Losing weight and managing have a lot in common. Both losing weight and managing people are difficult. If you’re overweight, you may often receive negative feedback about how your weight is affecting your health from family, friends, and your doctor. One of the most difficult tasks in managing people is giving negative feedback or terminating them. It just so happens that employees with bad attitudes, low performers, and the good days/bad days employees are weighing you and your department down just as excess body weight slows your body down.  

Of course, the idea is to always try and keep employees by finding a way for them to add value. The employee might be able to contribute by performing different tasks on your team. They may be a better fit for another team in the same area, or they might be able to move to a different area of expertise, or location. On the other hand, allowing a poor performer, or a person with a bad attitude, or an employee who engages in unethical behavior to remain on your team is like carrying around 600 pounds of excessive baggage. However, if you feel the employee is salvageable, to ensure both yourself and the employee that you have made every effort to give them a fair chance, a good idea is to create a performance improvement plan (PIP).

Whether you’re a wannabe manager, a new manager, a seasoned manager (at any season), or at the executive level, you will always want to be learning new skills – or should! Oftentimes people become stuck on how to do this. Some think you must go for that MBA to be a successful manager. I am one who loves education. On the other hand, much of the knowledge that academia imparts is so far from real life that you may think you stepped onto a different planet once you graduate. Further, school fails to prepare us for real life in many instances.

Having to learn new skills is not just for the wannabe or even the newly minted manager, it happens to everyone. One common example, is of course, technology Even those who have grown up with technology will still need to learn new technology. Examples of new technology include driverless vehicles, AI, flying cars, bullet trains, or the new Hyperloop train. No doubt it will be easier for them, but there will be learning none the less. Technology is not the only new skill, look at the millennial generation and the new skills seasoned managers have had to learn to cope, manage, and communicate with this unique generation.

Leadership has certainly become a hot topic. Employee engagement is another hot topic. Some people might want to add to both of these…“or the lack thereof.” Some of you may be asking, “What has this got to do with the price of tea in China?” The topics of and solutions to both good leadership and positive employee engagement are joined at the hip and here’s how.

Poor leadership can lead to poor employee engagement. On the other hand, employees want to be more autonomous and want to be and recognized as leaders in organizations. So, is achieving effective leadership and employee engagement a wash? Not at all, in fact, one hand washes the other and here’s how.

“It’s lonely at the top” is a metaphor we often hear. Top echelon leaders need all the help they can get. Some leaders fear that giving everyone leadership status will cause utter chaos.  However, we cannot expect our leaders to be all things to all people. In fact, one source suggests that organizations could use a good restructuring in that the pyramidal organization puts too much pressure on the few at the top. Ideas and accountability for an organization’s success needs to be spread throughout a company.

Coaching visiting business professionals who are in the United States working on projects for their countries is exciting, satisfying, and eye opening. This work is eye opening because seeing how these professionals work so diligently on learning American business customs and English is inspiring. Many will still want a session after a grueling drive from a business assignment in another state. They will sacrifice family time to keep their sessions. They will still want sessions even when they are not feeling well. They will often fret over wanting to use the exact correct word in a simple email. They are eager to understand the best ways to communicate ideas. They will struggle not to be insulting in their conversations. In short, they are diligent about communication. Don’t you wish you could say the same for your co-workers?

While communicating in English may seem like rocket science to foreign professionals at times, it shouldn’t be that way to us…and it isn’t. It takes a minimum amount of effort on our parts to recognize and appreciate the commutation styles of our peers, co-workers, families, and friends. The reasons for making this effort are many.