Random Encounters: How They Promote Team Cohesion and Boost Productivity

As any manager knows, communication is the fuel that makes teams go. And today it’s easier than ever for team members to keep in touch. Tools like email, instant messaging, texts and conference calls allow employees to efficiently share information with their colleagues anytime, anywhere in seconds. In this Quick Take you will learn the number one factor that drives team productivity, why it has such a profound effect and how you can boost team performance by creating more opportunities for random encounters.

Team Goals and Social Loafing

In this Quick Take you will learn the phenomenon psychologists call 'social loafing', why performance can dip when people become part of a team and how you can overcome 'social loafing' and build effective teams.

A 4-Point Model for Leading High-Performance Teams

There is one thing all successful leaders 'get' that failed leaders don’t. They know they can’t achieve breakthrough organizational results by themselves. That wisdom is often hard-earned because most leaders started their careers as individual high performers who moved mountains all alone. But they figured out at some point that the key to their success as a leader was their team. But not just any team. They needed an A-Team. This program will give you a proven 4-point model for building and maintaining a high-performance team that consistently delivers extraordinary results

How to Get More and Better Ideas from Brainstorming Sessions

The #1 rule in brainstorming sessions is no judgments. Everyone knows that if you let team members criticize each other's ideas, you’ll discourage people from putting forward new concepts – and you may not get the best answer to whatever problem you need to solve. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn why traditional brainstorming techniques are actually counterproductive, an improved technique for brainstorming that DOES work, and how to prime people to generate problem-solving ideas.

Team Productivity: The Power of Brooks’ Law

What do managers often do when projects start falling behind deadline? They ask for more resources. Adding a few more good people to the project seems a logical solution to the problem. In some cases, however, that’s not the best course of action. In fact, it could make things worse. In this Quick Take you’ll learn about 'Brooks Law' and what it means to team productivity. You’ll find out what his landmark research revealed and how you can apply it in your organization.

Managing Team Conflict

Conflict is absolutely essential to a well-functioning team. When getting along is more important than getting it right, hard questions don’t get asked. Tough decisions don’t get made. The challenge for managers is keeping productive conflict from turning into a disruptive force that can crush morale and team alignment. In this Quick Take you will learn why conflict is a powerful tool that team leaders must use to their advantage, what’s going on under the surface when disagreements become toxic, and the ACES method of conflict resolution – a straightforward approach that can turn destructive conflict into constructive solutions.

Situational Interviews: How They Can Improve Your Hiring Decisions

Have you ever hired someone who seemed like a star in the interview but ended up being a dud on the job? If so, you’re not alone. According to multiple research studies, traditional interview questions often fail to reveal whether a candidate will succeed in your organization. But a recent study found one type of question that is especially predictive of an employee’s future success. In this Quick Take you will learn what a major study of job interviews discovered about why traditional interview questions so often fail to predict future performance, why 'situational interview' questions far outperformed all others in the study, and how to create and use these questions, based on the specific job you need to fill.

Reference Checks: How to Get Feedback That Predicts Future Performance

Managers check references for many reasons. But the most critical goal is to ferret out information that will accurately predict how a candidate will perform if hired. In this Quick Take you will learn the often-overlooked goal of a successful reference check, what researchers say is one of the biggest obstacles to getting truthful answers and why the way you phrase questions is the key to getting the information you need to make an informed hiring decision.

Hiring for Grit

He looked so good on paper. But a year later he hasn’t lived up to his potential. Yes, he’s smart and talented. But when he encounters obstacles, he throws up his hands. In this Quick Take, you will learn why talent, credentials and past accomplishments don’t always predict on-the-job success; two key indicators you should look for in every job candidate’s resume or work history; and a hiring approach that can help identify candidates with the grit to get the job done.

Hiring Interviews: The ‘Deep Conversations’ Method to Ensure You Hire the Right Person

We’ve all interviewed people for key positions and come away thinking, 'This candidate is perfect.' And we’ve all had the experience where we looked back after hiring a 'perfect candidate' and asked, 'What was I thinking? What did I miss? How could I have prevented such a mistake?' In this Quick Take, you will learn: A communications model called 'Deep Conversations', how to use this model to 'peel the onion' and achieve deep levels of communication that will help you foolproof your hiring decisions, and why this technique works both for people who are concealing information, and those who simply lack self-awareness.

Recruiting: The Reality Check Technique for Gaining Alignment

There’s a huge difference between making a good hire and making a great hire. A good hire is one that places a qualified candidate into the position you need to fill today. It meets your organization’s immediate need. A great hire, on the other hand, meets both short and long term needs – for your organization as well as your new hire. The question is, how do you make that happen. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn the real reason top performers accept jobs, the 'reality check' technique for gaining alignment between your goals and the candidate’s, and why long-term goal alignment protects you from the costliest mistake you can make in the hiring process.

How to Smoke Out Impostors in Job Interviews

Why is hiring the right people so hard? Because many job candidates are remarkably good at persuading us that they can do things they can’t. What’s more, we often don’t realize how our emotions and personal biases can affect our choices. In this Quick Take you will learn: The most dangerous attitude a hiring manager can possibly bring to an interview, the preparation oversight that gives Impostors an opening, and two proven questioning techniques that will expose Impostors every time.

Changing Behavior: Why Rewards and Punishments Often Aren’t Enough

In this Quick Take, you will learn why carrots and sticks are often the wrong approach to changing behavior, an often-overlooked driver of change that can be more effective than rewards or punishment and two questions you should always ask before you try to change anyone’s behavior.

Unlocking the Power of Non-Monetary Rewards

In this Quick Take, we’re going to tell you the one thing you MUST do to make sure your nonmonetary rewards bring the results you expect. This is simple, but 90% of managers don’t bother to do it. You can start doing it immediately.

Why Praise Can Backfire and How to Do It Right

Experts tell us that we should deliver praise to our employees as often as possible. Recognition is one of the most powerful tools available to improve productivity, moral and loyalty. But giving praise isn’t as simple as it seems. Delivering it the wrong way at the wrong time can actually serve to de-motivate workers. In this Quick Take you will learn: 1) Examples of situations where 'praise' isn’t about praising at all, 2) An especially dangerous misuse of praise that could erode your credibility as a manager and, 3) The secret to ensuring that praise delivers the motivational message you intend it to.

