Core values are those beliefs, principles, and convictions that guide you through life and keep you strong during adversity. They help you decide between right and wrong. Core values differ from one person to another; they may conflict with the values of the company or team where you work or with those of family and…

The four main types of personal decision making are rational (gathering facts), bounded reality (relying on “good enough”), intuitive (relying more on past experience), and creative (when previous experience provides no answer). Rational Decision Making For rational decision making, you first verify that you actually have a problem, then establish your criteria for decision making…

Audits may be held to assess (a) the financial health of an organization, (b) the organization’s use of its resources (including people), (c) whether the organization is in compliance with laws, regulations, and internal or industry standards, and (d) how the organization has violated any of those standards if a violation is suspected.  Getting Started…

One of the advantages of group problem solving is pulling in experiences, ideas, and strategies from a variety of sources. For that to happen, the group has to achieve a certain level of trust in each other and the ability to communicate clearly. However, assuming the group does trust its members and are able to…

When many leaders describe their life, they use three words: stress, overwhelm, and dread.  Does that sound familiar to you? You are not alone. An early survey of 118 top executives of European companies found 25% of them felt at risk of burnout. Twenty years later, in 2018, in a survey of 827 executives, over…

The schedule is the foundation for any leader’s management practice. Personal schedules keep you on track both in the office and at home. Project schedules keep a project on track, organizing budget, timing, resources, and responsibilities. All project scheduling has the same goals: Provide insight into what must happen over the course of time to…

Time off—even a few days—benefits you in so many ways: Improves relationships: Continuous work interferes with human connections, especially with the family and friends we rely on for emotional support. Reduces stress: The American Psychological Association notes several small studies that have associated vacations as short as three days with stress reduction, including a decrease…

When the Gallup organization studied 143 CEOs, they found that a high ability to delegate had significant benefits to the company: a growth rate of 112 percentage points greater than CEOs with low delegation skills achieved, 33% greater revenue; and greater hiring and growth goals. Clearly, delegation is a leadership skill that every leader should…

Focus and concentration may seem to be a simple matter of paying attention, but it actually requires specific abilities, environments, and habits that engage parts of brain dedicated to establishing and keeping focus. In addition, if concentration and focus go on too long or involve too few areas of interest, performance suffers along with the…

Where does the time go? If you’re at work, a great deal of it has probably been robbed by interruptions, meetings, unnecessary training, and poor planning and organization. According to research reported by Inc.com, leaders are working longer hours than ever—mostly by taking responsibility for tasks that they could easily delegate. A whopping 6.8 hours…