In this Quick Take, you will learn why many new hires literally talk themselves into failing, and how managers can use the theory of “explanatory styles” to turn them around.

In this Quick Take, you will learn the strongest factor determining whether an employee will stay or leave, the real purpose of stay interviews, and simple guidelines for conducting effective stay interviews.

In this Quick Take, you will learn why traditional employee orientations that emphasize 'fit' can backfire, what recent research says about successful onboarding and how to create an orientation experience that can boost employee retention and job performance.

When it comes to onboarding, the best leaders know that sink-or-swim -- the all-too-common default option at many organizations -- is a sloppy, lazy way to get new employees up to speed. In this Quick Take, you will learn a better way. You’ll discover that making people feel comfortable and welcome is NOT your most important goal as an onboarder, and the results of a new research study that shows the optimal way to design a new employee’s first assignment.

Every experienced manager knows the feeling. A valued employee walks into your office and says, 'I found a new job. I’m leaving.' You’re stung. You feel betrayed. And you’re asking yourself, 'Did I do something wrong?' The bad news: You probably did. The good news: In this Quick Take you’ll learn how to keep your good employees on board, energized and loyal.

Does this sound familiar? A solid performer on your team is tackling an important project that will require sustained effort over a long period of time. Despite her best intentions, day-to-day stuff keeps getting in the way. Then, with the deadline right around the corner, she drops everything and scrambles to finish the project. As a manager, wouldn’t it be great if you could help your people avoid the last-minute rush and create sustained effort on long-term projects? In this Quick Take, you will learn the concept of “temporal discounting” – and why it almost guarantees that long-term projects will get sidelined by day-to-day demands; how to structure projects, deadlines and incentives to promote sustained effort; and how temporal discounting affects bonuses and incentives.

In this Quick Take, you will learn why people suffer from “brain blindness” when trying to estimate how long a job will take, what happens when you ask people to set a deadline for themselves and how managers can intervene to help people set realistic, meetable deadlines.

In this Quick Take, you will learn the phenomenon of “drifting goals” -- a psychological trap that can erode performance over time, why past performance should NOT be your starting point for setting goals, why goals should be more about changing behavior than keeping score, and questions to ask yourself before you even consider lowering your goals.

In this Quick Take you will learn the psychological reason why people resist change messages, a simple exercise that can help defuse that resistance and how to structure feedback performance reviews to help get the change you want.

Kim is leading a major project that’s critical to her company’s success. A couple of months ago, people were enthusiastic and eager to get to work. But over time team members got distracted. Then frustrated. Intrinsic motivation faded and the project lost steam. In this Quick Take, you will learn the key component of employee motivation, why the perception of progress is the key to actual progress and how communicating the right information at the right time accelerates productivity.

Research shows that high-performing teams and low-performing teams differ on one important dimension: How they handle mistakes. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn how to cultivate a team environment that gets mistakes out in the open where they can be dealt with, and why it’s important to celebrate mistakes and the people who point them out.

In every organization you have a few people with really BAD attitudes. The guy who has trouble dealing with authority … the woman who shows up late all the time … or the average performers who put in minimal effort but continually complain about their mediocre pay and lack of advancement. You could just terminate these employees. But let’s assume they’ve got skills you need and you decide they’re worth saving. This training module will show how to confront 'bad-attitude' employees the right way, and maximize the odds that they’ll change themselves and become better team players.

Discussion about salary is one of the most emotionally charged topics in the workplace. Why, because people often equate their self worth and value with the size of their raise. When they don’t get what they think they deserve, they walk away thinking, 'Why doesn’t the company love me anymore.' In this Quick Take you’ll learn: Why the size of the raise isn’t what causes drama in salary reviews. Why the real problem is the manager, not the employee. And, a technique you can use to communicate more effectively when it comes to money.

If delegation were simply about passing our work on to others, everyone would be great at it. But delegation is more complicated than it looks – and getting it right is so critical. In this Quick Take you will learn why delegation is key to advancement for a leader, what the Multiplier Effect is and why it’s the Holy Grail of delegation, the Four Fatal Flaws that sabotage delegation, and finally, how to avoid the Abdication Trap.

