Leadership, Career

Unlocking Business Insights: Understanding Financial Statements

Wed, 17 May 2023 10:25:34 -0400

Financial statements serve as a window into the financial health and performance of a business. These documents provide valuable insights into a company's operations, profitability, and overall financial position. Understanding financial statements is crucial for business owners, investors, stakeholders, and anyone involved in decision-making processes related to finance.

Factors Leading to Engagement

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 07:00:00 -0500

Bob Verchota is owner and senior consultant for RPVerchota & Associates, a consulting firm providing services to clients who seek to align their business and employees, creating successful outcomes and excellent work environments.

Should You Terminate or Motivate Employees with Poor Performance?

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 09:00:00 -0500

Employee management can be challenging for even the most seasoned team leaders. Should you terminate or motivate poorly performing employees? It depends.

The Wellness Triangle: 3 Steps to Sustainable Leadership

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:32:36 -0500

What does being well mean? First, draw a triangle with three equal sides - your wellness triangle. Next, draw a circle in the center and ensure that the circle touches all three sides. At the tip of the triangle, write the word Mind. On the bottom left point, write the word Body. On the bottom right point...

Just Decide Already: A Decision Coach Can Help

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 12:33:03 -0400

In these tenuous times of economic upheaval, pandemic recovery and social unrest, making big decisions might feel intimidating. Decision making seems to need more reflection as many people take a deeper look at big life decisions. The current environment might be especially daunting for creative professionals, who are...

4 Tips for Setting Powerful Goals

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 15:48:31 -0400

Goal setting is a fantastic skill to develop, and how you design your own future. A life best lived is a life by design. Not by accident, and not by just walking through the day careening from wall to wall and managing to survive. If you can start giving your life dimensions and design and color and objectives and purpose...

How to Make Venture Capital Accessible for Black Founders: An Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 14:43:55 -0500

In May of 2021, Kevin D. Johnson had just graduated from a rigorous Executive MBA program, and he needed to decide on his next career move. Johnson was the founder and CEO of a successful media company, but his career goals had shifted during business school. He wanted to...

Bezos Pockets $20 Billion While Zuckerberg Loses $29 Billion

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 13:47:39 -0500

Mark Zuckerberg saw $29 billion fall from his overall net worth on Thursday as Meta’s stock experienced a record one-day plunge. Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pocked an additional $20 billion following the e-commerce giant’s blockbuster earnings. Meta’s stock plunged 26%, erasing over...

Boards Embrace Diversely Skilled CFOs

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 13:35:15 -0500

As the CFO’s role has expanded beyond financial reporting to become the CEO’s strategic partner, U.S. organizations took off the blinders that had kept them oblivious to CFO candidates outside of the traditional accounting and auditing career path. Evidence of CFOs coming from wider professional experience gets stronger every year. For example...

The Best Leadership Skill You Can Develop Right Now

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 13:05:23 -0500

In trying to help solve a problem that was causing some conflict among my teammates many years ago, I approached my manager with a suggestion. He immediately became irate and told me in response to my suggestion, “I would like to stay home in my pajamas all day and have my paycheck mailed to me, but that's not how life works.” Many years later...

Three Ways Successful Leaders Manage Their Emotions

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 13:01:30 -0500

We’ve all been there: fuming at the driver who cut us off, panic-stricken at the thought of making a presentation, anxious about starting a new business. The secret to living a happy and successful life is to manage our emotions before they control us, says Leonard Mlodinow in his new book, Emotional. Mlodinow is a...

Are you proficient at each step in the leadership process?

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 12:58:53 -0500

Here is the four-step leadership process that I use when coaching people on how to be more effective leaders...

Is the 4-Day Work Week Better? Evidence Points to Yes.

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 12:54:19 -0500

From Japan to Iceland, countries all over the world are investigating the benefits of the four-day work week for improving employee well-being and productivity. In a study published by Autonomy, researchers tracked 2,500 employees who reduced their work week to 35 or 36 hours, but not their pay. The study showed that...

The Quality of Your Life is Determined by the Quality of Your Questions

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 12:36:56 -0500

This week on SUCCESS Line, I talk to Crystal, a successful real estate agent, graduate of SUCCESS Coaching and author. Like many of us, Crystal’s biggest goal in life is to make an impact on everyone she meets, and she knows that one of the most powerful ways we can do that is to ask questions. But what questions should we ask?...

How to Intervene When a Manager Is Gaslighting Their Employees

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 11:52:56 -0500

“We missed you at the leadership team meeting,” our executive vice president messaged me. “Your manager shared an excellent proposal. He said you weren’t available to present. Look forward to connecting soon.” In our last one-on-one meeting, my manager had enthusiastically said that I, of course, should...

