Most Difficult Conversations: Telling employees they smell!

When it comes to difficult conversations with employees, which ones cause the most angst for managers?
Firings? Nope.
Explaining why someone didn’t get a raise? Guess again.
The most dreaded conversation:
Telling an employee that he or she smells!
And the easiest conversation?
Confronting an employee about having inappropriate photos on his or her computer.
In fact, managers don’t mind giving an employee [...]

Why optimists sell 37% more!

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Conquering Cold Calling: What Is and Isn’t Working:
Attitude drives behavior. That’s why pessimists don’t last long in sales.
Optimistic salespeople sell an average of 37% more products and services during cold calls than their negative counterparts. How do salespeople maintain a positive attitude while dealing with gatekeepers who won’t let them through or [...]

Boss can’t spell? You’re lucky!

This might explain a few things. More than a third (35% actually) of entrepreneurs identify themselves as dyslexic, says a London professor. That’s staggering when you consider that only 10% of the population is dyslexic.
But it makes sense. The study says dyslexics are:

more likely than nondsylexics to delegate authority since they’re used to getting others [...]

Your next CEO? Women to watch

Interesting report in the Wall Street Journal. The number of women in top corporate jobs (particularly CEOs) has barely budged since 2002. But WSJ’s Top 50 Women to Watch in 2008 indicates that the pipeline of talented women ready for top jobs has grown significantly. Read WSJ’s report to see who they are.

Ante up: Negotiating “tells” to watch for

Playing poker is lot like negotiating business deals. The best “players” know how to read their opponents. In both worlds, savvy opponents try to act weak or appear uninterested, says Gregory Stebbins, author of PeopleSavvy for Sales Professionals.
These behaviors will tell you a lot about the person sitting across the negotiating table:

The Stare-down: Often the [...]

The worst employees of 2007: Can you top ‘em?

What’s the worst thing one of your employees has done? Can you top this list from Careerbuilder?

Bank employees forgot a 73-year old woman was checking her safe deposit box and locked the building and went home. She was found by a cleaning person later that night.
The postal carrier that was stealing money from birthday cards, [...]

Flying high – and IMing all the way

Not sure if this is good news or bad news. Starting next week, business travelers on JetBlue will be able to e-mail and IM in flight, reports the N.Y. Times. The No Bull Blog thinks most of us are too connected. We spend too much time “communicating” and not enough contemplating. But for execs who can’t survive a couple [...]

Best hires? People you don’t like

Looking for creative and innovative people? You’re probably better off hiring wackos and malcontents instead of the best and the brightest.
That’s what the Harvard Business Review touts. The article says:

Hire mavericks and misfits who’ll drive you crazy because they don’t go with the flow and bull-headedly champion their own ideas.
Hire novices who don’t know how things [...]

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