Jan 24, 2017 | Soft Skills
During a recent performance appraisal workshop one of the attendees offered up the following scenario and was asking for some advice: I have an employee in my department who consistently turns work in late. I’ve told him what needs to be done. Why can’t he just...
Nov 1, 2016 | Soft Skills
Everyone has heard a boss utter these words at some point, “I don’t care how you do it, just get it done!” This phrasing delivers a very task-oriented mindset to an employee. It tells the employee that they are getting paid to merely perform a defined function. If the...
Sep 24, 2016 | Soft Skills
I was recently asked to develop a business writing workshop for an audience of millennials. Since they were recent college graduates who were already in in the work force, the assumption was that this would just be a refresher course of sorts. Point in fact, these...
Jul 31, 2016 | Soft Skills
The other day, while driving in my car, I was listening to an NPR interview with Mike Birbiglia, who was promoting his new film, “Don’t Think Twice” While I was listening to him talk about it, the interviewer asked him how the rules of improv had affected his career....
Jul 24, 2016 | Soft Skills
Optimize, improve, enhance, correct, remedy, boost, enrich, revitalize, these are all words that describe the intention to change or remove something making something better than it was before. Something is better because something makes us feel safe and secure more...
Jul 13, 2016 | Soft Skills
Every company today has a vision statement that articulates what it hopes to become. It also will often have a mission statement that describes what the business is all about. Companies stress certain principles and values to give their employees direction and make...