Several years ago I struck up a conversation on the C-Train and the individual upon finding out what I did for a living, asked me 'What is the one piece of advice you would give to a new leader?' I replied 'Don’t be a jerk!' And whilst I stick by that piece of advice, I later crylalized my thoughts and created the Vision EXCITE leadership model I have gone on to use this model with clients from a mulitude of different organizations. More recently I discussed the model on Face

All too often the performance review can become a tense affair, with the the reluctant employee and manager dancing round the 'shit' sandwich .... sorry the feedback sandwich, see a previous blog on the exact subject This Is Why The Feedback Sandwich Is A S**t Sandwich. Often in my work I hear from managers who are struggling with how to structure their performance reviews and sometimes are concerned with saying the wrong thing. I cover below 5 phrases you should avoid during

In our workshops I will discuss with participants how, despite planning out what you are going to say beforehand, often when the 'action' starts during a 'difficult' workplace conversation, the other party doesn't react as expected. By using live actors in our worships we give participants the opportunity to think on their feet and develop positive reaction strategies. This is also a theme my co-author Ken Cameron talk about in our recently published book 'I Need To F***ing T

In my corporate workshops I often talk to participants about taking early proactive management action when they first notice an issue arise with a team member. At this early stage there is a choice to make, do I live with the situation or deal with it? This is a theme my co-author Ken Cameron talk about in our recently published book 'I Need To F***ing Talk To You - The Art Of Navigating Difficult Workplace Conversations' What follows is an extract from our book where we cons

In my corporate workshops I often talk about the limitations of the popular feedback model the 'feedback sandwich'. In this article written by my colleague Ken Cameron, he explains the model's limitations. Over to Ken .... 'We’ve all done it. I know I have, and I can’t be alone in this. So, I’m willing to bet you’ve done it too. You’ve given at least one of your direct reports the feedback sandwich. You’ve started off with something positive to get your employee on board. The

Both in our corporate workshops and our recently published book 'I Need To F***ing Talk To You - The Art Of Navigating Difficult Workplace Conversations', my co-author Ken Cameron and I discuss the benefit to a leader of separating the person from the behaviour when it comes to managing our employees. What follows is an extract from our book where we consider a useful method to do this .... If we agree that it’s not effective to think of our employees as “fxxxing unmanageable

Both in our corporate workshops and our recently published book 'I Need To F***ing Talk To You - The Art Of Navigating Difficult Workplace Conversations', my co-author Ken Cameron and I pose the question 'Are people really Unmanageable?' Even the most disagreeable or truculent of our employees or co-workers, are they really 'Unmanageable'? What follows is an extract from our book where we consider this specific point.... Before we proceed any further let’s dispel a myth now;

For many managers the reality of managing a disparate group of people, who are used to working in close proximity but now work remotely, has been a challenge. A fine line to walk between micro managing on the one hand and leaving people to their own (electronic) devices on the other. In this blog we look at three areas that can help managers confidently meeting the challenge ahead in the coming weeks and months. Often managers will think of how they can create a High Performi

Hi there!! Russell Stratton, president and leadership champion with Bluegem Learning. I work with organizations just like yours to help managers improve individual and team performance so they get even better results for your business. In the last couple of VLOGS I've been discussing the topic of Leading from the Middle and there's been a lot of emphasis on how we can lead within the organization when you are in the middle of the organization and you have people working for

I'm Russell Stratton, President and Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. I work with organizations just like yours to help managers improve individual and team performance so that they get even better results for your business. In my previous article in our Leading from The Middle Series, I discussed the unique position that a lot of middle managers find themselves in. Specifically I was providing some analysis as to our positional power in different types of organiz

Hi there. Russell Stratton, President and Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. I work with organizations just like yours to help managers improve individual and team performance to get even better results for your business. The topic I'd like to come back to today is this concept of Leading from the Middle, which I've spoken about briefly before. Middle managers in an organization are in a unique position... They are stuck bang slat in the middle of the organization. Th

“Why can’t I just tell the bastards what to do?” asked the Commander squinting at the diagram in front of him. He adjusted his cap to block out the light, which caused the sun to glint off his cap-badge. I could tell the veteran Borough Commander was half-joking, but it was the half that wasn’t joking that worried him. Fergus, however, was unfazed. “Because, you old sod,” retorted Fergus in the same tone. “the world has changed under your feet in case you hadn’t noticed.” F

Hi there. Russell Stratton, president of Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. Over the last 25 years I've worked with a range of organizations to improve bottom line productivity. In the last couple of blogs I've been talking about Managing Your Boss. As I've said before, this is one of the key topics that people come to talk to me about after my workshops. How do I deal with my boss? And often they've brought an anecdote or a story to tell me about the person they're w

Hi there, Russell Stratton, President and Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. For the last 25 years I've worked with organizations to develop leaders to maximize team performance and improve bottom line productivity. In our last vlog we were talking about the seven types of bad boss and as I was saying, this is one of the most common topics that people come up to me after my workshops and say, "Hey Russ, how do I deal with managing my boss?" So we identified the seven

Hi there. Russell Stratton, President and Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. For the last 25 years I've worked with organizations to develop leaders so that they can maximize team performance and improve bottom line productivity. One of the questions I get asked at a lot of my workshops is... "How do I deal with a bad boss?" This seems to be the number one topic that participants have in their mind. How do I deal with a bad boss? So it got me thinking about people Id

People don’t leave their job - they leave their boss. The business relationship you have with your immediate manager, your boss, is one of, if not the most important relationships you have at work. A good boss can help you progress your career to new heights... ...a bad boss can be like a dead weight around your neck and leave you frustrated and searching the job adverts. In the course of my work I regularly get people come and tell me about their “problem” boss and ask what

Transcript: Hi there, Russell Stratton, President and Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. I work with organizations just like yours to help managers and leaders improve individual and team performance in your business to increase results. In a recent vlog, I was talking about the four step process to put together a change message when you've got some significant change happening in your business. And this got me thinking how this links back to Kurt Lewin's force field

Transcript: Hi there. Russell Stratton, President and Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. I work with organizations just like yours to help managers improve individual and team performance to get results for your business. I was talking to one of my coaching clients the other day about communicating change. He had a fully significant change in his business, which was going to be changing their opening times for his retail store and also a new product line that was goin

Hi there. Russell Stratton, President and Leadership Champion with Bluegem Learning. I work with organizations just like yours to help managers improve individual and team performance to get the optimum results for your business. And one of the things that I do is I coach people moving into management roles, so making that transition from potentially being a doer to being a leader of doers. And one of the things I talk to them about is avoiding the five common mistakes that n

The American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) estimates that organizations in the United States spend more than $165 billion on training for employees. However, leadership development accounts for only 15% of that amount. Here’s four reasons why you should be looking to increase your leadership development budget. Leaders are key to employee satisfaction Employees don’t leave organizations they leave their boss. A positive relationship between a manager and the peopl