Accelerate Your Performance

Donna Kirby, the Vice President of Operations at the Pensacola Blue Wahoo’s AA Baseball team, joins Janet Pilcher this week to talk about Donna’s journey to becoming a leader of best practices in minor league baseball. Donna and her team at the Blue Wahoo’s stadium are sought after as an example for creating the ultimate fan experience.  This episode addresses questions, such as: What is the passi...

Many successful, hardworking Americans experience burnout more than once during their careers, even people who are passionate about what they do. High performers can be obsessed with achieving excellence and exceeding results to the point of exhaustion. And when the candles are burning at both ends for too long, we do ourselves, our clients, and our team a disservice. Begin reducing stress by taki...

The way we provide feedback makes a difference in how people receive and act on the feedback. If our goal is to provide feedback to change behavior for the right reasons, we need to message our feedback in the right way. Dr. Pilcher dissects real-life situations where feedback was given that wasn’t asked for, or that hurts the receiver, and offers solutions and tips to improve the interaction.  Th...

There’s a fine line between giving feedback for improvements and leaving an employee feeling criticized and deflated. Few of us respond well to someone telling us what to do or how to fix ourselves. Yet when feedback is provided in the right way, individuals are motivated to learn and improve. To create excellent organizations providing others with feedback is necessary. Reshape your feedback conv...

Making intentional connections with employees is especially important when the employee is within the first 30 and 90 days. Research shows that up to 22% of turnover takes place within an employee’s first 45 days of employment. 30-day conversations reinforce that leaders are committed to retaining the new employee and provide leaders with a fresh perception of the organization. This week Dr. Pilch...

Why is a commitment to excellence important as a leader and as an organization? Dr. Janet Pilcher interviews Harry S. Hertz Leadership Award recipient, Dr. JoAnn Sternke, to get her perspective on what it takes to pursue performance excellence. As a superintendent of Pewaukee School District, JoAnn led the organization to receive a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award . In this episode, she rev...

It’s difficult to become a great organization, and even more difficult to sustain that success. This week, Dr. Pilcher explores the 5 stages of defeat as identified in Jim Collin’s book ‘How the Mighty Fall’ and what you can do as a leader to get up before you fall too far.  This episode addresses questions, such as: Why do successful organizations fall? How can you get up before we fall too far?...

How can organizations set themselves apart and provide their stakeholders with unmistakable value? It all starts with effective leadership and a culture focused on purpose. Dr. KK Owen joins Dr. Janet Pilcher to discuss how she helps organizations mold a culture around unmistakable value in real life.  This episode addresses questions, such as: What is ‘unmistakable value’? How do organization’s m...

Are you really listening to your employees? Many employees don’t think so , in fact, more than half of employees say their company fails to act on good ideas, and a third of employees feel their ideas are ignored. Why? Because leaders demand action without input, receive feedback and avoid making changes, and lack a clear process for managing ideas. It’s crucial for leaders to let employees speak...

One of a leader’s greatest responsibilities is to ensure teams are engaged and productive. People are motivated to increase productivity when leaders take time to get to know them personally, make them feel comfortable, and help remove barriers in the workplace. When we connect with employees in ways that are meaningful to them, they become more engaged, productivity and profits increase, meanwhil...

Thriving workplaces depend on trust to continue to grow and excel. However, most of us can recognize; trust isn’t given, its earned. Building positive relationships in the workplace lays the groundwork for trusting teams that can perform and adapt at high levels. When leaders start prioritizing trust in the workplace, their teams will follow.  This episode addresses questions, such as: How do you...

Receiving feedback is an emotional experience, it’s often difficult to take in. Whether the feedback is positive or negative, we humans are quick to respond emotionally, sometimes overreacting, even to the point of denying the data is accurate. Feedback is also a powerful gift, it helps organizations understand what they are doing well, and areas in which they’re falling short. In this episode, Dr...

Organizations perform at different levels, some are poor, others good, and very few are excellent. What makes an organization excellent? It’s their relentless commitment to continuous improvement. Great organizations are willing to get their hands dirty and face the brutal facts to improve, even when things are going well.  This episode addresses questions, such as: What is an improvement mindset,...

Is it really enough to provide good, or even, very good customer service? When your organization treats service recovery as just another refund, it misses a valuable growth opportunity. Excellent service recovery turns people with a poor experience into your biggest brand advocates. Listen now to hear the 4 steps to customer recovery.  This episode addresses questions, such as: What is the differe...

Despite best efforts, sometimes we fail at providing the outstanding service our customers deserve. During these times, a service recovery process can turn a negative customer experience into an opportunity to satisfy the individual and for the organization to improve. Using a real-life example, Dr. Pilcher identifies six actions to sincere service recovery your customers will thank you for.  This...

Why do leaders need to address toxic behavior immediately? Because negative behavior drags the entire organization down. 66% of employees who deal with a toxic team member said their performance declined in a recent HBR Study. In this episode, we reveal an approach you can use to support low-solid performers, the 8 types of toxic employees, and 4 steps to dealing with toxic employees.  This episod...

It’s the leader’s responsibility to provide a structure within the organization to help people know when they’re not performing at their best. When the right system is in place, leaders can support their employees in owning their own performance. Sometimes that support may appear in the form of transitioning someone to a different role or out of the organization. In this episode, we address action...

How do the varying human performance levels affect the overall organizational results? What happens when leaders avoid managing employee performance levels?  We achieve higher performance with less variation when we tighten the performance curve. In this episode, Dr. Pilcher addresses how leaders have an important role in managing performance to keep results moving in a positive direction.  This e...

60 – 70% of individuals in our organizations are solid performers, making them the backbone of every organization. When we give them our best, they will give their best to us and our organizations. This week, Dr. Pilcher discusses how to connect with your solid performers. When you give solid performers feedback the right way, a relationship is built that will retain, motivate, and inspire your di...

Are you a high performer? Do you want to retain your high performing team members? This week, Dr. Pilcher offers an approach for connecting with your high performers and Erica Callaway joins her as a guest to model what this connection should sound like. Meeting with high performers the right way, so they know they are valued, moves the organization to achieve results.  This episode addresses ques...

Low performers take up the majority of our time as leaders and cause their better performing coworkers stress. Today we address the types of low performing behaviors and what happens if we ignore them.    This episode addresses questions, such as:  How do we enable low performers?  What are low performer behaviors?   What about mean employees?   Low Performers: Who Are They? is the fifth episode i...

While we navigate through work and life, we may occasionally find ourselves in over our heads. The harder we try to fight, the deeper we fall. For leaders Dr. Pilcher recommends 4 ways to help your solid performers avoid the quicksand and an additional 3 ways to avoid stepping into the quicksand yourself.   This episode addresses questions, such as:  How can we guide our teams to perform and persi...

Middle solid performers make up half of our organization and have a lot to offer. It’s important for leaders to give them direction and opportunities to grow. Today we focus on 5 actions you can take to best support middle performers.  This episode addresses questions, such as:  What do middle performers want from their leaders?  How can you help middle performers progress up the performance curve...

When we speak of performance, we think of both an individual’s will and their skill. Do the members of our teams have the desire to do their best work and continue to get better? Today, we focus on the tremendous impact we can have on organizations when we have strong will or fire in our belly.  This episode addresses questions, such as:  What does it mean to have a ‘fire in the belly’?  What do I...

What are the 5 characteristics of high performers and why they are crucial to keep on your team? High performers do their best and their best makes a difference; they deserve for us to give our best to them. Learn how to identify your high performers, and how to retain them using the 3 techniques provided this week.   This episode addresses questions, such as:  How do high performing employees act...