Bob Ryan

The Best Employees And Leaders Possess This Incredible Skill

This weekend, I attended a twelve-year-olds’ soccer game. For simplicity sake, the blue team was playing the red team. The red team was clearly the better skilled team. Each time the blue team lost the ball or conceded a goal, the coach would yell at the referee.<p><i>“That was a foul!”</i><p><i>“He was …

Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Know Tools Can't Fix Collaboration--Here's What They Do Instead

Tools won't solve your collaboration problems. But culture will.<p>When I see high-performing teams working well together, I can attribute their success to three things every time: their people, tools, and practices. When I see dysfunctional teams, they almost always have the same tools as their …

These 13 Exercises Will Prepare You for Work's Toughest Situations

In college, <b>Maggie Leung</b> had a job that was truly a nightmare.<p>She worked at a rental car outfit that would routinely overbook their fleet. Her …

The Beginner's Guide to IFTTT

How to Tell Your Boss That You’re Not Engaged at Work

Many people think of employee engagement as a relatively new idea, but scientists have been studying it for years. William Kahn first introduced the term in 1990, defining it as “the degree of psychological identification employees experience with their job role or work persona.” He noticed that …

This Is Why Good Employees Resign Within Their First Year (And What You Can Do About

If good employees are leaving your company within their first year, there is one big reason why that isn't widely talked about. Here are three things you can do to prevent it.<p>Unexpected undesired voluntary turnover is debilitating. Most of us know the huge costs that come with it. There are also …

These 5 hacks can help you learn anything, according to a Stanford professor

Whether you are a student, a professional or an entrepreneur, learning is a vital part of getting ahead. But some people seem to be better learners …

Steve Jobs Once Gave Some Brilliant Management Advice on Hiring Top People. Here It Is in 2 Sentences.

Every boss in a hiring role should appreciate this simple yet profound advice from the former head of Apple.<p>Steve Jobs may have had an enormous ego as the head of Apple, but he understood his place in the information age when he famously quipped,<p>It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell …

Saying This in an Interview Takes Guts, But Could Sway the Hiring Manager in Your Favor

The last few minutes of a job interview are crucial. Don't forget to say this.<p>Your resume and cover letter impressed the hiring manager enough that you've landed an interview. Naturally, you do all the right things to prepare. You study up on all the trick interview questions and prepare stand-out …

What One CEO Did When 45 of Her Employees Quit

Kristen Hadeed, entrepreneur and CEO of Student Maid, shares her biggest screw-ups from her early years and how they shaped her into the leader she is today.<p>If you're tired of reading clich "fail forward" or "failing is succeeding" stories, you're in luck. This isn't one of those.<p>This is about the …

8 Productivity That Will to Give You Way More Time Than You Thought You Had

The scarcity of time is an illusion that most entrepreneurs struggle to overcome. The first step is to measure what you (and your team) do day in and day out. What gets measured gets managed.<p>One of my most popular articles from last year was, <i>Billionaires Master the Rule of 168: Life's Great</i> …

6 Things You Must Quit Doing Today to Be More Successful

Sometimes quitting is necessary to overall success. Here’s how to know when you should throw in the towel.<p>Most of us grew up hearing the mantra …

Here's Why Your Organization Can't Handle Complexity

Complex problems require networked solutions<p>Every leader tries to keep things simple and predictable. You hire good people, treat them well, give them clear objectives and do your best to stay out of their way. If you do your homework, plan things well and your people execute efficiently, …

The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Bullet Journaling

Staying organized seems easy from afar. Write a daily to-do list, use a calendar, don't take notes on random scraps of paper: these suggestions sound …

What to Do When Your Employees Feel Overwhelmed

The growing problem that undermines progress, performance, and results.<p>A senior employee, let's name him Alex, is pacing outside the executive conference room doors. He is waiting for his manager to get out of her meeting. Alex has been trying to get time with his boss, but she is continuously in …

Stop! You're Demoralizing Employees With Reviews! And Frequency Isn't the Reason.