When Your People Resist Change: Turning Objections into Objectives

Good people resist change for lots of reasons. Perhaps they’re comfortable with the way things are. Perhaps they feel threatened. Perhaps they think the new way won’t work. As a leader, how do you respond? If you try to 'sell' change, your people will feel, well, sold. And if you simply demand change, you get reluctant participation at best. In this Quick Take, you will learn how to deal with employee objections and win buy-in without being dictatorial or argumentative, why efforts to 'counter' objections often backfire, why an objection is something to be embraced, and a three-step method to disarm resistance instead of escalating it.

Controlling Rumors: Filling the Vacuum

Rumors happen when employee anxiety collides with an information vacuum. If you don’t fill the vacuum with facts, your people will fill it with rumors. In this Quick Take you will learn the role managers play in spreading or defeating rumors, why rumors are a symptom of a larger problem – and why you must fix that problem to keep rumors at bay, two critical ingredients that feed the rumor mill, how to effectively address a rumor that’s already out there, and how to turn rumor mongers into TRUTH mongers.

Handling Disruptive Star Performers: How to Tame a Tiger

Every organization has its superstars. They are often the most valuable members of your team – and often times they know it. You love the results they deliver but their 'prima donna' attitude can be a serious disruption to everyone around them. Fortunately there is a way to keep them in check. In this Quick take you will learn a common response to a disruptive star performer – which fails miserably every time, an often-overlooked fact about stars that gives you far more power than you might think, and the S.T.O.P. Model for getting disruptive tigers to change bad behavior without driving them away – or turning them into pussycats.

Leading in a Crisis: How to Maintain Morale and Retain Your People

Leading people is always challenging, even when a company is stable and profitable. But leading in a crisis is exceptionally difficult and requires great skill. When times are tough you absolutely need your people to be focused, engaged and committed to helping you pull through. But that’s no simple task when morale is down and retention a real concern. In this Quick Take you will learn the single most important leadership strategy in a crisis, which will give you the credibility to lead effectively, a key insight into the psychology of your employees that will help you motivate and retain them and a managerial roadmap for engaging employees in a time of crisis.

How to Get Buy-in for Change

What’s the best way to introduce a potentially disruptive change? Should you announce the change and immediately implement it? Announce the change and delay the implementation? Or Announce the change and gradually phase it in? In this Quick Take, you will learn a proven way to introduce and implement disruptive change, why this method will maximize employee buy-in, and the psychology behind people’s acceptance of change.

Persuasion: Getting Employees, Bosses and Colleagues to See the Light

You can’t be a successful leader without mastering the art of persuasion. You have to get subordinates, peers, and even bosses to see things your way – that is, the way you believe best serves organizational goals. But it’s hard. People see things differently than you do. In this Quick Take you will learn the most persuasive way to communicate hard truths to employees, colleagues and senior management, how to present evidence in a way that’s less likely to lead to a debate, and why we’re more persuasive when we communicate in the brain’s 'native language.'

The “Illusion of Transparency” and Why Your Messages Aren’t Getting Through

In this Quick Take you will learn why the 'illusion of transparency' can not only undermine effective communication with your team but also your credibility. You'll discover why people misjudge their effectiveness as communicators, and how to make sure that you and your team are on the same page.

How to be an Idea Catalyst, Not an Idea Killer

Leaders get where they are by being competent and confident. In certain situations projecting confidence and authority is necessary -- for example, in a crisis, when a time-sensitive project is behind schedule, or when rallying the troops behind a new initiative. But sometimes too much confidence can backfire, by shutting down contributions by the people on your team. In this Quick Take, you will learn when it’s important for a leader to appear capable and confident and when it’s important to dial it back

The FACE Method: How to Ensure Crystal-Clear Communication

How is it that two people can walk away from the same conversation with a completely different understanding of what was said? The reason is that we too often hear what we want to hear and assign our personal expectations and meaning to conversation. Fortunately, there’s a way to avoid this kind of frustrating – and sometimes costly - miscommunication. In this Quick Take you will learn the #1 reason miscommunication occurs between managers and employees, and the FACE Method – a simple approach you can use to gain clarity with your employees and colleagues.

Handling Excruciatingly Difficult Conversations

A lot of people love playing a leadership role until … the day comes when there’s a problem in the organization and somebody needs to sit down with an employee and have a really difficult conversation – say, for example, he or she has terrible body odor that coworkers complain about. You don’t want to do it. You’re looking up and down the ranks to find someone else who’ll break the news. But guess what? They’re all looking at YOU. This Quick Take will give you a template you can apply whenever you have to confront an employee about a performance problem, the use of foul language, inappropriate physical contact, excessive use of perfume, unconscious rude behavior, or a host of other problems.

Making Big Decisions: How to Uncover the Blind Spots that Can Sink Your Project

Imagine you’re on the verge of launching a new project. It could be a game changer for you, your department and your company. You’ve invested a lot of time and energy building it out. You have buy-in from higher ups. And your people are enthusiastically on board. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, actually. But there’s something about our brains that often prevents us from seeing problems until it’s too late. In this Quick Take you will learn a technique psychologists call 'prospective hindsight,' how it can help you identify fatal flaws before a project is launched, and how to run a team meeting that harnesses the power of 'prospective hindsight.'

Fact-Based Decision-Making: The Five Whys Technique

Managers get paid to make difficult decisions – about hiring, firing, promotions, salaries, resource deployment, operations, new products, new markets and more. A decision-maker’s worst enemy is lack of information or inaccurate information. In this Quick Take you will learn the Five Whys technique that can help you quickly get the information you need to make fact-based decisions, what it means to have a 'threaded conversation', and how the Five Whys can make you a better manager.

Group Decision Making – The Early Consensus Trap

In this Quick Take you will learn why groups often fail to consider all the relevant facts when making decisions, why people who possess critical information often don’t speak up in meetings, and how leaders can structure team meetings to uncover this information and make better decisions.

