Do you ever find yourself wanting to be liked by your team so much that you let performance standards slide? Building trust is crucial for any team’s success. But how do you give and receive feedback in a way that strengthens trust, not weakens it? In this blog post, we’ll explore the importance of setting […]

Zoom meetings (or Teams, or Google meet, yada-yada — pick your video meeting platform) are still a thing, and therefore so is Zoom fatigue. Our calendars are still laden with meetings — one-on-ones and group meetings both — in which we’re going to have to stare into a camera, tell Jody that she’s on mute. […]

Exit interviews are notoriously poor at providing useful information. The information you do get comes too late to keep this valuable employee on-board, and it’s hard to separate the valuable input from the bias of the interviewee. Therefore, someone brilliant came up with the idea of the stay interview to provide better information that’s more […]

Have you decided that it is (or that it may be) time to fire someone? There’s no best way. Firing people sucks. Dark topic… I hope to shed some light. And to mix a metaphor, this article will give you the key — heck, 7 keys — to the least worst way to go about […]

“You’re nice,” is a compliment. Many of us would like to be seen as nice. Truth is… Nice isn’t necessarily good. Nice at work — and in so many other areas of our lives — can be destructive. And now you’re probably as tired of the word “nice” as I am. Good. Maybe you’ll stop […]

A Riddle That’s Not Funny When is a job requirement not a job requirement? This may be a riddle, but it’s no joke. When there are no consequences for consistently missing a job requirement, then it is by definition NOT a job requirement. It’s an item on the employer’s wish list. When a leader says, […]

What’s this? This is episode 2 of our new show… It Ain’t Easy Being a Human. In this episode, we explore the importance of the tremendous impact leaders can have on the emotional experience, and the sense of wellbeing of the people in their care. Main Points… 1. When your people believe you may be […]

“How can I improve accountability in my team?” That’s the question we get again and again. Sometimes that question comes in different words. And when we dig in, we often find this is the question underneath. Looking for Accountability in Your Team A breakthrough in accountability on your team could become your company’s unfair advantage. […]

We get a lot of people asking us about the ‘F’-word. Feedback Almost every question we get is about how to deliver effective feedback. And that’s a great question. Often overlooked and at least as important… How to receive feedback. People who receive feedback well perform better. They learn and grow faster. They develop more […]

Fear of the unknown is one of the great performance killers. It doesn’t have to be. Embrace the Fear We’ve got a choice. We can freeze. Or flee. Or fight.  Most of us clench our jaw, grit our teeth, hold our breath, and try to face down the fear. That’s the circumstance in which fear […]

We recently conducted a workshop on cultivating a high-performance, collaboration culture at HR West in Oakland. Here’s a teaser. Feedback is a critical component. A Common Critical Feedback Error At one point, a CEO in our workshop loudly bragged. “Here’s what I do. My executive assistant knows she’s doing a good job when she doesn’t […]

Accountability: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions Who’s it for? Accountability is one of the biggest concerns for leaders today. It’s a word I hear multiple times daily. At The Yes Works, we very often get the question, “How do I hold people accountable?” People resist accountability when they […]