We don’t get a lot of visitors around the office. Our family members come by, and occasionally a customer will fly in to meet us in person, but that’s about it. This is mostly due to the nature of our business. Most of our customers are looking to fix a very specific problem, and they find us on the Internet. A conversation is started, and we help where we can. Because of the "virtual" way that we do business, most people don’t ever see our office. It’s kind of a shame, because we like our office. We spent a lot of time figuring out what it should look like, and what design would suit us and our culture the best. A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with my friend Kerry Woo, and he was telling me about how he’d been taking photos of local businesses for Google, and turning them into virtual tours that get posted to Google Maps/Places. It’s like Google Street View, but for the inside of businesses. Perfect! We scheduled a time for Kerry to come over and create a virtual tour of our office. Within a few days, we were all done, and our virtual tour was online. You can learn a lot about a company by seeing their workspace, and now our customers (and potential employees) can see where we spend our days.  

I believe that we create such great products because we have an amazing company, not the other way around. We talk a lot about SCORM, the Tin Can API, and the products that we make. We know these things well, and we enjoy talking to the world about them. What we don’t talk about a lot (and this is changing) is who Rustici Software is and what it’s like to work here. We make excellent products that do a great job at solving difficult problems, but behind our products are our people and our culture. We have some of the smartest people on Earth here, and we are one of the best places to work, period. We built this new website to let the world know about what it’s like to work here. This site isn’t about our products, it’s about our company. It’s about how things are done at Rustici Software, and it’s designed to let you know what work should be like. This new site started as some of Jena’s sketches, and it ended as a brand new site. My favorite page of the new site is what I call the "Testimonials" page, where we all have a place to say why we like working here. See photos of the things we do, learn who we are, see why you want to work with us (don’t forget to check out Jenafits), and check out our company blog. I hope that you can glimpse of what life should be like on our new company homepage, RusticiSoftware.com.

You might have heard that we like to take care of our employees by offering them things that most employers wouldn’t ever consider providing, and most employees wouldn’t dream of receiving. Well, we did it again. This young man, Beau, washed and detailed all of our cars this week, courtesy of Rustici Software and Jenafits. Why this week? This is a big week for us here at Rustici Software — it’s Quell Week. Quell week happens once per quarter for us. It’s a time where the entire company gets together and decides how the last quarter went, and what will happen in the following quarter. There’s a lot of food (hence the clean plate part of the blog title), and usually, a lot of change (hence, the clean slate part of the title.) Teams might be rearranged, developers might be assigned to new projects, or new teams could coalesce to meet emerging needs. The change that Quell brings is one of the things that keeps our company fresh, on its toes, and progressing. This is definitely not a place where anyone gets stuck doing the same thing, day after day. "I fear change"…you’ve heard it before. We don’t fear it, because it’s how we keep the company on course with our ever-changing industry, and we do this better and faster than most companies (I speak from experience). Another reason not to fear change? Having a spotless and squeaky clean car is nice, for once.

Continuing with the fun of Quell Week, we spent yesterday afternoon at Sky High Sports. We bounced around on a massive trampoline, played dodge ball, and got to dive into large pits full of foam (it was just as entertaining to watch people try to get out of the foam pit as it was to watch them dive into it.) You can see photos here. What was really interesting to me was an interaction that I had with our dodge ball referee. He does this stuff for a living, so believe it or not, he’s seen his fair share of "massive trampoline" dodge ball matches. At one point during our match, he turned to me and said "I’ve never seen anything like this before." Was it the intensity of the competition? The amount of fun we were having (at a work function)? The way that we started making up our own rules to increase the difficulty (and in turn, increase the fun) of the game? I don’t know. But I do know that we get that reaction a lot …usually when someone visits our office for the first time, or when we’re out in public at a company event. "I’ve never seen anything like this" is a really good way to sum up what it’s like to see this company in action.

"Bravo. You are in the select company of America’s Fastest-Growing Companies". That’s what was written on the front of the big folder that Mike handed to me last week, the folder that Inc Magazine sent to us, letting us know that we made the INC 5,000 list this year. It’s pretty exciting — even The Tennessean thinks so. We’ve won a lot of awards, many of them we’ve won multiple years in a row, but this is our first time making the INC 5,000 list. We don’t need awards to know that we’re doing great work, but it sure feels nice to get them.

When Jeff and I sat down to interview our newest employee, Matt Lefavor, I didn’t know what to expect. You see, Matt has officially taken my title of youngest Rustici Software employee. I held that position proudly for exactly 922 days. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t help but feel a tad replaced. But once Matt started telling us about himself, my feelings were drowned out by the chorus of this Foreigner classic. I really have been waiting for a guy like Matt to come to work here at Rustici Software for so many reasons. He rocks a bowtie almost everyday, hence his nickname- Bowtie. He came to us from NASA. He writes music. He lets me call him Bowtie. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s a rapper. That’s right, people. He raps. I could barely contain my excitement. Want to sample the tracks that Matt’s laying down? Check this out. Matt’s joining our SCORM Engine team, working on everything from integrations to creating new releases, with a side of support here and there. Want to learn a bit more about him, check out his bio. I wish I could write a really awesome rap to welcome Matt to the Rustici family, but I’m lyrically and vocally challenged. Instead, I’ll just say "Welcome, Bowtie, we’re happy to have you here!"

We’re a family here at Rustici Software. We look out for each other, and we tease each other, just like brothers and sisters do. We even call Mike "Dad" and Tim "Mom" — but it wasn’t until our latest hire that we really were a "family affair." Ryan Donnelly joined us about a week ago. Does the name Donnelly ring a bell? Ryan is Joe’s younger brother! How cool is that!? …and we couldn’t be happier to have him. Ryan will be teaming up with Joe on the support side of our business. He’ll be working directly with customers to help them troubleshoot issues and help them find which of our products work best for them. If you’re curious about what else Ryan is in to, check out his bio. We’re excited to have Ryan here at Rustici Software, and we can’t wait for him to start giving up brotherly secrets about Joe. Welcome to our family, Ryan!