High-Stakes Problem-Solving: How to Get Crystal-Clear Thinking When You Need It Most

When facing a really tough problem, you need your people to bring 100% of their brainpower to bear. In those make-or-break moments, fuzzy thinking can be disastrous. People grasp at simple solutions. They don’t consider unintended consequences. They fall back on what feels familiar, even when it hasn’t worked in the past. They focus on the wrong issues. In this Quick Take, you will learn why high-stakes problems inhibit the mind’s ability to come up with solutions, how managers may inadvertently hamper creativity and problem-solving, and what you can do to maximize your employees’ innate problem-solving potential.

Avoiding the ‘Transaction Trap’: When do Financial Incentives Work – and When Can They Backfire?

Bob was recently promoted to his first management job. He inherited a small problem from his predecessor. If he doesn’t address it quickly, it could turn into a big one. Some people are showing up late for work. But Bob wants to send a message that punctuality is important and expected. If you were Bob, how would you get your people to show up on time? In this Quick Take, you will learn how the 'transaction trap' can derail your efforts to improve results, why incentives and disincentives often backfire, and the difference between 'market interactions' and 'social interactions' – and how to know when to use each one.

Employee Motivation: The Surprising Power of ‘Line of Sight’

What inspires employees to show up every day and give their all? Good pay and benefits? That helps but it’s not enough. Most people want more than to show up, collect a paycheck and go home. They want their work to make a difference. Yet research shows that most employees don’t feel a sense of higher purpose. So what can you, as a manager, do to help? In this Quick Take you will learn the key element that gives work a sense of purpose – no matter what kind of work it is, why it’s so important to create 'lines of sight' between employees and the people who benefit from their work, and clear, actionable steps you can take to create these lines of sight for your employees.

Focus, Capability and Will

Dozens of factors determine why some employees are engaged and others are not. These influencers can be distilled into three core categories: Focus, Capability and Will. Think of them as powerful levers that you as a leader can pull to increase engagement. In this Quick Take, you will learn why managers must feel totally accountable for the engagement levels of their teams, how to tap the power of Focus, Capability & Will, why one of these three levers is particularly challenging for most managers and the number one reason managers fail to achieve high levels of employee engagement over time.

The Power of Validation

The saying goes that numbers drive the business. That may be true, but what drive the numbers? The answer, of course, is the people. But what drives your people? In this Quick Take, you will learn the most powerful driver of results in your organization, the meaning of 'validation' and why it’s key to employee engagement, the single type of validation that has the biggest impact on employees and the I.C.U. Model for giving effective employee recognition.

Tapping into Discretionary Effort

Imagine yourself deeply immersed in an activity you love. That activity might involve tedious work, but it doesn’t seem tedious. On the contrary, it's so enjoyable that hours fly by like minutes. How much more motivated and productive would your employees be if they felt that way about their jobs? What if they simply loved coming to work and were so fully 'engaged' in what they do that they gave 'discretionary effort' to every task. In this Quick Take you will learn what it takes to earn this level of employee engagement, how engagement affects the bottom line, and how to combat three destructive narratives that cause employees to disengage.

Leadership and Attachment – The Key to Employee Engagement and Productivity

Why do some teams succeed where others fail? What is it that gets some workers to engage 100% while others simply keep a seat warm? When things aren’t working, should you blame the employees or does the fault always lie with their manager? In this Quick Take you will learn how the principles of Attachment Theory apply to leadership, why attachment enhances engagement, and four triggers that weaken attachment bonds – and how managers can avoid them.

Managing Workplace Stress: How to Stay Productive Under Pressure

Think of a time when you were swamped at work. Too many deadlines. Too many people demanding your mind-share. Not enough time or resources to get it all done. You may be thinking, 'That’s how I always feel.' Fortunately, there are steps you can take to prevent such workplace stress from crushing your focus, productivity and morale. In this Quick Take, you will learn the results of a study on people working in one of the most high-stress workplaces you could imagine, and how a series of short, simple exercises resulted in a surprising boost in productivity and kept stress at bay.

Time Management: Why It’s Not About Time

Has your boss, or maybe even a colleague, ever said, 'You need to manage your time a little better'? If so, that’s code for, 'You’re not getting things done.' And it’s not a minor problem. It’s a game changer, one that affects your promotability, your salary potential and, possibly, the likelihood that your company will keep you around. In this Quick Take you will learn why employees in organizations are perceived as being good, or bad, at managing their time; the list that matters more than any other; and the #1 enemy of good time management.

Managing Distractions: The ‘Got a Minute’ Trap

Every experienced manager knows how easily the workday can slip away. Employees pop in throughout the day looking for your help. Meetings run twice as long as planned. Unexpected fires need to be put out. Before you know it, the day is over and you haven’t accomplished what you set out to do. In this Quick Take you will learn the most important thing you own... and that you must never allow ANYONE to take away, the three words that are the most likely to steal that precious thing from you and a simple yet powerful tool that will help you to truly take charge of your time.

New Manager Pitfalls: How to Avoid Them and Succeed in a Leadership Role

So you just got promoted. You probably got singled out for management because you were a strong performer, a producer who achieved excellent results. Now you’re in charge of a team, and your job is to get OTHER people to be strong performers. But that’s easier said than done. It’s so difficult, in fact, that most people want nothing to do with it. Of those who take the challenge, many underestimate the complexities of management, and fail. In this Quick Take you will learn the steps you must take to get started in the right direction.

Coaching: How to Turn Around a Struggling Team

Scott manages an underperforming team—but not for long. He has a plan to turn things around. First, he observes and interviews his employees. For the low and average performers, which are most of the team, he identifies skills and knowledge gaps. Paul is disorganized. Jill talks excessively and doesn’t listen. And even Kathy, one of his stars, has great technical skills but can’t seem to hit project deadlines. In this Quick Take you will learn what research reveals about the best way to turn around a low-performing team, why efforts to improve deficits can backfire, and where to focus your coaching efforts to get the best results.

Coaching: The Power and Practice of Follow-up

So what makes some training work and other training fail? Find out what separates training and development programs that succeed from those that don’t, how coaching plays a critical role in workplace learning, and how to conduct effective follow-up sessions with your employees.