Should you let people manage their own projects, or should you ride hard on them? Research suggests that the answer is 'both.' When you create external accountabilities for your people, they’re more likely to succeed. In this Quick Take, you will learn what behavioral research has to say about deadline-setting and deadline missing, why people often fail to meet deadlines they set for themselves, and how the research applies more broadly to issues of employee empowerment and accountability.

Managers often see the stages of progressive discipline as the opening acts leading up to firing of an employee. They focus on creating a paper trail to protect against potential lawsuits. But too many managers overlook the positive role progressive discipline can play, and they miss out on opportunities to change behavior and salvage employees who are worth trying to keep. That’s the main subject of this Quick Take, which will explore what managers can do to maximize the likelihood that “endangered” employees will turn themselves around.

In this Quick Take, you will learn why perceived unfairness affects people so deeply, why, when it comes to fairness, little things matter a lot, and four categories of fairness that you, as a manager, must be aware of.

In the early years after he founded Microsoft, Bill Gates had a surprising reply when strangers asked him what he did. He didn’t say, “I’m the CEO of Microsoft” or even “I’m an entrepreneur.” He said, “I’m a programmer.” He was making an important point about leadership – one that can help you become a more effective leader. In this Quick Take you will learn a simple definition of leadership -- and how it ties into credibility, the number one source of credibility for leaders and the key to increasing, and sustaining, your credibility as a leader.

The best managers realize that to be a truly effective leader you need to deploy a variety of management styles depending on who you're dealing with and what you're trying to accomplish. They know that a 'one size fits all' approach to leadership simply doesn't work. In this Quick Take you’ll learn: Why 'one-trick-pony' managers have limited value to the organization, that great managers master a repertoire of six management styles and, how to correctly deploy the right style depending on the situation.

The #1 job of the human brain is to predict what will happen, so that we can be prepared. But managers can unintentionally create a work environment where unpredictability reigns. When that happens, employees feel stressed, anxious and demotivated. In this Quick Take you will learn how the brain creates 'predictive models' that are designed to tell us what’s going to happen, why we feel good when our predictions are right – and bad when they’re wrong and how you can use the principle of predictability to create a more productive and positive work environment for your people.

In this Quick Take, you will learn how a leader’s fear of appearing vulnerable can become “contagious,” resulting in an overly cautious team culture driven by risk-avoidance, the results of a research experiment that shows how acknowledging vulnerability fosters trust on teams, which increases risk-taking, innovation and performance and how to help leaders reframe their attitude toward vulnerability.

In this Quick Take, you will learn the psychological reasons why too many coaching conversations are one-way, the importance of a concept known as “wait time” in coaching and learning, and a simple technique.

So what makes some training work and other training fail? Find out what separates training and development programs that succeed from those that don’t, how coaching plays a critical role in workplace learning, and how to conduct effective follow-up sessions with your employees.

Scott manages an underperforming team—but not for long. He has a plan to turn things around. First, he observes and interviews his employees. For the low and average performers, which are most of the team, he identifies skills and knowledge gaps. Paul is disorganized. Jill talks excessively and doesn’t listen. And even Kathy, one of his stars, has great technical skills but can’t seem to hit project deadlines. In this Quick Take you will learn what research reveals about the best way to turn around a low-performing team, why efforts to improve deficits can backfire, and where to focus your coaching efforts to get the best results.

A 'fixed' mindset is the belief that people’s abilities and talents are relatively static and cannot be improved in any meaningful way. A 'growth' mindset is the belief that innate talents are just a starting point – and that people can improve and grow over time if they work at it. In this Quick Take you will learn what studies reveal about the connection between coaching outcomes and a coach’s mindset about learning, how a change in mindset leads to more effective coaching, and five keys to success in a coaching role.

Compared with one-on-one coaching, group learning may seem like a compromise. It’s a time-efficient way to get across basic concepts and need-to-know information, but it’s certainly not the same as an expert working individually with an employee on high-level skills – right? Right. It’s not the same. It’s often better. In this Quick Take you will learn what research says about the power of group learning sessions, why peers are often better coaches than bosses or other experts, and how to design high-impact group-learning sessions for your team.

