Make Your Performance Reviews Frank, Positive, and Specific
“It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless of course you are an exceptionally good liar.” – Jerome K. Jerome (The Idler, February 1892) In “The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book,” Dick Grote recommends that companies change the nomenclature for describing “mid-level” performance ratings so…
READ MOREAn Easy Way to Make Your Child Very Wealthy
“With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too.” – Yiddish proverb Let’s say my friends could afford to put $20,000 into such a fund. And let’s further assume that the fund provided a net return of 8% — which is lower…
READ MOREETR’s Annual Warning About Theft, Pilfering and Embezzlement
“The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (“The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1891) Are your employees stealing money from you? Are they swiping cash? Are they bringing home products? Or…
READ MOREAcknowledge the Behavior You Want Repeated
“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.” – (Samuel Johnson) When you are acknowledged for doing something well, the pride you feel can be a seed that grows into a lifelong virtue. My father’s positive review of my first poem (which I wrote when I was…
READ MOREHow to Impress Your Boss at Meetings
“The first secret of success? Self trust.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson It doesn’t take much to impress your boss when you are lucky enough to have his attention (more or less) for an entire meeting. Here are seven things you can do — seven things that would work on…
READ MOREProductivity Secrets from the NBA: How To Do Everything Better and Quicker — And Make A Lot More Money in the Process
Did you ever notice how many professional basketball games are decided in the last 10 minutes? Plenty. It’s a curious thing. Ten guys jump around like madmen for 50 minutes, the score seesawing a few points this way and a few points that way. Then — halfway through the last…
READ MORE5 Myths About Leadership
“The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.” – Whitney Griswold (The New York Times, Feb. 24, 1959) Karen Elliott House, newly appointed publisher of the Wall Street Journal, is working hard to make the paper’s employees “feel happy and appreciated,” according to an article about her in…
READ MOREGet Thin And Stay That Way By Ending Ritualistic Eating Patterns
To lose weight and stay thin, you must change the way you eat. Changing your eating pattern temporarily is easy. You go on a diet. But to stay thin, you’ve got to do more: You must change the way you think about eating. For many of us, eating is a…
READ MOREBuilding a Good Support System
It’s not easy to be a new manager — especially if, instead of coming up “through the ranks,” you’ve been recruited from the outside. You’re likely to face resistance from all quarters — your new employees, your new supervisor, your new clients, and even your vendors, support staff, and/or consultants.…
READ MOREAre You Deluding Yourself About Your Chance of Success?
“The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self.” – Nietzsche (The Antichrist, 1888) A study I saw in USA Today a few months ago said that most people rate themselves as “hard” to “very hard” workers. Yet any reference book of statistics will tell you…
READ MOREWhy You Don’t Want Your Employee-Turnover Rate at Zero
“Always do right. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” – Mark Twain Employment experts will sometimes tell you that the lower your employee turnover is, the stronger your company is. If you accept this claim, you are going to be attracted to all kinds of schemes that…
READ MOREWhen Your Boss is Looking Over Your Back
“A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.” – Ambrose Bierce (“Saw,” The Devil’s Dictionary) Second-guessers — bosses who delegate authority and then take some of it back — are a very odious sort. And most management books advise you to confront second-guessers and try to get…
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