Coaching: Your Mindset Makes All the Difference

A 'fixed' mindset is the belief that people’s abilities and talents are relatively static and cannot be improved in any meaningful way. A 'growth' mindset is the belief that innate talents are just a starting point – and that people can improve and grow over time if they work at it. In this Quick Take you will learn what studies reveal about the connection between coaching outcomes and a coach’s mindset about learning, how a change in mindset leads to more effective coaching, and five keys to success in a coaching role.

How to Harness Peer Learning in Group Sessions

Compared with one-on-one coaching, group learning may seem like a compromise. It’s a time-efficient way to get across basic concepts and need-to-know information, but it’s certainly not the same as an expert working individually with an employee on high-level skills – right? Right. It’s not the same. It’s often better. In this Quick Take you will learn what research says about the power of group learning sessions, why peers are often better coaches than bosses or other experts, and how to design high-impact group-learning sessions for your team.

How to Help Employees Bounce Back After Failure

Some people bounce back from mistakes – even big mistakes – with grit and resolve. Others feel crushed, lose confidence and stop doing the things that made them successful. They may even quit their job or change careers – with potentially devastating consequences for both the employee and your organization. In this Quick Take, you will learn what works to help employees recover from failure – and what doesn’t work, how you can encourage people to forgive themselves for failing -- while still holding them accountable, and a three-step model you can apply to help people bounce back.

Framing Corrective Feedback in a Positive Way

Bill has an employee with a serious performance issue. Bill sincerely wants to help and considers a very direct corrective-feedback approach -- for example, saying something like this: 'I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t tell you you’re failing, and that you’re going to lose your job if you don’t improve.' But Bill also wonders whether that message might backfire, demoralizing the employee and making the performance problems worse. So what should Bill do? In this Quick Take you will learn how a coach can frame corrective feedback in a positive way, why that doesn’t mean sugarcoating bad news or pulling your punches, and, why this approach is far more likely to result in behavior change than traditional ways of delivering corrective feedback.

Why Goal-Setting Often Doesn’t Lead to Goal Achievement

How many times have you set a goal for yourself or your team that wasn't achieved? In this Quick Take you will learn why strong enthusiasm for reaching a goal isn't enough, the difference between 'goal intentions' and 'implementation intentions' and a simple research-proven technique that vastly increases goal achievement.

How to Give Negative Feedback: The C.H.A.N.G.E. Model

It’s great to give positive feedback to employees. In fact, managers don’t give enough of it. But in some instances, what employees need most is not praise but a very candid description of a deficit that’s hurting both the company and the employee. In this Quick Take you will learn the C.H.A.N.G.E. Model for giving negative feedback, the importance of emotion, as well as logic, when giving negative feedback and an approach for delivering feedback in a way that keeps the discussion focused and under your control.

Talent Development: How to Use Failure to Achieve Success

Nobody likes to fail. Nobody likes to see their people fail. And no enlightened manager would ever set up their employees to fail, right? Well, not quite. Research shows that in certain situations, you can help your employees succeed in the long run by putting them in situations where they’re almost sure to fail. In this Quick Take, you will learn the science behind the concept of 'productive failure' – why struggle and failure help people learn more quickly and retain what they’ve learned longer, why managers are often reluctant to let their people fail – even when they should; and when it’s appropriate to use 'productive failure' and when it’s not.

The Curse of Knowledge: Why it Hurts Training and How to Overcome it

Chances are at some point in your career you ran into an expert who struggled to teach others. They sped through difficult topics like they were a cinch. They used jargon learners didn’t understand. And, worst of all, they didn’t realize their audience was totally lost. Researchers call this phenomenon 'the curse of knowledge.' And it’s a big training and development challenge in all organizations, including yours. In this Quick Take you will learn why it's so hard for experts to share what they know, how to use the power of “near-peer” training to bridge the knowledge gap between experts and inexperienced learners and why near-peer training benefits everyone involved in training – experts, learners and the near-peers themselves.

Why 80% of Training Doesn’t Stick – And What You Can Do About It

Companies spend about $1,000 per employee on training. But 80% of the time it doesn’t stick. That’s a staggering amount of money going down the drain. But, here’s the good news: You can take steps to reduce that waste -- and as a manager or supervisor, you’re in the best position to fix it. More good news: If you can master the techniques covered in this program, you’ll transform your results and propel your managerial career into overdrive. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn why most training fails … and what you can do to make it succeed. However, the solution we describe will only work if you take action – and that’s the challenge.

Performance Feedback: The Seek-First-to-Understand Approach

Few employees like getting performance evaluations. The process often feels rigid, judgmental and de-humanizing. Most managers, of course, are obligated to give annual performance evaluations, and many would tell you it’s the thing they hate most about their job. Fortunately, there’s a better way that eases the pain for both managers and employees. In this Quick Take you will learn the Seek-First-to-Understand method for providing performance feedback, the #1 goal of performance feedback, and the most frequently overlooked stage in traditional performance appraisal processes.

Leadership Credibility 1: The ‘Confidence Base’

What does it take to be a credible leader? Is it charisma? Raw intelligence? Some intangible trait that some people are born with and others are not? The fact is, credibility often boils down to one key factor. In this program you’ll discover what that is and learn: Why 'leadership skill' is NOT what gets people promoted into management, the number one source of credibility for leaders, the key to increasing, and sustaining, your credibility as a leader and just how fragile credibility can be.

Leadership Credibility 2: The Fallibility Paradox

Leadership credibility takes a long time to build but can be destroyed in seconds. The question is, how and why does it happen? What should managers do – and never do – to maintain a strong reputation as a trustworthy, reliable leader? In this Quick Take, you will learn: One of the most common, and most preventable, mistakes leaders make that destroys their hard-earned credibility, what we mean by the Fallibility Paradox – and why it’s the key to maintaining credibility over the long-term, and what caused one leadership success story to end in abject failure.