Leading Through Inflation: Ram Charan's 5 Priorities for Companies

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 11:45:38 -0500

“The most important thing is continued cash flow generation, forecast on a very conservative basis,” says Ram. “With that, make your cash outflow forecast on most likely risks.” Out of the net cash flow, he says, the company should prioritize efforts in the following way...

The Critical Difference Between Core And Strategic Innovation

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 11:03:55 -0500

Imagine two different companies, each funding the same innovation program. They are both pursuing a technology that shows disruptive potential in their industry, but that faces an uncertain path to market viability. Each company has poured millions of dollars into upstream R&D. After three years...

Closing the agile achievement gap

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 10:18:09 -0500

Here’s an agile cautionary tale: a certain US-based bank wanted to be faster on its feet, transform end-to-end customer experiences, and gain an edge over newer, nimbler fintech competitors. So, naturally, it turned to the agile playbook—the set of practices derived from software development to bring...

How employers can help as workers' mental health bottoms out

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:08:32 -0500

Amid all-time lows in mental health, employers are finding a new mandate to step up efforts to help struggling employees. “After two-plus years of pandemic ambiguity, employee burnout is emerging as the next widespread health crisis, while employers pour more resources and attention into...

3 ways to turn the Great Resignation into a Great Retention moment

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:03:42 -0500

Employees are switching jobs at record numbers. Workforces are also shrinking. Together, these events have created an environment in which business and HR leaders are having to play catch-up. While the roar of the “war for talent” has been heard for decades and tightening talent markets have been experiencing it in bits and pieces...

Is it time for the four-day workweek?

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:00:10 -0500

Again and again over the past several years, the same type of news has emerged from the business realm: a new company has made the switch to the four-day workweek. In 2017, Basecamp blogged about its "Summer Hours," or four-day workweeks between May 1 and August 31. Volt Athletics wrote...

10 Failproof Employee Engagement Ideas

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 12:48:36 -0500

No matter your specific business, if your employees aren’t engaged, your customers won’t be either and that is going to negatively impact productivity and your bottom line. Employees who are happy and excited about the work they’re doing have an infectious energy that makes people...

Great Resignation? Survey Finds 72% of Executives Worried About Losing Their Jobs

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 12:41:52 -0500

It’s hardly news that the last two years of change and disruption have been tough for an entire generation of leaders. What is surprising? The depth of that difficulty. How tired, bewildered—and increasingly paranoid about their ability to keep their jobs—it has left them. Amid the endless reports of the “Great Resignation,”...

6 Tips for Rapid Social Media Growth in 2022

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 12:15:31 -0500

Social media is forging a new path in 2022. You could get by with overly-templated posts in the past, ignoring how people engage on different apps. Now we have spaces with a distinct culture: TikTok. Clubhouse. Whatever the metaverse promises to be. Now more than ever...

Should Employees Be Allowed to Choose What They Want to Do?

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:38:32 -0500

As far as workplace trends go, several topics have dominated popular attention and discussion, from workspace design, digitalisation, Agile methodology, to the pandemic favourite of remote working. But there’s another important aspect of work that is being pushed increasingly to the forefront of organisation design...

How to Build Trust More Quickly With New Employees

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:34:09 -0500

Whether you’re replacing talent because of the great resignation, or your team is growing fast because of your remarkable success, you know how vital it is to build trust quickly. Until there’s real trust, everything is harder and slower. And, who has time for that? As David Horsager of the Trust Institute reminds us...

Making distinctions reduces conflict

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:30:55 -0500

Part of leadership is managing conflict, but you can’t manage what you don’t understand, and what you don’t understand leads to ineffective decision-making. Building the critical skill of making distinctions helps leaders make better decisions and manage conflicts. Here are three distinctions every leader needs to understand...

How To Avoid Burnout

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:26:38 -0500

Tell us a little bit about yourself? Primarily I’m a catalyst for change through coaching. I find that coaching promotes a multitude of possible changes that open up whole new worlds for my clients. In most cases, I don’t need to specialise, I simply coach effectively. I do help people surmount tremendous obstacles like...

How to Control Your Brain for Optimal Functioning

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:16:34 -0500

When we are preparing for significant events in our careers, we tend to focus on preparation. If we have a big presentation to do, we practice until we are comfortable. If we have an interview for a new job, we research the company and its key players to ensure we have answers to obvious questions. If we have a project deadline...

Holding Court: Leadership Lessons From Rafa Nadal

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:11:47 -0500

I love tennis. Playing or watching, I always want it to be a great match. The Australian Open finals did not disappoint. Both Rafael Nadal and Ashleigh Barty had history on the line. Their opponents—Danil Medvedev and Danielle Collins, respectively—were intent on making history of their own...