Category: Leadership

The small things make all the difference

Paul Wagenaar

Hiring the right person for any position is part craft and part science. You are dealing with experiences and trying to gauge potential. Reviewing these few points at the end of each interview with your co-interviewer can give you insights into the applicant that might just be enough to influence your decision on who to hire. They can make the difference between hiring someone who “could do the job” and hiring a person “who can excel at the job and grow with your organization”.

Using Theatre to Train Your Team

Paul Wagenaar

Everyone joins an organization with varying levels of skills and experience.  The effective use of role-playing can generate incremental leaps in capabilities through fostering interactive learning between co-workers. 

Make your meetings count …

Paul Wagenaar

Good meetings don’t just happen. Preparation, Planning and Practice make good meetings. Good meeting techniques, like your organization, change and evolve. Some meetings will be better than others but your goal should be to have your people leave your meetings feeling like they understand what is going on, why something is happening, and be excited about moving forward.

What’s holding YOU back?

Paul Wagenaar

Leadership takes many forms; I seldom hire the hard-driving people mentioned at the start of this post. Instead, I look for the quiet leaders, the people who appreciate that their organization succeeds when all of the people who comprise our team succeed. People who care, they may not always be the ones who attempt to be “in charge”, often they are the ones who work the hardest and set the best examples; these are the ones who I hire and promote.

… about issues at work

Paul Wagenaar

Sixteen-year-old students left to lock up, fourteen-year-old kids running meat cutting equipment, university or college students struggling to balance work/school demands, and more issues that are stressing students who work.

This post provides an introduction and links to help acquire the knowledge they need to know their rights in the workforce. Please share this post with students you know or with parents who have children working after-school and on weekends.

Inclement Weather and your People

Paul Wagenaar

The stress and anxiety that accompany severe inclement weather events are very real for organizations and their associates. In extreme weather events, it is difficult for organizations to mitigate those emotions; however, it is still possible to have processes in place for “normal” severe weather events.

Turning the sock inside out …

Paul Wagenaar

Managers and supervisors do not earn their money when everything is running smoothly. Managers and supervisors earn their money when everything is going to shit.

With apologies to Rudyard Kipling, “If you can keep your head while all those about you are losing their minds, then you are truly blessed.”

Solving issues is a learned skill, a process combined with an open perspective will give you a key competitive edge.

Re-thinking small city malls

Paul Wagenaar

Many small city malls have failed and deservedly so.

They didn’t fail because the basic concept is wrong. Many of these malls failed to adapt and were not flexible to the changing realities of the merchants they almost took for granted. Is it too late? Perhaps for some.

For merchants and mall operators with vision, there is an opportunity in my opinion. By combining social needs, 21st-century environmental practices with the basic convenience, utility, and economics of “one-stop” shopping … there is a future.

SIMPLE TRUTHS

Paul Wagenaar

I have realized that many times I have contributed to my setbacks and defeats as much as I have benefited from the successes that I have had. In that journey friends, co-workers, and competitors have tried to teach me lessons that many times I stubbornly refused to acknowledge and appreciate …until recently.

Give me five minutes, and perhaps you might be able to apply their lessons for yourself on your journey.

If you let them … instead help them with tools, training, and a process that works.

Paul Wagenaar

Nothing about difficult situations and angry people is ever simple.

Rarely is there one trigger and one solution. Nuance, exceptions, and the lack of anything resembling black and white all are factors in finding solutions to their problems. There is never just one or two sides to a story, there are usually forty-two sides!

This post is about a process, the tools, and the training required to anticipate, avoid, and ultimately how to deal with these situations when they occur.