Six Managerial Styles You Need to Lead Effectively

The best managers realize that to be a truly effective leader you need to deploy a variety of management styles depending on who you're dealing with and what you're trying to accomplish. They know that a 'one size fits all' approach to leadership simply doesn't work. In this Quick Take you’ll learn: Why 'one-trick-pony' managers have limited value to the organization, that great managers master a repertoire of six management styles and, how to correctly deploy the right style depending on the situation.

The Power of Predictability

The #1 job of the human brain is to predict what will happen, so that we can be prepared. But managers can unintentionally create a work environment where unpredictability reigns. When that happens, employees feel stressed, anxious and demotivated. In this Quick Take you will learn how the brain creates 'predictive models' that are designed to tell us what’s going to happen, why we feel good when our predictions are right – and bad when they’re wrong and how you can use the principle of predictability to create a more productive and positive work environment for your people.

Employee Onboarding: Why Too Much Emphasis on ‘Fit’ Can Backfire

In this Quick Take, you will learn why traditional employee orientations that emphasize 'fit' can backfire, what recent research says about successful onboarding and how to create an orientation experience that can boost employee retention and job performance.

Onboarding: The Critical Importance of a New Hire’s First Assignment

When it comes to onboarding, the best leaders know that sink-or-swim -- the all-too-common default option at many organizations -- is a sloppy, lazy way to get new employees up to speed. In this Quick Take, you will learn a better way. You’ll discover that making people feel comfortable and welcome is NOT your most important goal as an onboarder, and the results of a new research study that shows the optimal way to design a new employee’s first assignment.

The Three Teachable Moments: Helping New Hires Decode Your Company Culture

We all attempt to explain our company culture to new hires. We use words like 'high-energy' and 'fast-paced' in job descriptions, interviews and new-hire orientations. But culture is intangible. It’s hard to convey values, unwritten rules and behavioral norms. As a result, some managers simply throw new hires into the deep end and let them figure it out. But that's a recipe for disaster. So what do good bosses do? They very carefully manage the process of onboarding new employees. In this Quick Take you will learn why it’s not enough merely to explain your culture to new hires, why a 'sink-or-swim' approach to new hires almost always fails, and how to proactively create 'teachable onboarding moments' that will help new hires 'get' what it takes to succeed in your organization.

The C.A.R.E.E.R. Model: The Ultimate Retention Strategy for Managers

Every experienced manager knows the feeling. A valued employee walks into your office and says, 'I found a new job. I’m leaving.' You’re stung. You feel betrayed. And you’re asking yourself, 'Did I do something wrong?' The bad news: You probably did. The good news: In this Quick Take you’ll learn how to keep your good employees on board, energized and loyal.

Managing Difficult Projects: The Importance of Showing Early Progress

Kim is leading a major project that’s critical to her company’s success. A couple of months ago, people were enthusiastic and eager to get to work. But over time team members got distracted. Then frustrated. Intrinsic motivation faded and the project lost steam. In this Quick Take, you will learn the key component of employee motivation, why the perception of progress is the key to actual progress and how communicating the right information at the right time accelerates productivity.

Dealing With Mistakes: What High-Performing Teams Do Differently

Research shows that high-performing teams and low-performing teams differ on one important dimension: How they handle mistakes. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn how to cultivate a team environment that gets mistakes out in the open where they can be dealt with, and why it’s important to celebrate mistakes and the people who point them out.

ABC Method: Handling a Bad Attitude

In every organization you have a few people with really BAD attitudes. The guy who has trouble dealing with authority … the woman who shows up late all the time … or the average performers who put in minimal effort but continually complain about their mediocre pay and lack of advancement. You could just terminate these employees. But let’s assume they’ve got skills you need and you decide they’re worth saving. This training module will show how to confront 'bad-attitude' employees the right way, and maximize the odds that they’ll change themselves and become better team players.

How to Drain the Drama and Emotion From Salary Reviews

Discussion about salary is one of the most emotionally charged topics in the workplace. Why, because people often equate their self worth and value with the size of their raise. When they don’t get what they think they deserve, they walk away thinking, 'Why doesn’t the company love me anymore.' In this Quick Take you’ll learn: Why the size of the raise isn’t what causes drama in salary reviews. Why the real problem is the manager, not the employee. And, a technique you can use to communicate more effectively when it comes to money.

Delegation: How to Get Results Through Other People

If delegation were simply about passing our work on to others, everyone would be great at it. But delegation is more complicated than it looks – and getting it right is so critical. In this Quick Take you will learn why delegation is key to advancement for a leader, what the Multiplier Effect is and why it’s the Holy Grail of delegation, the Four Fatal Flaws that sabotage delegation, and finally, how to avoid the Abdication Trap.

Empowerment and Accountability: How Much Rope Should You Give Your People?

Should you let people manage their own projects, or should you ride hard on them? Research suggests that the answer is 'both.' When you create external accountabilities for your people, they’re more likely to succeed. In this Quick Take, you will learn what behavioral research has to say about deadline-setting and deadline missing, why people often fail to meet deadlines they set for themselves, and how the research applies more broadly to issues of employee empowerment and accountability.

Progressive Discipline: The “Career Advocate” Method for Salvaging Endangered Employees

Managers often see the stages of progressive discipline as the opening acts leading up to firing of an employee. They focus on creating a paper trail to protect against potential lawsuits. But too many managers overlook the positive role progressive discipline can play, and they miss out on opportunities to change behavior and salvage employees who are worth trying to keep. That’s the main subject of this Quick Take, which will explore what managers can do to maximize the likelihood that “endangered” employees will turn themselves around.

NOTE: This program has been reviewed by an employment law attorney. However, the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal advice or services. Should additional clarification be needed on any of this content, please seek the assistance of your Human Resources department or the person responsible for employment law compliance in your organization.

Contractor or Employee? What HR Must Know to Make the Right Call

The EEOC has put employers on notice: You can’t have a blanket policy against hiring people with criminal records. Likewise, you can’t have a policy that automatically dismisses any employee who’s convicted of a crime while working for you. Convictions have to be analyzed in a more sophisticated, individualized way. In this Quick Take, you will learn what the EEOC says about blanket policies on criminal records, three questions to ask about applicants’ criminal convictions, what you must always do when rejecting an applicant because of a previous conviction and four suggestions for legitimately using criminal records in the application process.

