Productivity Blog

Success Will Come and Go, But Integrity is Forever

If I could teach only one value to live by, it would be this: Success will come and go, but integrity is forever. Integrity means doing the right thing at all times and in all circumstances, whether or not anyone is watching. It takes having the courage to do the right thing, no matter what the consequences will be. Building a reputation of integrity takes years, but it takes only … Continue reading

This is Your Brain on Organizational Change

by Walter McFarland  |  11:00 AM October 16, 2012 Why can’t we change our organizations? Year after year, the list of companies that no longer exist because they were unable to evolve continues to grow. It includes such household names as Sunbeam, Polaroid, Tower Records, Circuit City, and Drexel Burnham Lambert. After six decades of study, untold investment, and the best efforts of scholars, executives, and consultants, most organizational change … Continue reading

They Work Long Hours, but What About Results?

They Work Long Hours, but What About Results? By ROBERT C. POZEN Published: October 6, 2012 IT’S 5 p.m. at the office. Working fast, you’ve finished your tasks for the day and want to go home. But none of your colleagues have left yet, so you stay another hour or two, surfing the Web and reading your e-mails again, so you don’t come off as a slacker. Enlarge This Image … Continue reading

Ten Ways to Get People to Change

Ten Ways to Get People to Change by Morten T. Hansen  |   8:00 AM September 21, 2012 How do you get leaders, employees, customers — and even yourself — to change behaviors?  Executives can change strategy, products and processes until they’re blue in the face, but real change doesn’t take hold until people actually change what they do. I spent the summer reviewing research on this topic. Here is my … Continue reading

Motivating Employees

April 7, 2009, 2:08 PM ET Motivating Employees Why do people work? That’s the single most important question in the field of management. How you answer it can tell volumes about your management style. The most common answer is: “Because they have to.” If you believe that, you are likely to favor tactics like punch clocks, close supervision and constant nagging, minimizing any opportunity for your workers to shun their … Continue reading

Do you destroy your employees work life?

It’s been a few years since the book and movie that made the fire-breathing Miranda Priestly come alive.  Meryl Street made her show us just how terrible this type of employer can be in the 2006 film, “The Devil Wears Prada” and Lauren Weisberger in her 2003 book brought her to life originally.  If you saw the movie, just think back to some of the more juicy scenes where Streep would … Continue reading

Information overload cost U.S. companies &650 billion a year

Friday, February 3, 2012 INFORMATION OVERLOAD COSTS U.S. COMPANIES $650 BILLION A YEAR I was recently reading an article in Business Insider by Kim Bhasin.  It’s link is http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-how-information-overload-affects-you-in-the-workplace-2012-2  Bhasin suggests that information overload costs U.S. companies $650 billion each year.  Now I can only imagine that the number is huge, but I thought to myself that was huge, so I reviewed Bhasin interesting article.  It is done in an … Continue reading

Listening to the great ideas of your employee’s!!!!!

Monday, February 20, 2012 Listening to the Great Ideas of your Employees!! On Tuesday, February 7, 2012, the Wall Street Journal wsj.com had a great article entitled, “Boeing Teams Speed Up 737 Output.”  The link for this article is: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203436904577155204034907744.html?KEYWORDS=David+Kesmodel Boeing Teams Speed Up 737 Output Jet Maker’s Innovation Crews Search for Ways to Streamline Production as Aircraft Demand Soars By DAVID KESMODEL RENTON, Wash.—As Boeing Co. strives to lift … Continue reading

Manufacturing can thrive but struggles for respect

(Reuters) – On a quiet stretch of the waterfront here, about a mile from Boston’s main tourist sites, a Gillette factory hums along 24 hours a day making an unlikely commodity: top-of-the-line razors. The factory, which employs about 700 people in manufacturing as well as another 800 in design, engineering and management, is an anomaly in modern America – a manufacturing site in one of most expensive cities in the … Continue reading

The First Million – The Un-Comfort Zone with Robert Wilson

THE UN-COMFORT ZONE with Robert Wilson The First Million Until I was thirty years old, I wasn’t much of a fisherman. I’d take a rod and reel along on a camping trip, but I never expected to catch much of anything. In my mind, fishing was a relaxing past time you enjoyed with friends and beer. Then my buddy Brian asked me to go fishing. I took him to a … Continue reading