“Good morning,” Bill said with as big a smile as he could muster. “Allow me to introduce Tim Smith. Tim is a very successful and talented account manager coming to us from our Florida market. Tim, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?”
Immediately Penny was lost in thought, “I wonder how long this guy will last? He looks sharp. Sounds like he knows his…
Patrick left the meeting with Rebecca a bit confused. “Why does it feel like Rebecca doesn’t mean what she says?” he asked his teammate Gloria.
“I know. Half the time, I feel like she hasn’t heard a word I’ve said. It’s like her mouth is moving, but her eyes are somewhere else.”
“I can’t put my finger on it … we just … don’t connect.”
You’re speaking two…
“You know my name!”
That was the response Jennifer, in accounting, received from a frontline employee. What did she do? All she did was respond to his request with the words, “Your name is Mark, right?”
Why did Mark give such an emotional response?
“You know my name!” reveals a lot to the discerning leader of people. What do you see or hear in his words?
Here are…
“I can’t believe Matt dropped the ball again,” Sara vented after the team meeting. “Last time he did this we lost two weeks and missed our deadline. We look like we don’t know what we’re doing.”
“And, it makes me wonder why I try so hard,” Angela joined in. “At least once a week I ask … why am I killing myself if the rest of the team…
“So we’re all in agreement with the proposed commission changes,” Julie asked her sales team. Everyone nodded without looking up from the report.
In the break room Mike dumped his cold coffee unable to hold back any longer, “Julie’s plan is really going to hurt my pay check next year. Can you believe we’re changing commission structure…again?”
“That’s how she operates,” Amy agonized. “I just don’t trust her…
Tammy slipped-in the conference room as the General Manager was about to close the door.
“Another boring meeting,” she thought, “we sit at the table together, but rarely deal with the real issues. What a waste. I’ve got too much to do.”
The agenda looked about the same with only the date changed. Tammy hoped for a different level of conversation.
The department heads completed their routine…
“Samantha* is here to help us work together as a team,” Al beamed.
Samantha gazed on plastic smiles and quiet, nodding heads. She knew their performance had been dismal. She needed to find out if they trusted each other or were just being polite.
Following appropriate niceties, Samantha went for the breakthrough exercise. “For our first activity, I want you to go around the room and tell each…
