Alignment vs. Manipulation

This past week, on a very respected and widely read management blog I read the following:

“Here’s the Best Definition of Employee Engagement You’ll Ever See Anywhere, Somebody once told me – and this is some of the best advice I ever got – that for any business there are three levels of leadership. One is getting somebody to do what you want them to do. The second is getting people to think what you want them to think; then you don’t have to tell them what to do because they will figure it out.” Read more

Filed under: Business, Culture

Integration in a Tight Job Market

The integration of two companies can be tough at the best of times, but when the job market is tight there are some specific things to look out for. These are the factors that management needs to keep their eyes open and skills sharp for.

A lot of integrations fall apart or are not accretive. Most of the time I think this happens because of two straight forward reasons:

First management and the subsequent teams involved (from the experienced and tenured to those fresh in the door) are unclear and unaligned in their expectations. Secondly there is an underlying and pervasive lack of candour.
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Filed under: Business, Community, Culture, Planning

5 Reasons Why Your Newest Employee is Your Most Important Employee

Any time a new employee joins your organization, your culture shifts even if it is only slightly. This new influence on your culture will be positive or negative, and depending on how that person integrates into your organization in their first quarter, your organization will either be stronger or weaker because of it.
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Filed under: Business, Community, Culture

Missed Our Launch?

Weren’t able to come to our launch event? Take a look at this video to see what you missed. Or if you were there, make sure you watch to see yourself on screen!
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Filed under: Business, Community, Culture

Conflict is not a Four Letter Word

Conflict exists in every workplace. Different companies and people have different methods of addressing conflict.
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Filed under: Business, Culture

Our Launch Event

We want to thank everyone who participated in our launch on November 9th. We hope everyone enjoyed the event as much as we enjoyed hosting it. Take a look at some of the photos from the event, and stay tuned for video footage of the evening. Read more

Filed under: Business, Community, Culture

Front Line People are your Leading Indicators

In business our score is kept via an income statement and a balance sheet. A challenge with this is that it tells us what has happened and not what is going to happen. Good organizations are able to produce these financial statements quickly after month end and quarter end and adjust accordingly. Great organizations are able to adjust before the results are in, how?
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Filed under: Business, Finance, Planning

A Different Way to Give Back to the Community—The Tomorrow Project

Companies can struggle to decide which charities or initiatives to support as a way to give back to the community. There are many needs and worthy causes, and the challenge of vetting them and reaching consensus on which to support can be daunting.

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Filed under: Community, Culture

A Road Map to Monitor Your Corporate Health

As we look at business opportunities to merge with or acquire other companies it continually surprises me the number of businesses that do not have a road map to their future.

What do I mean by this?
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Filed under: Business, Finance, Planning

The Perfectly Aligned Contradiction

We want happy staff.

We want to promote our staff’s quality of life, well being and both physical and family health.

We want our organization to be a highly desirable place to work.
At the same time, in order to compete in today’s marketplace, we need our staff to have a great work ethic and stay focused on their targets and objectives.  We need them to care about our organization and look out for our well being.
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Filed under: Culture