We made it! We are at the end of the longest, most annoying year any of us has experienced. I think it’s safe to say 2020 has been thoroughly exhausting – and in case you don’t agree, I recommend keeping your thoughts to yourself if you want to keep any of your friends. And yet,…
So, you’re sick of videoconferences. You’re not alone. Healthy percentages of us – between 25% – 35%, depending on which survey you read – are zoning out on calls, or doing other things, or simply staring at the wall and waiting to hear our names so that we can say, “Uh-huh” or “I agree” and…
The pandemic has brought a grand reckoning to almost every element of our lives, but the one I’d like to focus on here is how it has forced us to figure out what to do when we might feel there is nothing to do. In fact, if you can ignore for a moment the various…
I’m not saying anything especially ground-breaking when I say that the last several months have been catastrophic for just about everyone. There’s the pandemic, obviously. But that’s not the only catastrophe I’m referring to. There’s the murder of George Floyd in broad daylight on a busy street, which was not the first time a person…
Just when I thought 2020 couldn’t throw anything else at me – well it did.
A couple weeks ago I delivering the opening keynote at an agricultural conference. For those of who don’t know, theirs is an industry currently facing significant challenges. A combination of unusually uncooperative weather and unprecedented policy decisions have simultaneously depressed crop supply and prices. Farming is a difficult business, and farmers today are having a…
Every summer I completely understand why tropical countries tend to move at a slower pace than ones further from the equator. Of course the Vikings went on raiding expeditions – what else were they going to do during nine months of Nordic winters? I live in Michigan, where we only get six months of decent…
Congratulations! If you’ve read my other article, then you are now as motivated as ever, ready to make the world into your oyster – which is a terrible thing to want to make the world into, by the way, since oysters are gross, but that’s the phrase. Anyway, you are locked and loaded and ready…
Allow me to begin by saying that I really don’t want to be writing this. It’s gorgeous outside today – and considering that I live in northern Michigan, which is gray for 13 months a year and a frigid snowy wasteland for the other 11 – I really should be taking advantage of every sunny…
Listen more. Be positive. Celebrate success. Give people bacon. You’ve heard all the standard ways to motivate your employees before, and you’re tired of reading the same advice. Luckily for you, I’m tired of writing it, too. Don’t get me wrong. I still want to help you become a better manager. I still want you…