Blogs by Jeff Saari
Leadership Blog
On this episode of the Focus Coach podcast. I interview Ken Abbott, President of ABTech Manufacturing in Fitzwilliam, NH about the notion of resilience and how that has manifested in this economic COVID downturn as well as through an injury he sustained while riding his mountain bike. We talk about what tools have helped him recover from these downturns and the current state of his life and business.
In this podcast episode of The Focus Coach, I interviewed Mark Bodin, president of the Savings Bank of Walpole in Keene and Walpole, NH. On the podcast we talk about his ideas and strategy for succession planning, employee development, culture building, community focus and employee well-being.
If you are like most people that I know you have TONS going on. Normal day to day operation work, normal family routine tasks like making dinner, volunteer work that you do, and of course projects! A project is defined as something that is not achieved by one to-d, and is pushing the borders of your growth and development. It is also finite, meaning it will be something that gets accomplished and not ongoing. When we do project based work, either alone or with another person or team, we learn and progress ourselves and the organization/family unit.
If you are like most people that I know you have TONS going on. Normal day to day operation work, normal family routine tasks like making dinner, volunteer work that you do, and of course projects! A project is defined as something that is not achieved by one to-d, and is pushing the borders of your growth and development. It is also finite, meaning it will be something that gets accomplished and not ongoing. When we do project based work, either alone or with another person or team, we learn and progress ourselves and the organization/family unit.
Leadership Blog (continued)
First part of an 8 part article aimed at the benefits of high engagement — more robust productivity, stronger collaboration, and higher employee retention rates.
In a session this morning my client told me that the reason he has become more effective in his leadership is because he had a 'humbling' experience last year. This manager almost didn't make it in his organization as his behavior over time had become toxic. He first came to me after this humbling experience and he and I have done some really great, challenging and fun work together. The humbling experience was getting 360 feedback in the organization which was largely critical, as well as being put...
There are many people out there that think positive thinking is the holy grail. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but we can't live up to the ideal of not thinking negatively can we? We all have negative thoughts, judgments, and feelings from time to time; some more than others....
I have been thinking lately about a 'well' life. For some reason inputs and outputs, or debits and credits, or payables and receivables come up for me. With my clients sometimes we are talking about such things like happiness, balance...
Recently I was able to do something that I have never done before: speak to 1200 people over 2 days up on the big stage. I was asked to speak to the incoming new students about managing anxiety at Keene State College. The experience and collaboration with the student affairs folks was truly amazing, totally went ...
I have been hearing lately in many places this notion of the economy of motion, that is making each movement as efficient as possible. So if you are weight lifting for instance, or running, you don't want to waste energy in inefficient body movements. Not only do you not get the benefit of the gains you want,...
I am supporting a manager in a company currently who was on the rocks with his team. He was even on the track to be fired until I was called in to facilitate a transformation in his leadership. Now before I make it all about me, I tell you it takes two to make a transformation happen: my support...
In a recent session with a middle manager we struck something pretty profound. Now I get paid to listen to people, help them see their motivations, goals, and then support them to get what they want. In this particular case I had gotten some feedback from his team that at times he can be defensive and talk...
It is a well-kept secret for some reason that love and business can be synonymous. Before you judge me as woo-woo or too touchy feely you need to know the facts: 30% of workers in the US are engaged in their jobs for many reasons. One of those reasons is that they don't feel appreciated by their immediate...
In my work I have discovered that there are two general areas for celebration and improvement with each employee. I call these two key areas performance and attitude and I have created a matrix of four possibilities that may be helpful to managers and leaders when thinking through the current reality of their...
The organizational chart is a wonderful visioning and management tool. Unfortunately too few people use it. The org chart is a visual chart/graph/spreadsheet of who reports to who in the business or organization. If people don't know who reports to who it causes confusion and inefficiencies. People do...
I just read (twice) a 200-page article entitled 'The State of the American Workplace' and it was fascinating. It talks about the metrics associated with engaging workers and that it is largely the direct supervisor's responsibility to engender engagement in the organization. A dismal 33% of employees are engaged, meaning they feel connected to the mission, feel that they are working in their strengths zone,...
I was reading an article lately entitled "The Five Signs of Emotional Intelligence", and it was really good. Of course EI is a vast topic and there are many more signs of EI, but this primer was a good read. The five signs according to this article are: being able to handle feedback well (without excuses, denial,...
When you get up on Monday morning, what do you tell yourself about going to work (provided work is the normal M-F)? Do you know the regular thought patterns that show up? Are some of them negative? With the most heart attacks happening Monday morning, there seems to be a stress about going to work. This is a problem...
Most times when we hear the word conflict we associate negative words to it: war, battle, fight, strife, antagonism, quarrel, struggle, clash, opposition, squabble, tension, dissension, divergence, friction, and disharmony to name a few. I do an activity sometimes with groups and leaders where I put the word...
I want to caution you that your business or organization's morale may not be as good as you think it is. I have heard a few times recently how great the morale is from a senior manager, only to have that refuted by one of the front-line staff to me in private. There seems to be a disconnect between people's perceptions of reality. How can one person think it's great and another not? It's the same...
As most people know I am a health and fitness ‘nut’. Before a meeting the other day it occurred to me that the analogy of what you put into your body, and the effect thereof translates to business. On the one hand, if you eat junk food or excessive carbohydrates for instance, you will feel sluggish, tired, and overall fatigued. On the other hand if you don’t eat enough food, your body doesn’t...
I worked with a Chief Operating Officer of a company who was stymied by a project that kept showing up on his to-do list week after week and month after month. He was great a strategizing up front about the project but couldn’t get it off the ground; it was clear that he wanted it...
I had the great fortune of working with a manufacturing team recently to talk about team health and strategy. Both of these facets of a team are incredibly important. As people get to know, trust and respect each other more, they are better able to do the heavy lifting of putting issues on the table in the service of the betterment of the team, department and overall company.