Dear Crucial Skills, Over the past year, my wife has developed an unhealthy pattern of caring less and less about her physical appearance and is now considerably overweight. Whenever I try to discuss the potential impact on her quality of life, she becomes very defensive and says, “You don’t love me anymore.” I counter and …
Visit the Crucial Skills blog to read David Maxfield’s answer to this question: Can you share some additional thoughts on motivating people who know their positions will soon be cut?
Dear David, How do you define the difference between behavior and culture? Does behavior drive culture, or does culture drive behavior? Sincerely, Natural Order of Things Dear Natural, The short answer is that behavior determines culture, and culture determines behavior. But it’s more complicated than that, and the complications make it a fascinating topic. First, …
We invited Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, New York Times bestselling authors of The Carrot Principle and All In, to join our six-part Leadership Learning Series webcast. If you missed their session, you can watch the recording here. Additionally, Adrian and Chester recently published their latest research in their new book, What Motivates Me. I …
Have Dear Crucial Skills, I have a team of three individuals. They are all hard workers and have been with the company for a long time. I have been their manager for almost five years now. Over the last year, we have gone through some organizational changes that have made them feel, as they have …
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-U6QTRTZSc] “If your best buddy jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?” Too often, the answer is yes. Patients die because nurses and doctors who know better go along with bad decisions. Planes crash because crew members go along with plans they know could kill them. Organizations fail because employees sit on their …
Dear David, My company has recently been acquired. Historically, we have enjoyed a great culture, a profitable business, and high employee satisfaction ratings. I’m concerned that when we integrate into the new company, we’ll lose our “secret sauce”—our unique cultural differentiators that have helped us be successful. Do you have any advice for how to …
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYyvmyIqiGk?rel=0] Fifteen-year-old Jake is a high school basketball star. We invited Jake to go into another room and toss beanbags through holes of various sizes in a plywood target, then report back to us with his final score. Our hidden camera recorded that he scored six out of a possible fifteen points (not too …
In our latest BS Guys video, we asked two boys to approach smokers on the street. Their goal was to get the smokers to consider quitting. They used one of two strategies: “tell” or “ask.” In the tell condition, they did what many have tried before—they told the smokers why they should quit. In the …
In our newly released video, Santa’s Elf holds out two tantalizing foil-wrapped chocolate Christmas bears to Emma and Alex. One chocolate bear is a wonderfully chubby eight inches tall. The other is tiny—the size and girth of a clothespin. “Sorry,” the Elf says, “we only have one big bear left.” He turns to Emma, the …
