I taught an Ethical Leadership class at Virginia Tech and posed a question to my students the first day of class- “What is a well lived life for you?” It is worth considering. People have various answers for this, but most talk about having good relationships with family and friends, leaving a legacy of something …

I have spent a great deal of time writing about the paper trail. My previous two posts discuss steps in overcoming it and building a culture of performance. So often, Human Resource (HR) professionals must provide the legal voice concerning employee issues in the organization.

Imagine that you have just returned from attending a concert or play. When asked if your enjoyed the event, you reply “It was good.” What do you really mean by this statement? Do you want it understood that the musicians, actors, and support staff were talented or that the basic sheet music or script was …

In another sterling example of checking brains at the nonprofit boardroom door, I recently learned of a charity that is financially on the ropes. Poor decisionmaking, weak leadership, the struggling economy, and ho-hum programming have this cultural entity (with a multi-million facility) on the verge of collapse. No one is currently at the helm, and …

Coaching Blog: What Are You Tolerating? http://bit.ly/aPXSWk # Training Blog: Tools for your Training/HPT toolbox http://bit.ly/aFWR3o # Business Planning Blog: What Makes a Business Plan a Business Plan? http://bit.ly/9RQcPh # Customer Service: Mapping your Customer Experience Strategy http://bit.ly/9SXUoh # Boards Blog: Is a “Working Board” an Immature Board? http://bit.ly/8YOdMf # Consulting Blog: What’s a “Mature” …

You may feel compelled to shy away from who you are as a spiritual being when you are at work. Of course for some of you that might be the equivalent of deciding not to breath. You may not divide yourself into “spiritual” at home and “not spiritual at work”. Others of you may be …

Recently someone asked for a simple definition. As it turns out, business plans mean different things to different people. I tend to think of them as presenting the vision or goals for a business, along with a road map for achieving those goals. It can be sketched on a napkin, written on a few pages, …

In Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this topic, we reviewed the first 12 of the 15 questions to be answered during the “plan for a plan” portion of strategic planning. Part 5 describes questions 13-15. 13. How will you get the buy-in of members of the organization? There seems to be growing cynicism …

I was reading a post on linked-in on the problems with determining how to deal with problems such as leadership, miss-management and so on. This lead to me thinking that leadership and miss-management and things such as environment or ergonomics are not training problems at all they are in effect Human performance problems. Training is …

About fifteen years ago, I noticed that “nonprofit topics” almost always meant topics specific to nonprofits. I believed this was a misnomer and here’s why. Back then, nonprofit topics usually referred to: Public policy Boards of Directors Strategic planning Programs Fundraising Volunteers Back then, it struck me — as it does now — that there …