When I was younger, I would spend parts of my summer at my grandmama’s house in South Carolina. Every time she saw my brothers and me, she’d threaten to strap bricks to our heads to keep us from growing so quickly. I’ve reminisced on those moments several times over the past couple of weeks. You see, we’re growing like wildfire over here. It seems like every time I blink, we’ve added another person. We’re quickly running out of office space, but it’s really an awesome time for us. We’ve recently added two new family members to our roster and we couldn’t be happier! Tim Chudy also joined our Watershed sales team. Tim, also known as Chudy, is a childhood friend of Andy’s and they’ll be working closely to preach the gospel known as the Tin Can API. Chudy recently broke the record held by Jim by mocking me in exactly one day. He’s just a rule breaker like that. And last, but certainly not least, we’ve added Katie Wright. Katie is a lovely developer that’s planning on helping the guys on Dev Row make Watershed LRS even more awesome. I’ve loved Katie since our first conversation a few months back and couldn’t be happier to have another girl in the office. She’s already participated in Fancy Friday! So there you have it. At this point, I don’t even think bricks could slow down the growth spurt we’re experiencing. We might just use them to build a new office space. And somehow, I’m totally okay with that The post We’re going to need a bigger office… appeared first on Rustici Software.

Well, not really, but it’s the closest thing that the e-learning industry has to offer in the area of "prestigious awards for doing awesome things". The Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards Program is the most prestigious awards program in the e-learning industry, and was the first awards program put in place in the e-learning industry (back in 1994). So what cool things have we been doing and what did we win? ADL released the official 1.0 version of the Tin Can API in April of 2013, and the e-learning world was then able to do amazing new things that weren’t possible with SCORM alone. SCORM serves its purpose, but the really exciting things happen when you start using the Tin Can API. LifeWay Christian Resources wanted to deliver and track video content in a way that would produce metrics that SCORM alone couldn’t produce, so we outfitted their systems with the Tin Can API, and tracked all the metrics they wanted to track with the Learning Record Store that’s built into SCORM Engine. What did that get us? A Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award! You can read a lot of the details here. AT&T wanted to do things with their training program that they couldn’t do in a traditional SCORM environment, so we set them up with the Watershed LRS and they began learning what motivated their employees to learn and how various types of learning affected employees’ real-world performance. And yep, another Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award! While we’re talking about awards, we’d like to acknowledge our friends and customers that also won Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards: Accenture American Red Cross BizLibrary CA Technologies, Inc. Convergys Corporation CypherWorx KFC-US (Yum! Brands, Inc.) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory NogginLabs, Inc. PANDORA A/S Tata Consultancy Services Ltd Tribridge Triple Creek Workplace Answers We’re happy to see so much innovation happening in the e-learning industry, and proud to know that Tin Can is at the heart of revolutionizing a fair bit of it. Click here to see a full list of this year’s winners. If you have any questions or would like to talk to us about how you can use the Tin Can API in your organization, please get in touch. We love talking about this stuff! The post We won two Grammys! appeared first on Rustici Software.

Just having a great product is not enough. Many people forget that exceptional customer support is one of the most important parts of an organization’s ongoing success. Why? It’s most often the only contact a customer has with your company. Receiving the help they need (while interacting with awesome people) encourages customers to stick around. Further, it reinforces the lifetime value of your products and increases customer loyalty. Why does it matter? We’ve had continuous, award-winning growth over the past 10 years. That’s because we love to delight our customers with excellent products and exceptional support. We hold ourselves accountable with a running tab of how our customers rate our support for SCORM Cloud and SCORM Engine. All 2517 tickets that have been opened this year are followed up with a satisfaction survey that is posted around the office and on the website. That’s why we get really excited when the Delight-o-Meter has 100 smiling Jenas in a row: What qualifies as exceptional? We looked at the global benchmark analytics from Zendesk, the help desk tool we use. The average global satisfaction rate for all Zendesk users is 83 percent. But, average is not exceptional, so we try to shoot higher. Here’s a quick look at where we stack up next to the industries in which we operate:So how do we keep our numbers close to 100 percent? 1. Giving the right help: We shoot to give customers the best answer, not just the fastest one. And when we can’t help them, at the very least, we provide a path forward. 2. Being real: "We’re two dudes in an office. You can call us on the phone, you can see our photos on the website—you can find us. We’re accessible and we want to help. People often call us and are surprised: ‘Oh, there really is a Joe?’" -Ryan Donnelly, half of the Donnelly Support Team It’s okay to want people to like you A previous boss used to tell me "people don’t have to like you, as long as they respect you." Good advice. But wouldn’t you rather have customers who respect AND like your company? A delighted customer is a heck of a lot easier to work with than one who hates your guts. So why not shoot for both? Continue to celebrate in the delight of your customers—it pays off. The post Measure your success by the delight of your customers appeared first on Rustici Software.

In reflecting on the holidays and looking ahead to our 2013 resolutions, we all wish we had more time in December to enjoy the season. Despite the Mayans believing that time is finite, we know time moves on and our to-do list awaits with many tasks for work, family, holidays, and all the fun activities we want to do and enjoy. I recently attended a conference for the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) in San Diego. Marshall Goldsmith discussed how the norm in our lives is BUSY! Our lives are extremely fast-paced with technology at every turn and all the work and family commitments we have. This is now the norm, it won’t end after a day off or a relaxing weekend - it’s the norm and everyone is busy! It actually relieves a lot of stress to realize it’s more important to prioritize then it is to fight how busy we are. I liked this list of ideas, from Ezine Articles, to help us through this month - focusing on problem solving: Make a TO DO list. Write down everything you need to get done over the next few weeks to help you stay focused! Prioritize the items on your list. Some things MUST be done, and others may simply not be possible now. Decide which things will have to wait. Say no to Procrastination. The more we put off, the more stress piles on. Plan some down-time for yourself with a book or seeing friends and family. Take time to ENJOY the season - holiday concerts and public decorations around cities and malls abound. Most importantly, be sure to ask for help when you need it. When you start to feel overwhelmed, reach out to others. You’ll be surprised at how a few helping hands can make all the difference. Providing an extra set of hands is what we specialize in at Locus. We can help increase your productivity with budget-savvy programs that are always on-strategy and impeccably delivered. No matter how you spend your time this month, we hope you do find a successful way to manage all your tasks. We wish you a peaceful and happy season with much success for 2013!

