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The principles in my book, What Great Brands Do:  The Seven Brand-Building Principles That Separate the Best from the Rest can be applied to employees, employee experience, and employee engagement. For example, in WGBD, I explain that Great Brands Avoid Selling Products.  Instead of simply focusing on selling products or services to customers, great brands […]

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In this, the last in my series of leadership lessons learned from popular TV shows, we learn from Yellowstone.  John Dutton and the cast of characters from the fictional Montana ranch show us that leading doesn’t always involve what we think it does. We learn that when it comes to motivating employees, it depends less […]

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Ted Lasso, the leading character in the popular Apple+ series by the same name, provides an excellent model of exceptional organizational leadership. The leadership lessons from Lasso are about coaching, changing, and character-building. My new Smartbrief on Leadership video explains how Lasso shows what great leaders do — take a look! related: Lesson from Succession: […]

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Succession, the popular show on HBO, conveys helpful business insights including the importance of you using your own product. As a business leader, you must personally and regularly undergo the entire customer experience of your company as an actual customer would.  This will help focus your attention on the most important aspects of your business, […]

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It’s been said that the true test of leadership is how well you function in a crisis.  This seems particularly apt today, given all the layoffs that many leaders have had to undertake recently.  We’ve seen some of the worst examples of leadership recently.  But there is a better way. Leaders who respect, care for, […]

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If you’re struggling to build a cohesive company culture, you’re not alone.  Where and how people work varies so much now that culture-building seems more difficult than ever. Instead of trying to control or quash the different directions your culture seems to be headed, provide clarity and focus to the variations. In this Smartbrief on […]

leadership love

Love may seem out of place in a business context, but it’s actually a key leadership quality today. Employees want to feel their leaders know them, trust them, and care about them as whole persons. And, when they do, they’re more likely to be engaged and motivated to do great work. In my latest Smartbrief […]

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Now is the time to prepare your business for the recession.  In addition to the typical strategies of cost-cutting and cash flow management, add culture-building.  A healthy, effective, and resilient company culture can help you not just survive, but actually thrive during an economic downturn. In my new Smartbrief on Leadership video, I explain how […]

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The age-old question – which is more important, customers OR employees – is a misguided, and potentially dangerous one.  As a business leader, you shouldn’t prioritize one group over another. Instead, you should link employees and customers. One way to connect employees and customers is to use cultural tenets that are relevant and important to […]

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“Start with why.”  It’s great advice, but you need to do more than start with why.  You need to put your why into action.  And that’s where lots of business leaders get tripped up. My latest LinkedIn Brand+Cuture Series post, Start With Why But Don’t Stop There, explores how to close the gap between vision […]