Equal Pay: The Five Questions HR Must Ask

Every HR pro knows that under federal law, you can’t discriminate against women by paying them less than men. That’s a key feature of Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act, which also bars discrimination based on things like race, national origin and religion. But there’s another law that comes into play specifically when the issue is men’s and women’s pay: The Equal Pay Act. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn the most common misconception about equal pay, the five questions HR must ask in balancing men’s and women’s pay levels and what you can and can’t do to fix any pay inequalities.

Genetic Discrimination: You Can’t Blame Them for Their DNA

Genetic information discrimination isn’t something that comes up every day but it’s an issue HR professionals need to stay on top of. A growing number of organizations are finding themselves in court defending claims that protected genetic information was used in hiring, firing or promotion decisions. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn what genetic discrimination is, what the law says about when you can and can’t acquiring genetic information from applicants and employees, how to handle genetic information that is legally acquired, and three ways employers are likely to violate the law.

How to Conduct Effective Exit Interviews

Reflect back on some exit interviews you’ve conducted. When the person walked out of the room, were you ever thinking: I still don’t have a clue why the person REALLY left and that was a complete waste of time. Clearly, that’s not your goal. You’d like your exit interviews to reveal useful information you can use to improve your company and your retention rates. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn: The one type of employee that will give you the most useful info. The #1 obstacle to getting meaningful input. And, a simple questioning technique that will transform the way you conduct exit interviews and get far superior results.

HR Communication – How to Speak the Language of CEOs

You know how much HR contributes to the success of your organization. But many HR professionals have trouble getting this message through to their CEOs. In this Quick Take, we’ll show you a proven approach to help you get the CEO’s attention and demonstrate the strategic value of HR.

Job Applicants with Criminal Records

The EEOC has put employers on notice: You can’t have a blanket policy against hiring people with criminal records. Likewise, you can’t have a policy that automatically dismisses any employee who’s convicted of a crime while working for you. Convictions have to be analyzed in a more sophisticated, individualized way. In this Quick Take, you will learn what the EEOC says about blanket policies on criminal records, three questions to ask about applicants’ criminal convictions, what you must always do when rejecting an applicant because of a previous conviction and four suggestions for legitimately using criminal records in the application process.

Job Descriptions: Five Mistakes That Can Land You in Legal Trouble

Complete, up-to-date, accurate job descriptions are an essential part of your lawsuit-avoidance toolkit. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn about the top five job description mistakes that can make any organization vulnerable to lawsuits and the four situations where job descriptions should always come into play.

Military FMLA Leave: Twists and Turns that Challenge HR

Eligible employees may take two kinds of military leave under the FMLA: military caregiver leave or qualifying exigency leave. Military FMLA works a lot like regular FMLA. But there’s just enough difference to throw you off if you’re not careful. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn two key ways that military FMLA leave differs from regular FMLA, how to comply with the law on FMLA military caregiver leave, how to comply with the law on FMLA qualifying exigency leave and steps you can take to verify eligibility when employees ask for such leave.

PTSD in the Workplace: What Every HR Professional Must Know

Suppose a supervisor comes to you about an employee who’s scared co-workers with an unexpected outburst of anger. Or an employee who seems to be sinking into withdrawal, compromising her ability to function in her team. Would it occur to you that these people might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? In this Quick Take, you will learn myths and misconceptions about PTSD, what PTSD really is and why it happens, how to recognize signs that one of your employees may have PTSD, and accommodations you can make to help employees with PTSD.

Return from FMLA Leave: Dealing with the ADA-FMLA-Workers Comp Tangle

Handling workers returning from FMLA leave can be a challenge to even the most seasoned HR professional. Why? Because it often involves three aspects of employment law: FMLA, ADA and state workers compensation. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn how the three kinds of law intertwine, and how to disentangle them so you can make good decisions.

Who Gets Overtime and Who Doesn’t?

Determining who’s exempt and who’s not isn’t always a simple matter. FLSA regulations are full of “gray zones” that can trip up even the most experienced managers. In this Quick Take you will learn: The most common mistakes that HR professionals make when classifying employees, why the title 'manager' is often misleading, and how to avoid the 'salary-basis trap'.

Workers Comp Claims: Four techniques for keeping lawyers away, and costs down

Workers who are home recovering from an injury have a lot of time to sit, think, and brood over their health issues. That makes them susceptible to the siren's call of a workers comp lawyer. And when lawyers get involved, payouts and insurance premiums go up. In this Quick Take, we’ll look at four claims management techniques that HR managers can use to keep lawyers out of the picture and keep workers comp costs under control.

Workers Compensation Fraud: Six Warning Signs that HR Should Watch For

Most employees are honest about work-related injuries. But there are always the troublesome few who try to game the system and take a vacation at your expense. According to some estimates, up to a quarter of workers comp claims contain some element of dishonesty. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn six warning signs of possible workers comp fraud, how to ask questions that can uncover bogus claims, and what to do – and what NOT to do – if your investigation turns up evidence of fraud.

Jokes and Pranks in the Workplace: When to Humor Them, When to Squelch Them

No smart supervisor wants to squelch harmless jokes that burn off tension and build camaraderie. But sometimes – often before people realize it -- jokes can turn mean, or jokesters overdo it, or somebody thinks it’s funny to put a co-worker down. When that happens, supervisors need to apply the brakes – firmly. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn the two hidden reasons why humor can be so damaging, three ways employees can cause trouble with misguided humor and three steps supervisors can take to minimize the risks of off-target workplace humor.

Avoiding Social Media Slipups

The rise of social media brings new responsibilities for employers and employees alike. It’s a great way to keep in touch and share your thoughts and feelings. But it also makes it easy for employees to slip up in ways that can harm their employer, their own reputation and even their jobs. This Quick Take offers common-sense guidance on the use of social media that will keep employees out of trouble without shutting them down.