Anytime - Anywhere Learning In the recent explosion of on demand availability through the power of smart phones and tablets, more and more companies are turning to mobile learning to train and educate their learners. Adapted from the article by Bill Roberts titled "From E learning to Mobile Learning", it is very important to give the learners the ability to access videos and learning content whenever they need to, even if that is in the middle of the night. Mobile learning is changing the way that companies approach teaching. The physical classroom is not dead, but it is very important to augment this with mobile learning availability. "Within the next five years, we are going to be not just changing but transforming how we train and educate based on mobile," says Daniel Burrus, chief executive officer of Burrus Research Associates Inc., a Hartland, Wis.-based consulting firm. This changing landscape of learning is something that we are all embracing to avoid being left behind on the technical side of business. Some ways to get the most out of the mobile learning process is to Divide content into smaller, shorter pieces that the learner can manage and absorb in 5-10 minutes Understand that your learners approach mobile learning in the same way they learn in the classroom and be able to cater to all styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) Provide examples of coaching and mentoring in order to get the most out the learner’s potential Create content that is easy to understand and use, much like a video game uses easy to read instructions - very visual The technology boom of the past 5 years has allowed business to be approached in a whole new way, companies have more resources to make training and learning fun and easy, and most importantly convenient for the learners trying to grasp a new concept. The ability to market mobile learning will make your company more adaptable and able to adjust to our changing world of technology! Locus can work with you to transition your programs and learning into convenient and effective mobile programs. We can be your extra set of hands to help you embrace the changing landscape of learning and technology.

You might say I got lucky. In 2003, with virtually no industry experience under my belt, I was hired as a technical writer for the marketing department of a publicly traded software company. My new boss was an old friend who trusted my natural smarts and grad school writing skills. Let’s just say I was catastrophically underprepared. Having only recently mastered the art of sending of email attachments, I faced my first prodigious technological assignment: translating our network architecture into internal documentation the marketing team could understand. The divide between marketing and development at this company was hard to miss. The engineers occupied the west side of the office, marketing the east. Developers dressed casually in jeans and t-shirts and worked quietly with headphones on; the marketers wore skirts and suits and carried on lively conversations throughout the day. The divide was also gendered: men developed the software programs, women marketed them. The seemingly superficial nature of these differences underscored a very real cultural divide. The developers and marketers struggled to communicate with each other. They didn’t understand each other’s lingo. And I suspected they genuinely disliked each other. Over the course of my first few meetings with the engineers, it became clear that I too, had no idea what they were talking about. It also became clear that we shared a love for Star Wars. That’s when something interesting happened: by naming each of the servers after a Star Wars character, the developers used my knowledge of the relationships between the characters to help me map the relationships between the servers. I came to understand the role of each server, in part because I understood Yoda’s role in the Star Wars saga. Metaphors and analogies continued to bridge the gap between the developers’ world and mine. They linked "techie" things like our transaction management system to things I could understand, like my Amazon shopping cart. In my work as an Ariel Group facilitator, I’ve likewise seen participants use metaphors to illustrate "techie" concepts to non-technical audiences. One participant described having to explain to his non-technical manager how the front-line employees were failing to use a system the way it was designed, which was affecting their reporting. "You do karaoke, right?" he asked his manager. "Well, imagine you’ve programmed the karaoke machine to play a particular song, but when the song comes on, the lyrics are in Japanese. Your performance would suffer, right?" His boss got it. A great metaphor can prompt a quantum jump of understanding. The key is to use metaphors that are rooted in the knowledge and culture of your audience. My participant made the effort to learn that his boss did karaoke, and that made all the difference. Using well-suited metaphors not only helps you explain tricky concepts but also helps you build a personal connection with the people you are interacting with. Over time, I felt less intimated by the developers and even began eating lunch with them. Through metaphor, they took me from barely being able to send an attachment to typing Unix commands. Plus, I got invited to tag along with them to see Revenge of the Sith. The post Information Translation: Using Metaphors to Describe and Explain Technology appeared first on Ariel Group.        Related StoriesGroup Presentations: Improving Your Rehearsal ProcessInspire, Motivate, Engage - While Doing More with LessThe Power of the Present is in the Tense 

As we enter the presidential primary debate season in America and the political candidates burn the midnight oil studying the details of policy, economics, and international relations, all that studying could be for naught if they don’t pay attention to their stage presence. Many candidates spend time and money developing innovative policies, only to sabotage them on delivery through their physical behavior or tone of their voice. This first hurt Richard Nixon in the televised debate between him and John F. Kennedy in 1963. Nixon’s nervous demeanor—he constantly wiped sweat from his brow throughout the debate—undermined his message to the voters and Kennedy was considered the clear winner by the television audience. Interestingly, those who listened to the debate on the radio gave the edge to Nixon because his voice and message were compelling—and were not undermined by his body language and appearance. A quote from a Boston Globe story reinforces the point. "The twitchiness is seen unconsciously by the viewer/voter as reflecting on the personality [of the candidate]," said Joseph Tecce, a psychology professor at Boston College who studies nonverbal communication. "It can influence the viewer’s vote." The home television audience was able to factor in the inherent flaws of Nixon’s delivery—ignoring his words and focusing instead as we typically do on his body language. So how much of our communication is actually attributed to our words? According to Dr. Albert Mehrabian, the author of Silent Messages, only 7% of any message is actually conveyed through words. Another 33% is conveyed through vocal elements (pitch, tone, etc.) and a whopping 55% is through nonverbal elements (facial expressions, gestures, and posture). When we speak to someone, it is essential that we convey the same message through our body language and facial expressions. By using expressiveness (pitch, tone, facial expressions, and gestures), you provide your audience with information and clues to understand how they should feel in the situation. Keith Johnstone, considered many as the father of Improvisational Theater, has a lot to say about this. Johnstone was very interested in the "status" an audience infers from the slightest change in their physical behavior. His "signals of status" are taught in Improv classes around the world and form the basis for the great work at Second City and Improv Olympics. Johnstone’s signals (see box below) can seem simple on the surface but even the slightest change in any one of them can change an audience’s perception of the speaker from someone they admire, respect and trust to someone not worth listening to. SIGNALS OF PRESENCE - Adapted from Keith Johnstone’s signals of status Standing still, breathing evenly, and maintaining steady eye contact has a profound impact on an audience. Johnstone says the following, "Our behavior-reinforced by our appearance-signals our importance or lack of importance." And he goes on to say, "No behavior is insignificant. When we interact together, our brains are counting the blink rate and registering even the tiniest head movement." George H. W. Bush infamously looked at his watch during the only debate he had with candidate Bill Clinton. To the audience, it appeared he as though he was bored and that what Bill Clinton was saying wasn’t of interest. It looked like he "had better things to do than this." His second—no pun intended—of non-engagement that night is to have said to have lost him the election. The implications are clear when the stakes are as high as they are during presidential debates. But they are equally relevant in our daily interactions? Think about your next job interview, a presentation to your team, or an interaction with your spouse. What message do your signals of presence say about you? And do they support or undermine your message? You need more than just a compelling message to reach the heart as well as the head of an audience. The post Political Debates: Where Presence Speaks Louder Than Words appeared first on Ariel Group.        Related StoriesThe Eyes Have It: Quiet Your Nerves, Connect with Your AudienceHow to Influence Without AuthorityForget WIFM, Try WIFT: The #1 Skill Millennials Need To Get Promoted 

