http://mergespeaks.com/blog/">Turning Managers into Leaders

The great folks at PDNet and CGA Canada have invited me to deliver a live webinar “Essentials of Exceptional Leadership” later this week on Thursday May 23, 2013 at 9 AM Pacific Standard Time. If you’ve never attended a live webcast before, it’s a great way to get focused relevant learning right at your desk. Using just your desktop or laptop computer, you’ll be able to view and hear the webcast. Priced at just $99, it’s a steal of a deal! Plus, a recorded version of the webcast will be available to all participants for one year SO DON’T DELAY! To register, or get more information, go to http://bit.ly/163d2m1. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit Denali National Park in Alaska and get up-close-and-personal with Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in North America.  Now, spectacular mountains are nothing new to me; after all I make my home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada which is nestled in the foot of the Canadian Rockies.  But Mt. McKinley was unique not only in its height, but also because of the way it stands out amongst the other topography around it.  And given that Mt. McKinley’s peak is shrouded in cloud at least two-thirds of the time, we were especially fortunate to visit on a day when the skies were clear and the view fantastic.

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Negative people … they’re in every workplace. You know who they are. They never have anything good to say about anything or anyone. They languish around the office. They are victims in a world that is conspiring against them. And lest you fail to notice, they are quick to point out why something won’t work. But worst of all: their sour attitudes bring the rest of the workplace down.

It’s this contagious and toxic nature of negativity that creates havoc in workplaces and causes untold grief for managers and supervisors. The effect negative people have in a workplace is akin to adding a few drops of coffee to a glass of clear water. Within minutes, the drops of coffee swirl and spread through the water and immediately cloud and darken the mixture. Just a few negative people can dampen team morale and productivity. So what can you do about it?  Read the entire article in the September/October 2009 issue of CGA Magazine here.

Look carefully at the pictures above.  Those little objects you see on the side of the building – they’re actually people.  Window washers to be exact.  Hanging down the side of a 55-storey building with only a rope and a body harness saving each one from the force of gravity! Read the rest of this entry »

Legions of army ants swarm in extended colonies (as many as 200,000 in one colony) over the forest floor in Central and South America catching anything they find in their way. In a testament to social cooperation, army ants do not eat each other, but instead overwhelm their prey (usually non-army ants or larger arthropods) through their sheer force of numbers. In an intriguing 2006 study, Bristol University researchers Scott Powell and Nigel Franks observed that some ants took on a specialized role in order to benefit the colony overall. Read the rest of this entry »

During the month of November, we asked for your help in determining our program content for our 2010 Leadership Skills Series Live audio conferences (and we promised you a chance to win three great prizes).  Your feedback was fantastic — thanks so much!  We analyzed the data several different ways, and seven topics repeatedly arrived at the top of the list.

• Communicating with confidence, clarity and credibility
• Motivating employees without spending a fortune!
• Mastering the secrets of persuasive communication
• Creating an environment where people WANT to work
• Managing employees with lousy performances, unacceptable behavior or rotten attitudes
• Active listening skills for the leader
• Creative team-building ideas and activities

These topics will drive our curriculum development in 2010, and are all subjects that I plan to specifically address in the upcoming year, either through the Leadership Skills Series Live, or another avenue.  So stay tuned!  And if you missed the survey, it’s not too late to give us your thoughts.  Just add your comments to this post.

No, we didn’t forget about the prizes!  As promised, we also randomly picked three winners from all the entries we received.  We’ll announce the winners tomorrow, so be sure to check back then.

Last Thursday I got to do something that I don’t often get to do as a professional speaker – I sat in the audience and listened to someone else stand on the platform and deliver the keynote speech.  General Rick Hillier delivered the breakfast address at the Canadian Society of Association Executive’s conference in Toronto ON, and I was one of several hundred people in the audience.  His topic: leadership; which of course is a subject near and dear to my heart.

Now if you’re Canadian, you no doubt have an opinion on Canada’s presence in Afghanistan; I too have my own political views on this subject.  Read the rest of this entry »

Our survey deadline is 11:59 PM MST on November 30, 2009, only three days away!  This is your chance to win one of three valuable prizes, and our chance to get your input for our topics and content for our 2010 Leadership Skills Series Live audio conferences.

Click here for our quick ‘n’ easy survey

In return for your time, we’ll enter your name in a draw for three chances to win one of my Leadership Skills audio programs, either in downloadable mp3 or CD format, a $197 value. There are eight you can choose from, and you can preview them all here.

Do it now – in won’t take more than 5 minutes, we promise!  We’ll announce the winner here as well as in December’s issue of Merge’s Monthly Mega Minute.

Sometimes, it’s the smallest sources of irritation that cause the greatest rash!  I’m talking metaphorically of course, because I’m referring to the workplace.  In fact, I even have a phrase to describe it – I call it the Piss-Off Factor, or POF for short.  It’s not necessarily a polite expression, but I hope you will excuse me using it, since it IS descriptive.  A POF is usually a small annoyance that left unchecked, expands and spreads, until it becomes a source of great frustration.  Let me give you a quick example – a new company rule says that employees are no longer permitted to park in the lot next to the warehouse; they must now park in the lot across the street.  No big deal — it’s just an extra 300 yards, right?  Wrong!  For some reason, it’s something as small as this that can get blown out of proportion if it’s not properly addressed, and the reasoning behind it explained.  And most times, it CAN be addressed and explained, if only you’d thought about it!

Leaders, here are two questions to ponder.

1. What do you think your people grumble about the most when they are standing around the water cooler (of course, this is when you are not within listening distance)?
2. What could you do now, today, to remove or reduce the source of their discontent?

What are the POFs in your workplace?  And what are you doing to reduce or remove them?  Alternatively, what’s getting in the way of removing the POFs.   Talk to me, I’m very interested!

We need your help!  We’re developing the topics and content for our 2010 Leadership Skills Series Live audio conferences and in return for 5 minutes of your time, we’ll give you three chances to win!

Just complete this quick ‘n’ easy survey

In return for your time, we’ll enter your name in a draw for three chances to win one of my Leadership Skills audio programs, either in downloadable mp3 or CD format, a $197 value.  There are eight you can choose from, and you can preview them all here.

The deadline to enter is 11:59 PM MST Monday November 30, and we’ll announce the winner here as well as in December’s issue of Merge’s Monthly Mega Minute.  Do it now – in won’t take more than 5 minutes, we promise!  Click here to go to the survey.