Progressive Discipline: The ‘Career Advocate’ Method for Salvaging Endangered Employees

On the surface, terminating an employee for poor performance seems like a no-brainer. It’s nothing personal. The worker just isn’t getting it done and would be better off in another job. But even when a termination is 100% justifiable, managers must be extremely careful how they conduct themselves. Terminations, no matter how clear cut, are legal minefields. In this Quick Take you’ll learn the #1 managerial oversight that gives terminated employees traction in a lawsuit, the most common mistake supervisors make during the actual termination conversation, the main reason terminated employees sue and a blueprint for terminating employees in a way vastly reducing the likelihood you’ll get sued..

How to Terminate Poor Performers – Without Provoking a Lawsuit

In this Quick Take, you will learn a counterintuitive approach that can help you connect with buyers who keep their distance, the psychological principle that makes this approach work, and what this counterintuitive truth reveals about how we make personal connections.

How to Terminate an Insubordinate Employee Without Provoking a Lawsuit

When insubordinate or troublesome employees push you too far, it’s tempting to fire them on the spot. But acting rashly can get you into a world of legal trouble. Employees fired abruptly are far more likely to sue than those who are given warning. This Quick Take will help you avoid the traps that surround 'knee-jerk' terminations. You’ll learn: When you should, and shouldn’t, fire an insubordinate employee on the spot, the one thing NOT to do when terminating an insubordinate employee, and three termination guidelines that lower your risk.

Reference Checks: How to Respond to Requests for Information About Current or Former Employees

Whether you’re a line manager or an HR person, you’ll probably get a phone call one day from a prospective employer asking about a current or former employee. But don’t worry: There are ways to respond to reference requests that are truthful, yet protect you, your company and the employee. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn how to avoid lawsuits – for defamation or negligent referral – connected with employee references. Specifically, you’ll learn how to prepare for a phone call requesting references, what to say – and especially not say – on the call, and what to do after the call.

Employee Privacy: What Every Supervisor Must Know

Employee privacy rights often come down to one key phrase: 'reasonable expectation of privacy.' But what exactly does that mean and do you translate that ambiguous standard into a meaningful policy for your organization. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn what 'reasonable expectation of privacy' means, and why it’s so important, five common ways supervisors may violate employee privacy, and three guidelines to help you stay on the right side of the law..

Sexual Harassment for Supervisors: Not-So-Obvious Cases That Can Trip You Up

Most supervisors can recognize cases of blatant sexual harassment – where, for instance, an employee makes a crude or threatening advance. Or where an employee touches another in a way that’s clearly out of bounds. But what about those less obvious cases? In this Quick Take you will learn the difference between 'quid pro quo' and 'hostile environment' sexual harassment. Why sexual harassment doesn’t need to target a specific person. How 'victimless' sexual banter can trigger lawsuits. Why actions that are completely non-sexual in nature can be construed as sexual harassment and the 'reasonable person' standard for determining what is, and isn’t, sexual harassment.

Workplace Violence: How to Spot and React to the Early Warning Signs

Is workplace violence really a problem you need to worry about? You bet it is – even if you consider your workplace to be friendly and safe. According to OSHA, nearly 2 million American workers report that they’ve been victims of violence at work. But what can you actually do to prevent workplace violence. Can managers and supervisors predict when a given employee is likely to turn violent? After all, you can’t call the police every time an employee looks at you the wrong way. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn seven signs that an employee may be at risk of engaging in workplace violence, and how to respond to them using the concept of 'graduated response' in tandem with your organization’s policies.

Employee Complaints: What Every Manager Must Know

Managers and supervisors play a critical role in handling employee complaints and preventing legal action. Why? Because very often they’re the first point of contact when a complaint is filed. This Quick Take will show them how to play that role correctly. Viewers will learn: A three-step model for conducting interviews with employees who come to them with complaints and three common mistakes managers make when handling complaints.

Retaliation Claims: Four Key Mistakes That Supervisors Must Avoid

Retaliation has a specific meaning under the law. It’s an 'adverse action' against anyone who has engaged in 'protected activity' – for example, making a discrimination complaint or filing a workers comp claim. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn what retaliation is (and isn’t); why even conscientious, fair supervisors may be at risk for creating a retaliation claim; four common mistakes that can get you accused of retaliation; and how to avoid these mistakes.

The Limits of Religious Expression at Work: When Should Supervisors Step in?

Employees have the right to express their religious beliefs (or lack-thereof) at work, but at what point does it cross the line of faithful religious practice into harassment? In this Quick Take you’ll learn four kinds of common religious expression in the workplace that you should generally tolerate, three situations when you have a right to limit or prohibit employees’ religious expression, and a quick test to help you tell the difference between acceptable and unacceptable religious expression.

The ‘Self-Check’ Technique for Revealing Unconscious Bias

Did you know discrimination lawsuits have risen 268% over the past 15 years? That’s 9 times faster than any other type of employee lawsuit. In this presentation, we provide a roadmap to the Self-Check Technique for unconscious bias. You will learn why unconscious bias is the leading cause of discrimination lawsuits and what you can do to prevent them.

How to Avoid Hiring Lawsuits: The Bias-Free Questioning Model

As a hiring manager you need to dig to learn all you can about a candidate. Unfortunately, the more you learn about a person, the higher your risk of provoking a discrimination lawsuit. When you DON’T know a candidate is pregnant, a recovering alcoholic, or a member of some other protected class, it would be hard for someone to claim that you asked discriminatory interview questions. So how do you learn what you need to know about a potential hire without exposing yourself to legal risk? In this Quick Take you will learn: The 'Bias-Free Questioning Model'; what questions in job interviews could cause a lawsuit in The Big Six areas of discrimination (Disability, Age, Gender, National Origin, Race and Religion); and why job descriptions are key to reducing your legal exposure in the hiring process..

Language Discrimination in the Workplace

What should you do if employees complain that one of their coworker’s is hard to communicate with because of a heavy accent or poor English skills? What if customers also complain? Can you simply fire the employee? In this Quick Take, you’ll learn what you can legally expect of employees in the way of language ability and fluency, the two main traps that lead to illegal discrimination based on language and how to tell when a language issue needs attention, and when it doesn’t.

