Dear Crucial Skills, The committee at my church seems not to be listening to the concerns congregants are raising. They either minimize them, or do not to respond to them. I believe the committee is moving too quickly with proposals, and congregants have not understood them and in the end will likely be unwilling to …
How do I help my 23-year-old daughter understand that she has to change her habits to get different outcomes? She recently moved back home. She is always late to work so she can’t hold down a job. She puts off things that I ask her to do around the house. It never changes.
For years I have used LEAN to improve the work my healthcare lab does. But I still have people who respond poorly to feedback and who only want to hear about chronic or dire issues, and I’m often met with “I’m only human.” How can I hold my team members to high standards and validate them so they don’t become disgruntled?
I have a question about accountability conversations and what to value more. Should I allow the person I want to hold accountable to save face by accepting their version of what happened, as long as I am confident that the misstep will not happen again, or should I push until they acknowledge and admit that they did wrong?
Imagine you have been presented with the opportunity to choose between two gifts. Both are in a box of the same shape and size. The first gift is perfectly wrapped with your favorite color of wrapping paper. The ends are joined precisely, creating square and clean edges. And it is finished with a threaded gold …
I have an employee who speaks up regularly and voices their opinion and proposes changes to the organization, but if those suggestions aren’t implemented, they get angry. What can I do?
I’m a new manager of a team that previously had a leader that yelled, used demeaning methods of motivation and control, and often humiliated individuals. The leader was removed for these behaviors and the role was given to me. I can see signs that the team is broken. They work in silos, performance is poor, and there’s a general lack of effort. I’m struggling to unify the team and “right the ship.” I feel like clarifying expectations would help get everyone back on track, but I worry that doing so will further divide the team, as it could be seen as me pushing my agenda. Any advice?
My 27-year-old son moved in with me and my husband before the pandemic and planned to buy a house last spring. He has since enrolled in grad school and it’s now a seller’s market, so he is still here. The problem is that we have a four-bedroom house, and we want it all to ourselves.
As you may have heard, VitalSmarts became Crucial Learning last week. It’s exciting to stand on the solid foundation of the past and look forward to the unlimited horizons of the future. While preparing to participate in the ATD conference on the morning of the announcement, I thought about what this change means for our company, for our clients, for our trainers, and for me personally—and my thoughts turned to Roger Bannister.
I have an employee who just won’t engage with feedback. When I do share feedback, he totally falls apart and wants to quit. He struggles with any type of criticism from me or anyone. Other managers have shared with me the same concern. How can I get him to engage?