More and more companies are forgoing traditional hierarchical workplace structure, creating matrixed environments of employees who are expected to "lead laterally" to get work done. But how do you align people around your point of view without the right to command that something "needs to be done this way?" It all comes down to influence. Influence is not the same as manipulation. It’s the ability to motivate or inspire a desired outcome by being seen as credible and communicating a vision that people can get behind. It’s a skill that can help you at every level—whether you are recommending a simple process change or galvanizing teams around a global initiative. Build Credibility Credibility is defined as "the quality of being trusted and believed in" and is formed when people see you as thoughtful, authentic, confident, and having integrity. This means that in addition to having these qualities, you need convince other people you have them by the way you show up: Start by Listening. And I mean really listen. I’ve been in enough high stakes meetings where I’ve seen C-suite executives engaged, fully listening in the conversation. Why? Because they see listening as part of their job. Listening allows you to understand the landscape, gain insight into other people’s POV and advance your own thinking. Assert yourself appropriately. If you have an opinion, have the confidence to say it. Don’t have one? Ask questions to help you form one. Many times, professionals try to insert themselves into a conversation for the wrong reasons. Are you trying to sound intelligent? Or do you actually have a valuable insight? Stopping yourself and checking will help you in the long run. Plus, as someone who is seen as consultative, you will build a reputation as someone of integrity: one who listens, thinks, and will collaborate for a greater solution that will benefit all. Give yourself a pep talk. I often see people holding back good ideas due to insecurity. Are you seeing yourself as "less than" or as someone who feels as though they shouldn’t have a say? Or, do you see yourself as a human being with good ideas who has a right to participate in the conversation? We all, regardless of our titles and corner offices, should see our POV as valuable. If you understand the problem, have listened to other points of view and feel passionately about what to do about it, there is no reason to not speak up. Build and nurture relationships It’s as simple as this: You can’t influence people without some kind of relationship. When I was working at an international engineering firm, my company gave me the responsibility for designing and managing a series of training programs for a top client. Over the course of the implementation, I attended the meetings that our executive held with the client as well participated in sector conferences. I always made a point of saying hello to our client lead;  sharing my learnings from working on the project, getting to know her key goals for the initiative, as well as talking to her about our personal interests.  Later in the engagement, the client needed us to take on a new strategic project and she specifically asked our executive if I could be put on as the lead. She knew that I didn’t have extensive experience in the task area, but shared that she had come to trust my judgement and ability to work well with others and I was someone she enjoyed working with. I took on the task, and am happy to say that it was a success! The experience confirmed for me the positive influence that comes with putting that extra effort into nurturing key relationships. Make sure you take the time to build positive relationships with those both higher and lower on the totem pole. Network inside and outside the office. Find out who is responsible for what in the company. Learn what people enjoy outside of work, what motivates them at home, and what they put time into (volunteer organizations, etc.) away from the office. If you can help someone achieve a goal or help with a project, help them. If they helped you, try and pay it back. These tactics will help you exponentially throughout your career. Communicate Dynamically After you’ve established good two-way relationships with your peers and higher ups, you should ask yourself what they will need and want to ally with you and your vision and then use this information to shape your communication strategy: Think about your audience. Take what you have learned from getting to know these people and apply it! What is important to them? Are they interested in the big picture or are they curious about specific process implications? Explain the benefit through their POV. Use expressive language, metaphors and stories. Sometimes different departments speak different languages. Rather than fight against the tide, see if there’s a common thread. Use metaphors and analogies to bridge the gap. Insert colorful and informational language they’ll appreciate. Customize your language to something your audience can’t say "no" to. Once you master these skills, you’ll be surprised at what you—and your company can achieve. The post How to Influence Without Authority appeared first on Ariel Group.          CommentsHi "Me" - It sounds to me like you are a good candidate ... by Margie MeachamInteresting… I enjoy the Ariel Group's information overall ... by MeVery thought provoking. Thank you, Elsa. I especially liked ... by Jack WhitacreRelated StoriesInspire, Motivate, Engage - While Doing More with LessClaim It until You Make ItForget WIFM, Try WIFT: The #1 Skill Millennials Need To Get Promoted 

I hate the phrase "Fake it ’til you make it." There I said it! I hate that phrase. What does it even mean anyway? I think it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Most of us have done it. You are in a meeting and, despite the endless descriptions you’ve read over the past week, think, "I still don’t understand this new initiative we’re embarking on or what my role is supposed to be." You sit there and nod your head, hoping everyone thinks you know what’s going on. A little voice inside your head reassures you that the false nodding will work. That little voice is a liar! It’s also dangerous. Think of how much time and money you waste by not asking questions! I know countless projects that have passed deadlines or collapsed because someone didn’t know how to speak up, and instead pretended they knew what was needed. What about the phrase "Name it and claim it"? Now that’s what I like! "Name it and claim it" focuses building awareness of your own strengths and areas for self-growth. At the Ariel Group, the "S" in our PRES model stands for "Self-Knowing." We teach that the more you know about yourself, the more authentic you’ll be. If you know your shortcomings, the skills you need to develop—and you are honest with yourself—the more trustworthy you will appear to your fellow colleagues. If you’re acclimated at a job and your manager asks you to take on a new task you don’t know how to complete, don’t say "Right away captain!" and run off to spend the rest of the day Googling "How to…" Google may be a great resource, but you’re forgetting the biggest resource you have at your fingertips: your boss. Before you dive right in, ask your manager clarifying questions to develop a deeper understanding around items you may not be as familiar with. A good manager will guide you on where you can look—or what you can Google—so the task is done right. Keep in mind: I am NOT encouraging you to go up to your manager and tell them "I don’t know how to do anything!" every time you’re not 100% sure. (There would likely be a group of managers with pitchforks coming after me if I was implying that—and I’m not. Put your pitchforks away please.) What I’m suggesting is to start opening doors you would normally keep closed. Be curious about projects. Ask questions and do research to become familiar with new initiatives. Speak to what you know and what you’re passionate about. More importantly, speak to what you’d like to learn. Share best practices with colleagues to see what tidbits you can all take away. Are there going to be moments when you may need to fake it to get by? Absolutely. Someone may throw something at you and say "I need this ASAP!" and you won’t have the time (or the relationship) to ask for help. But as you name and claim your strengths and challenges, you’ll be surprised at the impact it will have on your teammates. Being self-aware of your strengths, even with the skills you need to develop, will make others aware of them and willing to take the risk with your talents on future projects. You will be seen as authentic and curious, a team player who is passionate about quality and continues to seek out new ways to contribute to the company’s growth. Someone who…I don’t know, is ready for greater responsibility and additional leadership opportunities perhaps? Now that has a nice ring to it too…   The post Claim It Until You Make It appeared first on Ariel Group.          CommentsNice, Drewski! Thanks! by NattyRelated StoriesHow to Influence Without AuthorityForget WIFM, Try WIFT: The #1 Skill Millennials Need To Get PromotedPolitical Debates: Where Presence Speaks Louder Than Words 

