A How-to Guide for Facilitators

The owner of a firm is often expected to “facilitate” things. It could be training for a team member, or conducting a meeting. It could be to lead a discussion group for the purpose of conducting research or mediating in a dispute. The only problem is that...
Beating the Meeting Blues

Beating the Meeting Blues

Meetings are often regarded as a necessary evil. If they are not held, stakeholders complain they were either not informed or not part of the decision making process. But when they are held, they frequently disintegrate into time wasting sessions that leave the...

Make Your First Impression a Good One

We’re getting less formal about business every year. Offices that once had rigid dress codes now tolerate jeans and sports shirts. Thanks to teleworking and teleconferencing it’s possible for executives to attend a business meeting from home wearing a bathrobe. But...

Running Effective Meetings

A lot of people hate meetings. They have too much experience of long meetings that meander on forever and never seem to reach any conclusions that can be acted on. Team members may resent meetings because they are already working to deadlines and the last thing they...

The Business Lunch: How to Plan It and Survive It

Carefully planned and executed, the business lunch can be a valuable tool for acquiring new business, gathering market intelligence, or increasing business from existing customers. It’s also a way of smoothing over little hiccups that occur from time to time in the...