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Fusion Leadership Blog & Featured Articles
How To Help Employees Look Forward To Mondays
Helping employees look forward to Mondays begins with providing employees a “sense of purpose,” according to a recent article by the Gallup organization. Why Mondays Matter According to Gallup, employee wellbeing sinks to its low point on Mondays and low levels of employee wellbeing associate with higher absenteeism, higher healthcare costs, higher turnover and lower organizational effectiveness. How Do Leaders Instill A “Sense of Purpose” “When your people feel like they’re part of something...
Guest Blog | 9 Books to Read This Summer That Help Community Leaders Grow
By Derek Goodman (image courtesy of Unsplash) How will you be spending your downtime this summer? Beyond the usual warm-weather pursuits, why not hone your leadership skills? Leaders are critical to every level of our society. They rally support for important causes, demonstrate how to respond to conflicts, and pull people together who otherwise might go their separate ways. Whether you’re a leader in one of your kids’ clubs or hold an elected office, you’d be surprised at how your actions can...
COVID-19: What People Need From Leaders Right Now
What people need from leaders right now, during this unprecedented time, is largely the same things that drive optimism and engagement during normal times: a clear path forward or Mission and assurance that their behaviors will help achieve that Mission. According to Gallup there are two directions people take during times of crisis: helplessness and victimization – or – self-actualization and engagement. According to Gallup, if leaders provide a clear path forward, human beings are amazingly...
Congress Links America’s Health To Executive Compensation!?
Many Americans are desperate! So why did congress take extra days, during this time of urgency, to debate and ultimately link executive compensation to the current coronavirus bailout bill? With thousands dying and millions becoming unemployed why is congress debating the pay levels of less than one hundredth of one percent of our population? Americans, like the rest of the world, face an unprecedented crisis that threatens our health, the lives of our most vulnerable and the foundation of our...
Powerful First Steps Toward The Fusion Process
Relationship building provides a key element in the process of “fusing” teams together. Consider a simple phone call that made all the difference. The “red phone” rang and Ray Davis, then CEO of Umpqua Bank, answered. “This is Ray Davis of the World’s Greatest Bank. How can I help you?” “The streetcar’s not doing it. Why’d you paint it blue?” Davis, who many credit with re-inventing the customer approach to community banking, recognized the caller as the same person who had called several...
What’s Your Title?
Mother, Hugger, Keeper of the Culture? That title adorned Colleen Abdoulah’s business cards, just above her other title, Chief Executive Officer of WOW! Cable & Internet (NYSE: WOW). So what gives? Abdoulah, a corporate titan by any measure, leads with the title “Mother, Hugger, Keeper of the Culture?” And this title thing didn’t isolate to Abdoulah. WOW!’s CFO passed around cards that introduced him as “Family Man, Dog Lover, Teammate?” The senior vice president for human resources...
Our Best Leaders Make It Personal
“From that point on, the power of name recognition has resonated with me,” Jeff Pinneo said, recalling a profound moment in his early career. Pinneo was a flight attendant, welcoming passengers onboard a Continental Airlines flight to Houston when a Continental vice president walked down the jetway, held out his hand and said “hi Jeff, I’m Charlie Bucks. How are you?” Pinneo was stunned that a senior officer from his company ACTUALLY recognized him AND knew his name! Moreover, that moment was...
This Time, It’s Personal: A Few Minutes & A Lasting Impression
On-boarding to Make a Difference My great friend and fellow Integra Telecom leader Jim Huesgen, who served as our president for many years, came up with a brilliant exercise that we used regularly. This occurred during a period of steady growth for the company, when we were constantly hiring people. Every week, we had new-employee training classes. Jim or I would join the class in Portland for an hour or two each session, and we’d often both sit around the table with the new employees,...
Thanksgiving & Leadership
Thanksgiving is uniquely American. Sadly most Americans (those 66% that the Gallup organization reports dread Monday morning) view Thanksgiving both as an opportunity to escape the drudgery of their work as well as an opportunity to be with family. Like most, I feel unbelievably fortunate for the blessings of my family and friends. Unlike many, I also feel fortunate for my work colleagues, those who have made my professional journey so rewarding. Here is to those who I am privileged to...
Who Owns The Crisis?
We were “under pressure from … the president (of the United States).” General Van Antwerp emphasized the national urgency toward the re-building New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. However, “first we had to do a lot of restoring of the public trust.” In order to regain the public trust he and the Corps developed a mapping system where they could show evacuated residents their inundated house under the floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina. “Then they could push a button to see what [their house]...
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