In the Urban Dictionary, "algebraic" roughly translates to some event or action so unbelievably awesome—and it has absolutely nothing to do with math! Is there an "algebraic" formula for managing Employee Engagement? I would argue yes. In fact, I have seen this formula work time and time again in my many years of being led, leading others, and working to develop leaders in both the non-profit and for-profit fields. Employee Engagement at an organizational level is really about "how we create the conditions in which employees offer more of their capability and potential." As David MacLeod writes in Engage for Success, employee engagement cannot be seen as an add-on to their jobs, but as an integral part of their daily activity at work. Now, let me give you a fair warning: If an employee’s motivation comes from external forces and that force subsides, so too does the motivation. Just like a competitor who is competing for a cash prize and the cash prize is suddenly eliminated, so too is the competitor’s motivation to compete. They may even withdraw from the competition entirely. The same applies for an employee who doesn’t develop the motivation from within. Some employers, if desperate in the short term, could even manipulate an employee’s commitment and emotions to improve performance and productivity, but sadly these sorts of actions would only back fire and lead to cynicism and demotivation. Manipulation never prospers. What we know is that high employee engagement yields low employee turnover. Peter Diamond explains the concept for Entrepreneur, "Most people quit a job because they can no longer tolerate their boss or they have lost faith in senior management…Conversely, people will stay at a company or in a job during thick and thin if they respect and believe in their boss." What is this algebraic formula that can help leaders and senior managers to enhance productivity and performance, lower employee turnover, and help people to believe in their leader(s), even when they are asking them to do more with less? Employee Engagement = Relationship: the quality of an employee’s relationship with her leaders. Does she feel connected to them? Does she trust them? Does she believe they are all working for the same side? Feedback: According to Ken Blanchard, "Feedback is the breakfast…of champions!" It is also a critical ingredient for a fully engaged employee. Is the feedback timely, specific and genuine? Do endorsements (positive comments) exceed (constructive) feedback? Is feedback consistent, both during good and difficult times? Vision: both the quality of an employee’s relationship with the leader and the leader’s consistent, genuine feedback allow the employee to have a clear understanding of where she fits into the organization’s success. By having a clear vision of her contribution to the company’s success, she should understand the context for why she should follow the leader and why she should care about feedback. As she receives continued feedback and develops a further relationship with the organization’s leaders, the connection to the overall vision will only multiply. Personal Self-Interest: whether perceived or actual, personal self-interest can destroy any attempt at increasing employee engagement if the employee thinks a leader is just in it for himself—a divisive quality no matter what the extent of self-interest. The more present self-interest is at a company, the more divided the engagement becomes. Employee Engagement is equal to the quality of your relationship with your employees and the feedback you share with them, within the context of a shared, inspiring and clear vision, in service of the organization and others and not your own personal self-interest. So next time you or one of your employees does something really awesome and you want to praise her, in addition to being timely, specific and genuine of course, you could end with a closing word for a job well-done, in your best 90’s teen voice and say: "That was algebraic, dude!"     The post The Employee Engagement Equation appeared first on Ariel Group.        Related StoriesClaim It until You Make ItHow to Influence Without AuthorityForget WIFM, Try WIFT: The #1 Skill Millennials Need To Get Promoted 

We have all heard the expression that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the true definition of insanity.  Indeed it is. Yet, when it comes to our behavior, many of us believe that we can have different outcomes in our lives without doing the hard work of instituting change.  Behavior change is a process - one that is often long and difficult. And, while there is no specific data that consistently confirms how long it takes to change behaviors or form new habits, conventional thinking suggests it can take as little as 3 weeks and as long as nearly a year. In reality, you cannot simply adopt a new behavior. Just thinking you want to change something is not enough to actually force the new behavior. Your brain literally needs some rewiring. Behaving differently takes time and practice. It requires introducing a new way of thinking, a new approach to doing something and allowing your brain to catch up.Think about it.  If you have been smoking for 20 years and you decide you want to quit, the most challenging way of doing that is by giving up the cigarettes cold turkey. Expecting your body to stop craving the nicotine simply because you have made up your mind that you no longer want to smoke is not a realistic option for most. Your brain is still looking for not only the substance but also is conditioned to expect the behavior of smoking the cigarette in various situations. Changing this behavior requires a gradual reduction of the intake and an alteration of the behavior. For instance, no longer smoking when out at a bar. Reducing the narcotic intake after meals. Over time, your brain will stop expecting the cigarette and you will gradually see a behavior alteration.When we work with clients to help them overcome their challenges with public speaking, we approach it much in the same way. Often, the obstacle they are most challenged by is fear. Fear is a mental state that causes behaviors that, in the case of public speaking, can fundamentally alter one’s physiology. Suddenly, you are sweating in a freezing cold room. Or, perhaps, information that typically comes easily is inaccessible in your head. In order to overcome these struggles, we work with clients to help them feel more confident about their skills to reduce their nerves and fear and allow their minds and bodies to operate in a natural and productive way. By practicing their skills - strong posture, meaningful gesturing, engaging eye contact and using your voice in a powerful way - even the most anxious speaker can learn to perform naturally and confidently. But, like any other behavior change, it requires time and commitment. You can’t just change overnight but you are definitely capable of becoming a better speaker or presenter.  Even those who claim they will never be comfortable speaking in front of groups have found that, with practice, they have been able to shift their behavior to think and act differently.It just takes time and the first step, as in any change, is deciding you want to make the change. 

