PD Strategies Blog

“Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude.” Zig Ziglar The fact is that people do not put enough emphasis on how attitude affects performance. Yes, attitudes DO affect performance. In fact, they affect everything that we do. Now if you doubt that then look back at the involuntary terminations in your organization. You will probably find that most of the terminations occurred due to poor attitudes and behaviors rather than lack of skills. There is a strong link between attitude and performance. Let’s start with defining what attitude means in this context. An attitude is a pattern of thought. It affects how we approach everything we do. If you change your attitude and change your outlook you will change your outcomes. Not that this is as easy as turning on a switch. It is not that easy. You can change your attitude, your outlook, and how you think but it will take real...

A high performing team is always created by an effective leader. Conversely, if an organization is full of performance issues you need only to look at leadership to diagnose the cause of the problem. Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” talks about great companies being great because they are led by what he defines as a “Level 5” leader. Such a leader has all the essential abilities including contributing team member, competent manager, effective leader, and great leader. However, he or she also possess the unique blend of humility and will which is required for true greatness.   Start by hiring the people that fit the mission and vision of your organization and possess shared values. You then must keep them engaged and producing results. Engaged employees will lead to loyal customers and loyal customers will lead to a sustainable business. In today’s world, it is not enough to be...

I heard someone describe a manager by saying, “He could get you upset just by saying Good Morning. Social interaction among individuals is subject to emotions and interpretation. You can be upset about something that happened earlier and the emotion could carry through negatively when communicating with staff members. Sometimes it is not what you say but how you say it. You can change this by being aware of your emotions and keeping them in check. Then learn how to react and interact with people. Here are six situations and possible ways to respond. •          You can accept others ideas and respect them although you do not have to agree. Acknowledge amazing requests and outrageous statements with responses such as: "That's an interesting idea." "That's a novel request." "What an intriguing question." Then listen to what the other person is saying and use those questions as an opportunity for the other...

We have been working with two leaders of an organization.  They have related several problems but they all had one source.  We can’t get the right people to work for us.  We spent some time interviewing them as well as a sample of people in their organization.  Wow, what a disconnect.  They are desperately looking for success.  The employees also want the organization to be successful.  That is where the similarity stopped.  The two partners could not convey the goals of the organization and they were not even communicating completely the upcoming projects.  The staff was frustrated.  One partner is totally exhausted because he feels he must do everything himself and he is afraid to hold people accountable.  The other partner has no tolerance for things and thinks lots of people should just leave.  The good news is that they can fix this if they change. The first step is to create...