation”, hosts Roy Saunderson and S. Max Brown interviewed feedback expert Sonia Di Maulo and myself on the issues of leadership, workplace interactions and fostering motivation in employees (Sonia has written a follow-up piece about our interview on her blog.  I invite you to check it out and find out what key points stood out from this discussion).

For those who didn’t get a chance to hear the radio broadcast, or who’d like to hear the show again, you can listen to the interview using the audio player below.  Or if you prefer, you can download a MP3 copy of the show from the Real Recognition Radio show web page.

Some of the topics discussed during this show include:

• Why giving positive feedback is critical to creating a productive workplace.
• How listening can foster opportunities for growth.
• Why the best leaders are those who focus on serving those they lead.
• The importance of praise and recognition in the workplace and how we can start implementing it today.
• How we can engage our employees in these tough economic times.
• Why leaders should encourage a more emotional workplace.
• What are the most important opportunities facing organizations today.

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I want to take this opportunity to thank Roy Saunderson and S. Max Brown for inviting me to appear on their show.  It was a pleasure to share my insights on leadership and motivating employees with your listeners.  And I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this conversation on leadership and motivating employees.

What ideas resonated with you and what would you add to the discussion on these issues?

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”

With the latest edition of the Winter Olympics soon approaching its end, much of the focus right now is on tallying up medal counts and reviewing the performances of the various athletes in their particular events. However, this is also a good opportunity to look at some of the concepts leaders and businesses can learn from the Olympic Games.

While there are some obvious ones, like the importance of teamwork and understanding interpersonal dynamics, there are other valuable lessons businesses can learn from this international event. To help illustrate these points, let’s take a look at these three memorable stories from the Olympics:

Collaboration goes beyond borders

At the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, Canadian skier Sara Renner encountered a situation I’m sure she never imagined would happen. In the middle of the cross-country team sprint race, one of her ski poles was accidentally broken by another skier, leaving her with only one pole to continue the race with. That is, until one of the ski coaches rushed out onto the track to give her his ski pole so she could keep going without any difficulty. Thanks to the quick response of this coach, Renner and her teammate Beckie Scott went on to win the silver medal in this event.

While it was a proud moment for Canadians, what really made it incredible was that Click here to continue reading »”Olympics Lessons On Improving Our Approach To Business”

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work under several bosses and observe the different styles of leadership each of them brought to the position. Some of them proved to be textbook examples of how not to lead a team while others were unremarkable, but nonetheless competent in the managerial role. But then there were those rare few who were invaluable in teaching through their conduct and behaviour how one should approach the role of leadership.

One such example of this was Dan, the president of a biotechnology firm I worked at a few years ago. As the head of the company, Dan displayed an open interest in finding out what unique strengths his employees brought to the business. He then used this information to look for opportunities where he could encourage his employees to use and develop those abilities. It was clear that he viewed it as his responsibility to foster an environment where his employees could develop their potential both for the benefit of the company, as well as for their own professional growth.

Unfortunately, most leaders manage their teams by focusing instead on Click here to continue reading »”Leaders, Are You Developing Your Employee’s Super Powers?”

Like most people, I look forward to the arrival of the weekend as a chance to unwind, spend time with the family, and recharge my mind and body in preparation for the jump into a fresh work week.

There are times, though, where that continual push to maintain our productivity through the week takes its toll and we can find ourselves struggling to get out of neutral. This is something that happens to me at times and I know only too well how frustrating these moments can feel, especially when we see that large heap waiting for us in our “To-Do” basket. As such, I want to share some of the strategies I use to recharge my productivity batteries so I could complete my tasks for the week:

1. Review what you’ve completed so far

In the drive to maintain our level of productivity, it’s a good idea to take some time to review what we’ve completed up to that point. This will help in evaluating whether it’s really necessary to keep pushing to the max or whether we can afford to throttle down our efforts to give ourselves time to catch our breath. As marathon runners know, it’s not about Click here to continue reading »”Need A Boost? Strategies For Recharging Your Productivity”