The Secret of the Starting Question The ability of the group to respond to a question is significantly impacted by the quality of the question asked by the facilitator. The starting question is the term we, at Leadership Strategies, use for the question the facilitator asks to begin a discussion. Typically, a starting question is …

I thank my favorite Western University psychology professor, Dr. Willis McCann. Mental Health, I think the name of the course was, for helping me with this seemingly huge problem they have to try to save the world. While we would like to, we can’t but we are already equipped with the “computer” that can do …

“I find myself trying to avoid those annual appraisals with my people. Much as I try to keep the meeting focused, we always seem to get side tracked and involved in personal stuff.” – Health Care Manager During a recent training on performance reviews, I asked managers when they experienced problems. Many said it was …

Still not ready?? While social media continues to grow and users welcome it into most every aspect of modern life, few businesses are truly prepared to launch a social media crisis management campaign. Check out these telling figures, from a recent SmartBlog on Social Media survey: If a social media public relations crisis were to …

Continual learning is essential for survival in the workplace-instruction in the form of training is not. For workers who are already able to do what is expected of them, but are not performing to expectations, training is not the answer." Robert F Mager as quoted in the ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals p. 173

There’s been a fair amount of interest lately in how to write your business plan quickly, say in a weekend. The most well-known is called Startup Weekend, which promises to turn strangers into teams with a completed business plan in an intensive 54-hour weekend marathon. Is this a good idea? There’s also a new book, …

“I’ve taken over a project team and there are several problem employees. One spends more time socializing than doing her job. Another is making too many mistakes that slow down the team. How should I handle these problems as the new leader?” One of a leader’s toughest jobs is dealing with problem employees. The best …

Once the application/product has been created and before it goes live, a detailed quality check will be conducted. To perform this check and to ensure that all functionality/features/ attributes/ facets of the product perform as intended, a Test Plan is created and used to perform a detailed check on the application/product. A test plan can …

This post will conclude a series on Twelve Lessons I Learned or Re Learned this Year. These final two are lessons that I am reminded of often. Within these two, I find challenge and reward.

Basic Guide to Reframing: Seeing Things Differently Reframing is seeing the current situation from a different perspective, which can be tremendously helpful in problem-solving, decision-making, and learning. Reframing is helping you or another person to more constructively move on from a situation in which you or the other person feels stuck or confused. The aim …