Discovery Learning, Inc. has had the privilege of partnering with many higher education institutions over the years. One of the relationships that we are particularly proud of is Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In this installment of our Ask the Expert series I had the opportunity to speak with Michael McCormack, Deputy Director for the Public Health Leadership and Director of Practice, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  Michael has the unique challenge of designing a program to develop leaders in the public health sector in a rapidly changing public health landscape. N: Hi Michael thanks for agreeing to talk about the Leadership Concentration at the Harvard T.H. Chang School of Public Health. Perhaps we could start with you providing an overview to our readers about what the Leadership Concentration is and how it came about? M: "Let me put this in the context of public health and the fact that very few people know what public health is. Most people only think about public health when something significant occurs.  So recent examples are West Nile virus, and swine flu, or now Ebola.  During a time of crisis suddenly everyone thinks about public health.  The Harvard School of Public Health has several different departments that one can get a masters of public health degree. These include epidemiology, bio statistics as well as health policy management and environmental health.  We saw a strong need for graduates of the Harvard School of Public Health to see themselves as collaborative leaders because if you are going to work in public health you really have to be able to interact with the community and community leaders, as well as be an expert in your own field of public health.  So what we wanted to do was design a program that was somewhat flexible to accommodate the unique needs of each of those departments and at the same time give people some insights about their own leadership.  So the leadership concentration tries to help students see themselves as leaders by: 1)      Doing a series of self-assessment instruments including the Discovery Leadership Profile. 2)      The school requires that students have a minimum of ten credit hours of leadership courses. 3)      Students in the concentration need to work internally with a coach which is different than an academic advisor. The purpose of the coach is really to try to be a sounding board for the student about what they are learning about themselves and about leadership during their time in the concentration. 4)       Students are also required to document what they are doing through an electronic portfolio. The portfolio provides the students a way to assess at the beginning of the year what they see as their strengths and what they are trying to accomplish and where they are at the year’s ends. 5)      The last component is that we ask the students to do is something that’s about teaching the leadership community something about health, public health or leadership. The idea behind this is giving something back to the community. People have done some very nice things with that work and so that was the last goal of the leadership concentration." N: You mentioned that one of the components of the program is coaching for the students.  Do you tie coaching back to the feedback that they’re getting from the 360 survey? M: "Yes, quite often that does happen. What we do with self-assessment is have four to five sessions each year in the fall, and we give students a series of instruments that they can take to get snapshots of their style. Typically we use Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Instrument and sometimes the Myers Briggs type indicator.  We always use the 360 from Discovery Learning and we are very happy with it and the students like it a lot.  Students go through the battery of instruments. We always do this as a group, we have about forty people broken into two groups that meet on different nights.  The group that students work with remains intact and the intent of that is that they should feel free to have conversations about what are they learning about themselves from each of the instruments. The idea is not just to get the data but to feel comfortable talking about the implications of the snapshot with a group of peers.  I think that by making people talk about it, at first it feels a little risky, but in fact what it does is kind of normalize whatever the data is. People no longer feel like they are a good or bad person based on the results of their assessments.  They get to hear other people wrestling with the same questions. That really helps them feel ok about their data. They may not like some of it, but it makes the experience much more about learning and being able to set up a learning community. " N: Does the Harvard School of Public Health focus on leadership competencies? How do you define the competencies for a great public health leader? M:" That was something we really struggled with because there’s such a wide array of skills and competencies that we could focus on. But eventually we were able to distill it down into six or seven key principles including: change management, leadership diversity and inclusion, decision making and risk analysis, operations management, developing people. There was probably a couple more, but I think those were the key things that our research found that people tend to focus on and pay the most attention to. " N: How did you develop a curriculum around those competencies? With any one of the focus areas it seems one could spend a lifetime mastering the leadership skills and traits associated with those different competencies. How do focus in on what’s critical for students in the limited time that you have them? M: "That was a big dilemma that we struggled with. Not only do we have limited time, but not all students see a need for all of those competencies. What we have asked people to do, is to do a gap analysis of themselves and to think about what are the two maybe three competencies they’re going to focus on. We are trying to get a framework so that people can pick some meaningful things for their own personal development.  Because, as you noted, in a year, you can only do so much. One of our key challenges is to help these students see themselves as leaders. If you don’t see yourself as a leader, if you don’t have the internal resource for that, then you’re not going to be as effective because you are going to be hesitant to act. You’re not going to know how to look for resources and ask for help. If you really see yourself as a leader, you have fewer qualms about saying I don’t know the answer to this but I know how to find it out and I know people I can talk to. So that’s the reason why we felt like if you pick a couple of competencies and you get the larger framework then you should be effective at what you set out in the world to do. The other thing I’d say about that is Dean Frank, the head of the school, talks a lot about the changing face of public health. He says what you really need in the world, as it’s becoming more global, are people who not only know public health but can convey their ideas effectively so that people are actually willing to change and try new things. " N: What are some challenges that are relatively constant in public health? What are some things that you see emerging that public health leaders need to be focusing on? M: "So the kind of common challenges these people face whether you are the head of the public health department or the head of the CDC in Atlanta is constrained resources. You never have enough staff, funding , or time.  If you are in the community as head of the public health department you run a spectrum of things from restaurant inspections and controlling rats to clean air and clean water, emergency preparedness, and infectious diseases that are occurring. So it’s a very wide spectrum of knowledge that you are supposed to have. The challenge is staying current with that, being able to lobby the legislators at whatever level is relevant. So how do you get those resources? Generally people don’t want to spend money on public health, if you don’t understand it; you’ll think I don’t need to do that. When it goes wrong, then you’ll want someone who is really good at it but you haven’t given them money to do anything with. But I think beyond that, the thing that’s happening now is really the globalization of the issues around health. It used to be that communicable diseases were really the problem of smaller, developing nations. But now they’re being seen all over the globe. That has a lot to do with how quickly someone who is sick can go from "wherever" to the United States or to Canada or to anyplace else and bring a disease with them on a plane. While they were on that 8 or 24 hour flight the disease was incubating and it doesn’t show up until they’re actually in the public in whatever country they were going to. So that’s a big challenge. Another big challenge is as people emulate the west more and more, the diets are changing around the world. So now you are seeing much more of the chronic ailments that people have around obesity and heart disease that you wouldn’t have seen two or three decades ago. It’s interesting to note that in the 1900’s the average lifespan of a human was about 49 years of age. Today it’s 66.7. In 2000, for the first time ever, older people outnumbered younger people on the face of the planet. So who gets sick and what illnesses they’re facing and what systems you have in place for good health are changing dramatically. It is critical today to have people who are very good at leading and challenging the status quo, but in a way that it gets heard and actually acted upon.  I think it’s’ becoming much more critical for people to be successful in the role of public health." We would love to talk to you about how Discovery 360 Leadership Profile can empower the development of your organizations leaders. Click Here to Learn More About DLI’s Discovery Leadership Profile Michael McCormack is the Deputy Director for the Public Health Leadership and Director of Practice, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  He is also the Director of the Massachusetts Institute for Community Health Leadership, which he created for the Blue Cross Foundation in 2005. Michael received his M.S. in Organization Development from American University. He has been at HSPH since the fall of 2008. The post How the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is Developing the Future of Public Health Leadership appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..

