I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of employee engagement. For starters, it’s a horribly clinical term that doesn’t really capture the essence of the concept. What’s really important, and maybe more difficult to explain, is the idea of having a self-directed team that comes up with ideas and does things that you might not have ever thought about. Previously, I wrote about a big idea from Mike…

“There are no traffic jams on the extra mile,” according to sales guru Zig Ziglar. Most of the business owners I know would agree with that. One exasperated leader recently vented, “On almost a daily basis, I have to micromanage my team. They will do any task I assign to them, but they don’t take initiative. I have to keep assigning new tasks.” There are many reasons why your team…

Editor’s note: Eze Redwood is a partner at Wings Cafe and founder of Rise Fast. He advocates for startups and small business to engage in local government. Several years ago, I launched the group Twenty30CEO to help provide knowledge and resources to small business owners, entrepreneurs, innovators and community builders. At the time, there were very few groups that had the ability to provide high-quality speakers both locally and flown…

Maybe it just goes with this time of the year; businesses are reflecting on their past year and refining their plans for the next 12 months. Companies are making assessments on all sorts of things: their product offerings, their current employee teams, if they have people in the right seats, what’s good, what’s bad, or what needs improvement. And as part of those assessments, there’s almost always a discussion around…

By some estimates, 80 percent of annual goals are already failing by February. Focusing on your annual goals in this critical implementation month is smart business strategy. Here’s a user’s guide to acting on your goals before they become just good intentions. 1. Document your goals. Putting your goals into a form that you can review and revise easily is key to staying on track. Not a writer? Consider developing…