Imagine working for an organization where one of the senior managers insists on yelling at his employees because he believes it’s the surest way to garner the respect of those he leads and now, the front-line managers are beginning to follow his example by yelling at their team members.

Or what about working for a company president whose driven to attract the best talent under the guise of needing their help to make his organization more innovative, only to turn around and demand that they simply do what he tells them to do.

Better still, imagine what it would be like to work for an organization where year-end bonuses are tied to the amount of vacation time you give up, and not on your performance and contributions made to the organization’s collective efforts.

Although these might sound like fictional plot lines for a movie or TV show that satirizes the dysfunctional nature of today’s workplaces, they are in fact the real-life examples shared by one of my readers about the toxic work environment they face every day. And unfortunately, these kinds of scenarios are becoming more and more the norm of what employees face in the workplace.

Naturally, there is a tendency to assume this rise in toxic work environments is yet another consequence of the persisting economic uncertainties many industries and countries are currently grappling with. However, the reality is that such assumptions only serve Click here to continue reading »”Are You Creating A Toxic Workplace? Ask Yourself These 4 Questions To Find Out”

With the month of September now underway, there’s an unmistakable feeling of renewed energy and determination in the air. As children return back to their school routines and the summer break now nothing more than a fond memory, perhaps it’s only natural that there’s this collective drive to take on the challenges before us with spirited enthusiasm.

Of course, how organizations view challenges – either as an outcome of being in competition with others or as an opportunity to push themselves further in order to move one step closer to reaching their full potential – plays a key role in how they approach not only overcoming these obstacles, but the level of creativity and innovation they foster within their workforce.

With this in mind, here are four steps leaders can use to ensure their organizations are not simply reacting to what challenges come their way, but that they have a clear understanding of what their organization needs to do to succeed:

1. Set clear goals independent of what your competition is doing
When it comes to the ability to consistently surprise, delight, and transform customers into loyal advocates, there are few companies that succeed at this as well as Zappos and Apple. Their ability to “deliver happiness” and release unexpected ‘must-have’ technologies respectively, are clearly not mere responses to the challenges they incur from their competition. Instead, these measures are a result of addressing what goals they have for their organization, of what they wanted to create or accomplish that would make them stand out and succeed in their respective fields.

Take Apple, for instance. Can anyone say the iPod, iPhone and iPad were created in response to something their competition was doing? Or were they more in Click here to continue reading »”Are You Using These 4 Steps For Organizational Success?”

Attending meetings that are created mostly for people to share with others various updates from their divisions instead of discussing what needs to be done next. A partnership initially created between two companies to allow them to land a large-scale project ends up becoming a source of distrust between the collaborating businesses, leading to costly delays as each side questions the real motives of the other firm. Spending hours in a committee meeting attempting to decide which option should be pursued over others as the least likely to end in failure.

These are just a handful of some of the scenarios that author Russell Bishop delves into, breaks down and provides clear strategies to overcome and hopefully improve on in his new book “Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work”.

From the very beginning of the book, Bishop makes it clear that the key to overcoming any obstacle or challenge that stands before us is ourselves – specifically our own perception or how we choose to frame a given situation. He divides the work environment into three distinct sections – what we can control, what we can influence, and what we simply respond to – and points out how most times, our focus is on what we respond to and not on that which is within our abilities to control and manage.

Working from this vantage point, Bishop describes three key steps that readers can take to ensure any change or improvement they put forth is more than a mere band-aid solution: Click here to continue reading »”Coffee House Book Review – “Workarounds That Work” by Russell Bishop”

Like most people, I look forward to that time when we can unplug from our computers and mobile devices in order to unwind, spend time with the family, and recharge my mind and body before we need to prepare ourselves to dive back into the hustle and flow of our workplace.

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: Click here to continue reading »”6 Tips You Can Use Today To Help Boost Your Productivity”