My former boss told me that his boss, the General Manager, said "I’m not sure Janis understands how serious our problems are in the plants. She looks so cheerful all the time." That stung! My image of the nearly-perfect me was crushed. But this made me realize that I should be getting down to business [...]

If it’s criticism, it’s not constructive. A client fired me, explaining, "You’re not asking the hard questions!"                              Criticism: the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding              Constructive: promoting further development or advancement Here’s the litmus test for "constructive" – When I walk away, will she know exactly what to do? Here’s how to [...]

  The manager of a retail store told employees that their responsibility was to make transactions easy and quick for customers. However, if an item had no price or bar code, the cashier was required to call a manager.  What’s wrong with this picture?   We can do two things to make it easy and non-threatening for our team members [...]

"Everybody’s behavior makes sense to them at the time," says Dr. Aubrey Daniels, founder of the consulting company bearing his name. We can remove the mystery and superstition for why people do the "crazy" things they do (translation: things we don’t agree with). It’s not voodoo. It’s the consequences. "I just don’t understand why he [...]

 When Vickie started working here, she went out of her way to serve her customers quickly, and with a smile. Now she takes much longer, and often just tells them why something can’t be done. What happened to Vickie? In her first week when Vickie checked with another department in order to give fast answers to customers, her co-workers coldly informed her "That’s [...]