Family Responsibilities Discrimination: Balancing Work and Family

Work and family issues can put supervisors in a tough spot. They have to balance what’s best for their employees, what’s best for the organization and what’s fair to other employees. They also have to consider the law – because work-and-family issues can lead to legal claims and lawsuits alleging 'family responsibilities discrimination' -- or FRD. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn what supervisors must do – and must not do -- when workers have care-giving responsibilities at home and three false assumptions about family responsibilities that can get supervisors in legal trouble.

Pregnancy Discrimination: What Every Supervisor Must Know

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 requires that 'women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment related purposes … as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.' In this Quick Take, you’ll learn what the law means by 'equal treatment' for pregnant workers and applicants; a handy rule of thumb to make sure you don’t discriminate against a pregnant employee or job applicant, and four common legal pitfalls that you may face with pregnant employees and applicants.

English-Only Rules: What’s Legal and What’s Not

With today’s workforce becoming increasingly diverse and multi-lingual, employers are faced with a question: 'Can we, or should we, establish an English-only rule?' It’s a complex question because it encompasses so many issues, including customer relations, workforce communication, safety, morale and the law. In this Quick Take you will learn what questions to ask before establishing a policy, two traps you can fall into when enforcing English-only rules, the one way you can be sure an English-only rule is legal, and four examples of legally permissible English-only rules.

Racial and National Origin Discrimination: What Every Supervisor Must Know

Every manager knows that racial jokes or refusing to promote or work with someone because of his or her ethnic background can lead to discrimination or harassment claims. Those kinds of behaviors are pretty easy to identify. But there are some gray areas where people can do or say things that could violate others’ rights and get the organization in expensive legal trouble. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn three examples of racial and national origin discrimination and harassment that many supervisors would never spot, and two simple questions you can ask to detect subtle discrimination or harassment that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Age Discrimination: What Every Manager Needs to Know

An older worker’s physical condition MIGHT prevent him or her from doing certain jobs. But you must make that call based on an assessment of the worker’s ACTUAL condition and abilities. When managers and supervisors stereotype or make assumptions about what older workers can and can’t do, they expose the organization to avoidable legal risk. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn the intent behind federal age discrimination law, the four main ways managers violate the age discrimination law, and a question that will help you avoid breaking the law.

Religious Accommodation – What Every Supervisor Must Know

Of all the conversations you have in the workplace, discussions about religion are among the most challenging. Yet you must have those discussions when an employee asks you to accommodate his or her religious beliefs. In this Quick Take, you will learn how even well-intentioned managers can make hiring and promotion decisions that expose them to liability for religious discrimination, what the law requires when an employee asks for a religious accommodation, a critical error that can land you in court when you get such requests and four rules that can help you respond to these requests correctly.

Employees With Mental Health Issues: What Every Supervisor Must Know

How should supervisors respond when an employee shows signs of mental illness at work? It’s a delicate situation that needs to be handled exactly right. Follow these guidelines to help ensure that you do what’s best for the employee, for the organization and for co-workers.

ADA Accommodation: Supervisors and the ‘Interactive Process’

Most managers know about the ADA and understand that they must try to accommodate workers who have disabilities. But the ADA is complex and loaded with rules that managers and supervisors need to understand. In this Quick Take you will learn the definition of a disability; what the 'interactive process' is; why employees don’t have to specifically ask for an 'accommodation'; what you should know to determine whether you need to engage in an 'interactive Process' and the three things you must ALWAYS do once you’ve determined that an employee has made an accommodation request.

Disability ‘Association’ Discrimination: What is It? And How to Avoid It

Most people in the workplace know you can’t discriminate against employees just because they’re disabled. Certainly supervisors are aware of this. But what a lot of people don’t know is that disability law extends its protection to employees who aren’t disabled, but have relatives or friends who are. The ADA calls this 'association discrimination'. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn: how to recognize situations that involve disability association discrimination; what you have to do in such situations and what you don’t have to do; and how disability association differs from ordinary employee disability.

Drink, Drugs and Disability Discrimination: Handling Substance Abusers Without Violating the ADA

The ADA protects employees who are disabled because they are 1) alcoholics; 2) recovering alcoholics; or 3) recovering drug addicts. The law prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on such disabilities. But generally speaking, the law DOESN’T stop an employer from disciplining or even terminating these employees for misconduct or poor performance. In this Quick Take you will learn how anti-discrimination law applies to employees who are disabled because of substance abuse problems, what you can and cannot do in applying performance standards to such disabled employees, and the most important insight to keep in mind to help you handle issues involving employees and substance abuse.

Performance and the ADA: Evaluating Disabled Employees

It’s true that the ADA protects employees from discrimination. This means that you can’t treat employees who are disabled – or who you regard as disabled – different than other employees. Yes, the ADA requires that you make 'reasonable accommodation' whenever possible, but it does NOT excuse performance deficiencies. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn the most important thing to remember when evaluating employees with disabilities, what reasonable accommodation is and how it affects the evaluation process and three things you DON’T have to do when reviewing workers protected by the ADA.

Intermittent FMLA Leave: Techniques to Manage and Control It

Most managers and supervisors realize that employees have the legal right to take FMLA Intermittent leave. And, more often than not, they’re sympathetic to the employee’s situation. At the same time, team leaders have to produce results -- and that can be challenging when workers can’t make it in. So how can managers and supervisors reduce disruption when a well-intentioned employee must take intermittent leave. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn three ways to manage intermittent FMLA leave – without interfering with employees’ rights.

FMLA Certification: What Every Manager Must Know

Most workers play by the rules when it comes to FMLA. But there are some who take unfair advantage of FMLA and sooner or later you’ll have to deal with them. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn the #1 mistake that will get you sued over employee abuse of FMLA intermittent leave, the three rules you must know to legally deal with intermittent leave abuse, and how to handle employees who try to game the system.

Employees on Military Duty – What Every Supervisor Must Know

USERRA places demands on your organization that go beyond other forms of leave, such as FMLA leave or short-term disability. In this Quick Take, you will learn what USERRA requires that you do when people with military obligations apply for jobs, what it requires you to do for current employees with military obligations, and what’s required when employees return to work from military service. You’ll also learn what you can require of employees with.