Tag: Motivation

Reframe Criticism to Become a Better Motivator

Be honest: Are you a good motivator at work? Scott Adams, the author of Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success, likely disagrees with your answer. But he gives us a way to rethink—or, as he puts it, reframe—our mindset on motivation. I, too, spend a lot of time thinking about this […]

Planning for Success: HR Managers’ Guide to New Year’s Resolutions

The new year is a time when many people set professional goals. As a human resources (HR) manager, the new year might usher in a time of change for your workforce as you roll out new policies, aim to repair broken systems, or set goals to achieve in the upcoming year. So how can employers […]

Embracing Failure: What Can Employees Learn from Falling Short?

We all want to avoid failure whenever possible, but the reality is nobody’s perfect, and we’re all bound to fail repeatedly over time. In a world that often celebrates success while shunning failure, understanding how to constructively deal with setbacks is crucial, and it’s a key ability employers should seek to empower their staff with. […]

Leaders and Motivation: Is It Them or Me?

What have you done lately to help your team fully invest in their work? Leaders frequently ask me to explain why some members of their workforce don’t seem fully engaged or motivated. They report that people are just going through the motions or, worse, just doing what’s minimally expected. “In an era when innovation, speed, […]

Train ’em up

If you’re a poor soul who’s followed enough of my posts to spot patterns, you’ll spot one here. Maybe I’m a broken record, maybe I’m simple-minded, or maybe I really like baseball.  Baseball speaks to me. The U.S. is still a blip in the long course of human history. We cobbled together our identity from […]

You can’t lead if others aren’t willing to follow

by Dan Oswald What makes a great leader? That question has spurned endless debate and discussion for centuries. In business, we strive to identify those with strong leadership skills and put them in positions where they can lead others. I was a having a conversation about leadership with a business colleague the other day. At […]

Do your employees have the right type of motivation?

by Dan Oswald A colleague shared with me an article published recently in the New York Times Sunday Review. In addition to the fact that the article had been recommended, its title, “The Secret of Effective Motivation,” was certainly enough to get me to read it. Who in management doesn’t want to know the “secret” […]

Getting management right: What’s HR’s role?

Few would argue that managers play a large role in attracting the best employees and keeping them engaged and productive. An effective manager keeps the team strong. The trick is learning how to improve managers and figuring out whether, or even if, the human resources department has any control over manager effectiveness.  Pete Smith, a […]