I volunteered at the New Hampshire Construction Career Day this week, held at the Hopkinton Fairgrounds. The 1000 high school kids who attended were treated to hands-on experiences with carpentry, tree climbing, pouring asphalt, floor coating, surveying, welding, and running all kinds of heavy equipment including cranes, excavators, backhoes, bucket trucks, plows, cement pumpers, bulldozers and loaders. I was initially assigned to be a “rover,” checking on water stations and exhibitors to see if anyone needed anything. Then an exhibitor from White Mountain Community College, John, told the organizers that he was alone at his booth and could use some help. He was running two virtual welding machines, and the kids loved them. “Wow, it’s like virtual reality!” they’d say when I helped them fit their helmets. The safety glasses inside the helmet gave them real-time readings on their angles, hand position and work speed,…
We talk a lot these days about the loss of institutional knowledge the retirement of Baby Boomers represents for our organizations. But at the same time, a good…
The Accidental Tourist is one of my favorite movies because of one line in it: “What matters in a relationship is who you are when you’re with that…
These past few weeks I’ve been in the grip of my worst TV serial addiction since the last season of Downton Abby. With the final episodes soon to…
One of my favorite writers/consultants on leadership, Peter Bregman, just posted a great article called Why So Many Leadership Programs Ultimately Fail. His message is that we can…
In leadership classes we trainers like to talk about behavior vs. character. Character is important, we say, but you can’t see character. What you see is behavior, and…
When I facilitate team building classes for groups of people from different teams, one of the key questions we toy with is how to turn groups of squabbling…
I’m fascinated by studies that show the link between empathy and job performance. The medical malpractice insurance industry has long known that patients want to sue the doctor…
I never would have bought a book called To Sell is Human unless the author was someone like Daniel Pink. I’m not in sales—never have been, never wanted…
Sometimes the oldest, simplest, “everyone already knows that” tools turn out to have the biggest impact on a group. Everyone knows Stephen Covey’s “circle of influence,” a tool…
The “power of positive thinking” has become almost a joke these days; the phrase conjures images of dorky motivational speakers wearing plaid suits and self-help books with Hallmark…
When the outlandish conspiracy theories about the Boston Marathon bombings began to circulate, naturally I thought back to last week’s post about the storytelling habits of the human…
One of my favorite topics for a team building session or a leadership class is “interpersonal mush,” Gervase Bush’s label for what happens when we create stories to…
One day a guy named Charlie Todd orchestrated a “no pants” subway ride. Seven friends stationed themselves at different subway stops in New York City, and one by…
It has always intrigued me, ever since college, that when you are inspired by a new idea or a new field of study you begin to see references…
Lots of people have written about Marissa Mayer’s startling decision to ban telecommuting at Yahoo over the past few weeks. I think the best articles are the ones…
Several years ago I blogged about work-life balance and said that everyone has a different idea of what it really means. Actually, it was a rant about how…
A recent Wall Street Journal column by Bruce Feiler, Family Inc., lists some great examples of families taking workplace team building and productivity models and using them to…
My topic today is a little out of the norm for me: travel advice for my fellow business travelers. Over the past year, I have discovered some fantastic…
Here’s a TED talk worth watching: http://www.ted.com/talks/karen_thompson_walker_what_fear_can_teach_us.html. Fiction writer Karen Thompson Walker talks about what fear has in common with storytelling: characters, plots, imagery, and suspense. Many…
I used to write goals every January with my good friend Susan (not her real name), whom I’ve written about lately. We would each come up with four…
Recently I heard from an old friend whom I hadn’t talked to in a while. He had moved back to the east coast from Colorado and dropped me…
The Accidental Tourist is one of my favorite movies, and I especially love the part when William Hurt’s character says something like, “I’ve come to realize that what…
It amazes me that I often still facilitate workshops and meetings in which the majority of participants have never heard of TED. So in case you’re one of…
I get a lot of requests for virtual team building classes to teach managers how to effectively manage a team that is not co-located. At first I thought…
Of all the workshops I facilitate, my favorite thing is the last day of a presentation skills class, because that’s when I spend all day watching the participants…
Why is it so hard, sometimes, to get out of the mindset that we are powerless to change our circumstances at work? When I teach a team building…
After a long struggle, including surgery, 15 different medications and about $5000 in vet bills, my dog Jave is blind and we have given up the fight. Jave…
I have been besieged by unbelievably bad customer service experiences recently. Yes, I teach customer service workshops and yes, I believe that probably does make me a little…
Recently I started trail running, mountain biking and paddling after a three-year hiatus. My focus has been on hiking with my dog these past few years, but due…
A couple months ago I read Daniel Gilbert’s new book Stumbling on Happiness, and I’ve been troubled ever since. I read it because it seemed like everyone was…
This is Jave, the new mascot for Tango Training’s sister company New England Crane School. Why does he look so serious? The published answer, to be found in…
Chip Conley’s new book, Emotional Equations, is an interesting look at how you make the case for EQ being a quantifiable predictor of personal happiness and business success…
I heard a great story one day while teaching Emotional Intelligence (EQ). A young man in my class said he had recently had a terrible all-day fight with…
I’ve written often about how we need to stop talking smack about Generation Y, and how important it is for complaining Baby Boomers to recognize the contributions the…
So much gets written about the overload of an average person’s life—information overload, email overload, “to-do” list overload. And most time management experts seem to have the same…
As a trainer and facilitator, one of my recurring themes is the importance of questioning one’s assumptions. I teach people to understand how Chris Argyris’ ladder of inference…
What is employee engagement, really? Zappos, an online shoe retailer best known for outstanding customer service, has a simple and intuitive definition: employee engagement is “employee happiness.” And…
For New England Crane School, Tango Training’s sister company, the season is now winding down. Crane operators don’t want to go to classes during the busy construction season…
I’m in the middle of reading Micah Solomon’s and Leonardo Inghilleri’s book Exceptional Service Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization. For a…