Branding is not only a marketing term to promote products. It can promote your career. A strong career brand conveys your identity and distinctiveness as a professional or leader. It communicates the value you offer. If you have a weak or wrong brand, you will have a much harder time achieving your career goals and …

How important is listening to your ability to be a better leader? A better team member? A better friend, sibling, sister-in-law, parent….well, you get the picture. Listening is one of our most important communication skills, something we do every day, and yet fewer than 5% of us ever take any training in it. You might …

Over the past several weeks, I have been reading a lot about predictions and strategies for 2011. The predictions and strategies have a great deal of overlap and many focus on new legislation and an increased awareness of how the legal landscape and a new focus on enforcement of laws by the Department of Labor …

5 Effective Coaching Tips to Improve Your Listening Listening is the primary tool in the coach’s toolbox. It is the foundation for developing rapport and producing an effective coaching session that yields results. Here are 5 tips that will ramp up your listening skills and enhance your communication: 1. Focus like a cat – notice …

Good crisis management means being prepared for the worst Being well prepared beforehand is probably the number one way to minimize the impact of crises on your organization. While this may seem obvious, most are at a loss as to what steps to take to ensure this preparedness. In a recent post on the Preparis.com …

What separates the greatest teams from the rest is their mix of talents and, crucially their understanding of one anothers’ strengths. When team building there are a number of questionnaires (or psychometrics) that can be used to help teams identify their strengths and preferences. When this information is used to assign roles and tasks true …

Before actually reaching out to Gen Y, companies must first spend time listening and learning what’s important to them, how they think, and what they like (or dislike!)

Many methods have emerged over the years that are hailed as the greatest and latest way to deliver a project. A good example would be the “scrum” method for delivering IT projects. The scrum concept is implemented in a number of ways, one of which could be to pick groups of requirements which are delivered …

Benefits of Consulting and/or Project Teams Occasionally, a client will specify that they want a team of consultants on the project because the project requires substantial expertise and resources. While there can be many frustrations for consultants working in effective project teams, there are also major benefits. The team can provide a wide variety of …

Our firm gets 4-5 calls/month from people wanting to know how to start or grow a consulting practice. Obviously, there’s no standardized procedure for that. It depends on the nature of the service you’d offer as a consultant. If you’re selling services to develop job descriptions for rural electric co-ops in Kansas, well your service …