Tammie Plouffe is an early adopter and co-creator of Change Navigator, DlI’s latest professional resource for change leaders. I had the opportunity to speak with Tammie about her experience using the new resource and get some early feedback on best applications, target audiences, key takeaways and participant impact. What types of client situations have you found the Change Navigator most helpful for? - NM Change Navigator provides a solid framework for understanding the stages that are common to people undergoing significant change. It offers a new way of approaching transitions, by focusing on the emotions of people, whose buy in and support are critical to success. I have found this tool to be very helpful for complex change situations involving leaders who are in the process or getting ready to lead a large transformation i.e. restructuring, merger, acquisition. Leadership development programs where content is focused on leading change is a good way to use the Change Navigator. Also, another great application is in team meetings or planned team development sessions where dealing with change is a relevant topic. Executive coaching is another way to use this tool to assist leaders experiencing a significant change either personally or organizationally to get clarity on what they can do to effectively navigate the emotional terrain and lead a more successful change initiative. What is the talk track you are hearing from leaders about their challenges in leading others through change? Some of the biggest challenges I am hearing from leaders include: Managing in an environment that is defined by uncertainty, ambiguity and change fatigue. This includes managing teams in a context of fear due to the lack of information and uncertainty. Leaders are finding themselves with the challenge of managing through an environment of rumors and speculation which can be a major distractor to the progress of change initiatives and can exacerbate existing challenges. Leaders are asking questions like "What can I do to keep the team motivated and focused through all of this ambiguity?" Maintaining the focus of both the team and the leader. A common question I hear from leaders, "What support can I provide the team to stay team focused on being productive during this period of change? " Leaders are challenged to keep their teams priorities and attention on factors that they can control. Too often leaders watch the productivity and moral of their teams erode as people spend emotional capital and resource distracted by the things that are out of their control. People will respond differently to change depending on where they are emotionally in the change process. Change Navigator is really useful for grounding teams and leaders on where they are personally in the change process. For leaders especially it helps to clarify and identify strategies they can use to move their teams forward effectively and successfully. Lack of Control. Leaders are expressing frustration that it is challenging to plan or position for the unknown. Often, they are required to lead teams and implement a change that they themselves did not choose and may have their own feelings about. Building Optimism and Hope for the Future. Leaders are working with the complexity of implementing change initiatives while doing day to day work and dealing with people’s emotions about change. They are tasked with the challenge of rallying people around a compelling vision and helping their teams understand and buy into the benefits of the change. What is inspiring leaders about leading change in today’s environment? Some common themes I am hearing from leaders that I work with are: The opportunity to innovate their organizations to perform better The opportunity to be part of building something new and exciting in the organizations they serve Making a positive difference for the people and teams they lead. Building new skills and capabilities towards future results. Winning - embracing challenges and the energy (and adrenalin rush!) that can bring when successful. Why is change leadership important? It balances change management activities of planning etc. and is a key ingredient to making change stick. Change leadership is the work leaders do to enlist people’s hearts and minds in a change effort and engage them to work in new ways in order to get better, and more meaningful results. What kinds of impacts does working with the Change Navigator have on people? What value do leaders acknowledge they get from working with the Change Navigator? A recent client who had his leadership team do the Change Navigator workshop while they were in the midst of splitting up their company into two separate businesses said that the CN helped them understand the emotional part of making transitions and this insight helped build their personal resilience as well as have increased empathy for the people they were leading who were finding the change very challenging. What do you most admire about leaders who are effective at leading and navigating change? What are you noticing about leaders who are very effective at leading change? The thing I admire most is their ability to stay positive and optimistic while acknowledging that change is tough work. I also believe that the most effective change leaders are those that are optimistic and empathic, they create hope and inspire confidence. They stay involved in the change effort and bring people along. So often leaders get through their own response to change and forget that the rest of the organization may be going through it at a different pace than they are or experiencing a different impact. What advice do you have for other consultants/ trainers working with the Change Navigator? I have found that as I work with the CN, I continue to learn more about navigating transitions both personally and through others. It has individual, team and organizational application. I would encourage other consultants to continue stay in the learning process and resist the temptation to be the expert. I have also found sharing stories about transitions to be helpful to bring the model to life and resonate. What insights and learnings have you had from working with this product? How to navigate change better and with greater insight. I am able to get clearer faster about what stage of transition I am navigating and what I can do to help myself or be of service to another. Learn More About the New Change Navigator Tammie Plouffe is a professional Organizational Development consultant. She is managing partner of Innovative Pathways and has assisted many large and mid-sized corporations in developing their leadership and organizations to embrace challenges. Plouffe holds a Master of Science, Organizational Development from Pepperdine University, California and a B.A. in Psychology from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and two sons. The post Preparing Leaders to be Change Navigators appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..

