The 5 C’s of Fostering Strong Working Relationships

Teamwork provides a foundation for business success. Teams, when managed properly, maximize each individual’s strong points while minimizing weaknesses. Of course, creating productive teams isn’t as easy as it sounds. Strong working relationships need five basic ingredients for success: Communication, Collaboration, Culture, Creativity and Commitment. Each of the five Cs builds on the previous one, to form a complete structure which fosters teamwork and relationship building. Continue Reading

Obstacles to Company Innovation

Employers, are you wondering what is keeping your company from producing the next big thing?  Here is your chance to find out.

The biggest roadblocks to organizational breakthroughs are a shortage of fresh thinking and too much red tape, according to executives interviewed for a recent Robert Half survey. More than one-third (35 percent) of chief financial officers (CFOs) said a lack of new ideas is the greatest barrier to their company being more innovative. Approximately one-quarter (24 percent) of respondents cited excessive bureaucracy as the top creativity killer, while 20 percent blamed being bogged down with daily tasks or putting out fires. Continue Reading

Where’s the Loyalty?*$! How to get the most out of your team even in the most trying times

Lack of loyalty is a serious problem in organizations everywhere today.

No longer do people join a company and devote the rest of their working lives to it.   Companies are, of course, not exactly known for offering up thirty or forty years of employment, a gold watch and pension plan.

Times have changed.  Businesses appear and disappear at a dizzying pace. So do the jobs they offer. People no longer expect to spend their entire career with the same company.

Organizations preoccupied with short-term, bottom line thinking often view their employees as little more than resources to be hired, fired, and manipulated as the need arises.

Both sides pay a price for this lack of loyalty. Workers are naturally less happy on the job when they sense little or no loyalty from their employer. I agree with Carmine Coyote about how the negative impacts on productivity are truly alarming: Continue Reading

Bad News Practices

No doubt you’ve seen it because within four days of its appearing on the Net, everyone and their cousin was talking about 10 Things That Will Get You Fired. There were some items with which that I had painful, first-hand experience.

“That’s not part of my job description” is not just a rudely smug expression. It’s a statement that was very popular in the early 1980s. Apparently it’s still alive and well. But to my dismay I recommended a secretary who found herself in need of a new position after the firm where we worked closed. Based on my recommendation to the partner of a nationally prestigious law firm, she was hired. I was glad for her because as we interacted at the previous firm, I found her to be a very capable, sensible person.

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