One place to start is to learn the difference between "situational" and "dispositional" feedback.<p>The annual employee review is antiquated. While some companies are making changes and conducting them on a regular basis, many employees still say they're deeply flawed.<p>In fact, a January survey by …

You Probably Waste 4 Hours a Day on Email. 5 Tools to Cut That in Half

Technology is the solution to your time-sucking inbox.<p>Four hours a day. Thirty hours a week. A thousand hours a year. Estimates for how much time the average professional spends on email vary slightly depending on the survey or study, but whatever the exact number, everyone agrees -- it's a lot. …

A Survey of How 1,000 CEOs Spend Their Day Reveals What Makes Leaders Successful

What makes a CEO effective? The question has been studied extensively, of course, including in HBR. Yet we still know fairly little about how CEOs behave day-to-day and how their behavior relates to the success or failure of the companies they run. Previous studies have typically had limitations. …

It's Probably Time to Quit if You See Any of These 7 Signs Of a Toxic Workplace

If any of these resonate with you, it could be time for you to quit.<p>An amazing thing happens when you decide to quit your job: Co-workers who you never really spoke to, decide to invite you to a conference room and tell you everything they hate about the job.<p>When I quit a toxic workplace early in …

Enough With the Meetings

Don't process things to death.<p>Most meetings in organizational life follow a script. Everyone plays their part and says their lines. Someone--the department head, VP, or dean--calls a meeting. His immediate direct report feels that if too many issues are raised, nothing will get done. The …

'Work-Life Balance' Is Backfiring on Employers. Here's Why.

Work-life "integration" is the way to go. But, first, leaders must first understand why a perfect work-life balance isn't even possible.<p>Work-life balance is a concept many employers have been attempting to make a reality for employees. Unfortunately, it isn’t as attainable as we'd hoped.<p>Jennifer …

3 ways to keep your brain young, according to neuroscientists

A recent study at Mass General found that when it comes to brain health, some people are able to maintain their acuity far better than others.<p>These "super-agers" are in their 60s and 70s, but can perform memory tests just as well as people in their 20s.<p>Another large-scale, longitudinal study out of …

Google’s WaveNet machine learning-based speech synthesis comes to Assistant

Last year, Google showed off WaveNet, a new way of generating speech that didn’t rely on a bulky library of word bits or cheap shortcuts that result in stilted speech. WaveNet used machine learning to build a voice sample by sample, and the results were, as I put it then, “eerily convincing.” …

3 Signs That It's Time to Let a Struggling Leader Go

How do you know if you should invest more in trying to turn a difficult situation around or make the hard decision to let the leader go? Here are a few key things to look for.<p>Through the years, I've spent a lot of time working with leaders who were in trouble and teams that weren't performing well. …

Watch Carefully How an Employee Quits: It Says 1 of 7 Things About the Company

Here is the powerful message contained in your employee resignation data.<p>Research shows how company leaders can use employee resignation data to see if they have a bigger problem.<p>My personal experience shows why this is so important for organizations to understand.<p>I have resigned before in my …

How To Learn In 2 Days What Normally Takes 6 Months

Research has found that having clarity about your goals is essential to having motivation to achieve those goals.<p>If you’re not clear on what you’re …

21 Things Bosses Say That Are Total Nonsense

How many have you heard (or suffered through)?<p>It's one thing if your boss uses certain words incorrectly, and looks kinda dumb. It's one thing if your boss describes himself (because it's always guys who do this) in a certain way, and looks kinda pretentious.<p>When that happens, you may roll your …

These 4 Types of 'Nightmare Managers' Are Scaring Employees Away

You don't have to drive to the local cinemaplex to see "It," to see monsters in action. Just check your workplace.<p>Things that go bump in the night, monsters hiding under the bed and terrifying clowns called “It”: These are the things nightmares are made of. But for some employees, the scariest part …

What Science Says About Identifying High-Potential Employees

How inclusive or exclusive should organizations be when developing their employees’ talents? In a world of unlimited resources, organizations would surely invest in everyone. After all, as Henry Ford is credited as saying, “the only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is …

How to create an agile organization

Transforming companies to achieve organizational agility is in its early days but already yielding positive returns. While the paths can vary, survey …