During my final Graduate School of Banking summer, I was a new Christian. My midwestern peers noticed a difference and seemed determined to draw me back into drunkenness and debauchery. One evening, my peers decided to visit a strip club. It suddenly became their mission to ridicule and pressure me to join them. I locked myself in the bathroom until ...
When someone feels compelled to tell you they are ethical, it’s likely they aren’t. Years ago, I met a business owner who kept telling me that he was a person of high integrity. While touring his business, one of his employees stopped me to say, “Don’t believe anything he says. My boss is a crook and a liar.” In Isaiah ...
My friend, Roger, used to call on small town radio stations. These small radio stations often struggled to survive unless they found a good advertising salesperson. But frequently, a good salesperson would become very productive. Their sales commissions would soar until eventually they made more money than the owner. Roger observed that this often led to the owner, or their ...
In this series, we’re discussing five guiding principles on how best to negotiate agreements. The second principle I recommend is to avoid negotiating with those you can’t trust. A previous bank customer of mine was represented by their manipulative CFO. This CFO would leverage his other bank relationships to pressure us to give him a better deal. We agreed ...
As the Kansas City Chiefs headed to Super Bowl LIX recently, the Press questioned Kansas City Chiefs kicker, Harrison Butker, again about his controversial statements made at a Catholic University in 2024. According to the Associated Press, Butker said, “I don’t feel the need to apologize for anything.” He added, “I feel like God’s prepared me for that moment to feel ...
Working at a utility meant my colleagues and I had to be prepared for all kinds of disasters. To maintain that readiness, our company conducted regular emergency simulations. These drills were stressful by design. During one drill, I let the stress get to me. When a colleague asked how we might respond to a hypothetical development, I loudly shut him ...
Wilson Fauber has been a Virginia realtor for over forty years, yet he was recently found guilty of ethics violations by a National Association of Realtors ethics panel. Mr. Fauber’s crime – years earlier he quoted Bible verses about marriage and human sexuality on social media. According to christianpost.com, Mr. Fauber was charged with “hate speech” because of quoting the ...
On any given workday, you will experience moments when reality conflicts with your expectations of how the world should be. Someone will give you “counsel” that you don’t want to hear (or believe is true). Someone will not perform his or her job the way you want. Someone will selfishly advance his or her own agenda instead of the ...
If you’ve been a leader for long, you’ve likely experienced customers or past employees sharing negative things about you and or your business. For those who take things personally, or are overly sensitive, these unkind attacks can be devastating. The challenge is to discern what criticism is legitimate versus complaints that are not helpful. These moments can be a learning ...
In this series we’re discussing the importance of leaders showing empathy to their team members from an article written by Jason Richmond in forbes.com. Jason’s next suggestion is to be curious. Charles is a task-focused manager who has not been very curious about the lives of his employees, resulting in poor ratings as a leader. Fortunately, Charles’ boss implemented software ...
Equipping Others to Do Work Differently
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