Reacting Is Not Resisting To improve your effectiveness at leading change remember one mantra, "reaction does not equal resistance."  When you are satisfied or at least comfortable in a situation and you have to change it’s natural to react.  Our reactions can range from surprise, to shock, to disbelief.  But expressing our surprise and asking questions for better understanding is not the same as resisting the change.  Failure to turn cartwheels in celebration is not the same as resisting.  Resisting is purposefully impeding the change, either passively or actively. So what drives someone from their natural reaction to a change to subversive resistance?  At the heart of the answer is the feeling that the expression of their surprise, shock or disbelief cannot be voiced and honored.  We cannot change the way people feel about a change, but we can intensify those feelings by ignoring, discounting or demeaning them. Some leaders seem to believe that listening to angsts and concerns conveys agreement with the feelings.  It doesn’t.  You cannot change the way another person feels about something, they have to change it.  You can assist their change by acknowledging and honoring their feelings.  This requires purposeful listening.  What you can do is help to drive them into resistance.  The moment you tell me I shouldn’t or don’t feel the way I am feeling, the path to resistance is paved. The Emotions That Lead to Resistance Let’s be honest and state the obvious.  Change is messy and it’s likely to stay that way.  Even with our best efforts to "manage change", it’s still messy.  People react emotionally to change and the emotions are usually more negative than positive.  So why not accept this as a predictable part of any change and focus on how to best work with these emotions rather than ignoring them or sweeping them under the proverbial carpet. The first step in this effort is to understand that reacting to change is not the same as resisting change.  The emotions typically associated with reacting to change include anxiety, confusion and vulnerability.  When these emotions are not acknowledged they tend to morph into frustration, distrust and fatigue which are the emotions that lead to resistance.  Resistance is the by-product of poorly managing the emotions that naturally accompany change.  When you tell me I shouldn’t be confused, I become frustrated.  When you tell me I should be anxious, I become distrustful. Leaders can learn to work with these emotions and help others with the resolution of negative emotions into purpose, trust, honesty and compassion.  But the first step is acknowledging and accepting our own negative emotions.  Once we’ve put our own oxygen mask on then we can try to help the person next to us. The Emotions That Lead to Resiliency We know the emotions that lead to resistance include anxiety, confusion, frustration and fatigue.  We also know which emotions increase our resiliency - purpose, enthusiasm, optimism and confidence.  If we expect people to give up something that is familiar but arguably ineffective then they want to see how the change improves their world for the better.  What’s the purpose?  The purpose needs to generate enthusiasm.  Leaders should be optimistic about the changes, even if they are negatively impacted by the change.  And finally, they need to express confidence that this change is possible. So if a leader cannot articulate a purpose for change that extends benefit beyond his/her own interest, doesn’t show enthusiasm for the change, isn’t optimistic and cannot communicate confidence that the change can be successful, then why should anyone follow. When a change is ill-conceived and poorly executed, not only is the current change initiative damaged but the success of all future changes are jeopardized.  When leaders approach change with clear purpose, enthusiasm, optimism and confidence, the outcomes are more likely to be successful and the organization is a step closer to a culture of resiliency. For 25 years Discovery Learning, Inc. has been designing programs to help organizations develop better change leaders. Check out our latest research on Change Leaders! Free Copy: Trends in Change Leadership The post Change Leader, Beware These Pitfalls appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..

July is National Anti-Boredom Month. With summer activities, festivals, and vacations, it is hard to imagine July as a boring time.However, with many distractions outside of work, it can make your responsibilities feel quite dull.So I ask: Are you bored in your role this summer? Do you find yourself in auto-pilot? Do you want your one week vacation to be all month?If you answered yes to any of those questions, look in the mirror. You are the person accountable for that. No one else. So, what are you going to do about it?It won’t be fixed overnight. But you can start now, and gradually it will shift.This week’s tip is to change your routine, so you can feel more energized about your responsibilities. Take a different bus. Work from a coffee shop for a morning if you can. Go to lunch with a new client or employee. Attend a networking event. Talk with someone new from a different department. There are so many options - just pick one.Last week, I worked a couple days from a lake in Idaho. It is a happy place for me. I was able to focus, enjoy the beautiful scenery, and get a lot of work done. The change of environment made me so excited to tackle the big projects I had in front of me. And now, I am back in the office refreshed.How are you going to switch your routine? What has worked for you? The post Fierce Tip of the Week: Change Your Routine appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

Are you happy? Is your team happy? Happy can sometimes feel like a soft word. Or something that feels pretty abstract.James Key Lim, chief executive of Delivering Happiness at Work, has shared the findings from a large meta-analysis study that happy employees have on average 31% higher productivity, their sales are 37% higher, and their creativity is some three times higher than less-happy workers.Those are some pretty impressive stats. Given that, below are three ways that we at Fierce work with leaders to create happier teams.Solicit your team’s input and get curious.According to 80 percent of respondents from a Fierce survey on characteristics of good bosses, taking action to request input around ideas and strategies is one of the most vital things managers can do to create great relationships.Tip: Have an hour one-on-one conversation with every person who reports to you. Use some of these sample questions: What has become clear to you since we met last? What topic are you hoping that I won’t bring up? What do you wish you had more time to do? What is currently impossible to do that, if it were possible, would change everything? And then, really listen.Exchange honest, open feedback. Managers who foster and encourage honest feedback from employees position their companies to make more money than those that don’t, according to a 2012 Corporate Executive Board and Harvard Business Review study titled "Open-Door Policy, Closed-Lip Reality." This study found that organizations that rated highly in open communication delivered a 10-year total shareholder return of 7.9 percent compared to 2.1 percent at other companies.Tip: Feedback needs to be clear, insightful, well thought out, and specific. If you or people on your team do not have that skill, bring in Feedback training. Practice giving feedback to each other and evaluating others’ feedback. Many times people have the best intentions to be clear and concise, and yet, delivering and crafting communication takes practice and confidence.Pay attention to your emotional wake. How do your team members feel after an interaction with you? Energized or deflated? Have you ever asked them? This tip is about emotional intelligence and honing the ability to inspire and motivate.Tip: Make a commitment to take responsibility and accountability for how you show up. Ask yourself: To whom do I need to apologize? Who deserves my praise? Who deserves my recognition? These tips may seem simple and rather ordinary, however, they truly have the capacity to shift your life and your team in ways that you can’t even imagine.We see it every day in organizations.Do you have any tips to make a team happier? The post 3 Tips for a Happier Team appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on trainingindustry.com and explores the similarities between managing a road trip and managing a team.Like road trips, leading a team can be stressful and full of unexpected detours. We spend hours mapping out the most efficient route and calculating pit stops only to find out we forgot to pack our favorite book 50 miles into the journey. At that point you have two options, you can either ruin everyone’s experience by giving in to your frustration, or you can focus on what can be done. Lessons from a Road Trip finds the key is not to focus on how you get there, instead you only need to know you goals and be open to new opportunities as they arise.Are you monopolizing the driver’s seat?"Parents, like managers, often feel they need to take full responsibility for decision-making. However, the process works best when everyone is vested. As a team, families can come up with great itineraries while staying within the budget and time constraints. This helps children embrace the activities because they helped make the choices. They feel valued and responsible. The amount of complaining goes way down. Likewise, co-workers are much happier and productive in a workplace where their opinions are valued."Read the article.The post Fierce Resource: Lessons from a Road Trip appeared first on Fierce, Inc..