Some people bounce back from mistakes – even big mistakes – with grit and resolve. Others feel crushed, lose confidence and stop doing the things that made them successful. They may even quit their job or change careers – with potentially devastating consequences for both the employee and your organization. In this Quick Take, you will learn what works to help employees recover from failure – and what doesn’t work, how you can encourage people to forgive themselves for failing -- while still holding them accountable, and a three-step model you can apply to help people bounce back.

Bill has an employee with a serious performance issue. Bill sincerely wants to help and considers a very direct corrective-feedback approach -- for example, saying something like this: 'I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t tell you you’re failing, and that you’re going to lose your job if you don’t improve.' But Bill also wonders whether that message might backfire, demoralizing the employee and making the performance problems worse. So what should Bill do? In this Quick Take you will learn how a coach can frame corrective feedback in a positive way, why that doesn’t mean sugarcoating bad news or pulling your punches, and, why this approach is far more likely to result in behavior change than traditional ways of delivering corrective feedback.

How many times have you set a goal for yourself or your team that wasn't achieved? In this Quick Take you will learn why strong enthusiasm for reaching a goal isn't enough, the difference between 'goal intentions' and 'implementation intentions' and a simple research-proven technique that vastly increases goal achievement.

In this Quick Take you will learn what a landmark research study says about what’s going on in people’s brains when they’re interacting with a coach, and a model that optimizes your chances of success when trying to change people’s behavior.

Nobody likes to fail. Nobody likes to see their people fail. And no enlightened manager would ever set up their employees to fail, right? Well, not quite. Research shows that in certain situations, you can help your employees succeed in the long run by putting them in situations where they’re almost sure to fail. In this Quick Take, you will learn the science behind the concept of “productive failure” – why struggle and failure help people learn more quickly and retain what they’ve learned longer, why managers are often reluctant to let their people fail – even when they should; and when it’s appropriate to use “productive failure” and when it’s not.

Chances are at some point in your career you ran into an expert who struggled to teach others. They sped through difficult topics like they were a cinch. They used jargon learners didn’t understand. And, worst of all, they didn’t realize their audience was totally lost. Researchers call this phenomenon 'the curse of knowledge.' And it’s a big training and development challenge in all organizations, including yours. In this Quick Take you will learn why it's so hard for experts to share what they know, how to use the power of “near-peer” training to bridge the knowledge gap between experts and inexperienced learners and why near-peer training benefits everyone involved in training – experts, learners and the near-peers themselves.

Companies spend about $1,000 per employee on training. But 80% of the time it doesn’t stick. That’s a staggering amount of money going down the drain. But, here’s the good news: You can take steps to reduce that waste -- and as a manager or supervisor, you’re in the best position to fix it. More good news: If you can master the techniques covered in this program, you’ll transform your results and propel your managerial career into overdrive. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn why most training fails … and what you can do to make it succeed. However, the solution we describe will only work if you take action – and that’s the challenge.

Few employees like getting performance evaluations. The process often feels rigid, judgmental and de-humanizing. Most managers, of course, are obligated to give annual performance evaluations, and many would tell you it’s the thing they hate most about their job. Fortunately, there’s a better way that eases the pain for both managers and employees. In this Quick Take you will learn the Seek-First-to-Understand method for providing performance feedback, the #1 goal of performance feedback, and the most frequently overlooked stage in traditional performance appraisal processes.

University of Pennsylvania research reveals why some people face rejection so much better than others. Unsuccessful people engaged in negative self-talk, seeing their failure as personal (their fault) and pervasive. Successful people did the opposite, framing failure as something external to themselves and related to the specific situation. Learn how to coach your people using this powerful insight.

In this Quick Take, you will learn why groupthink happens – and why it’s not a thinking problem, how groups reward people for getting along, and punish them for disagreeing even when they’re right, two techniques that are proven to disrupt groupthink and result in better decisions, and how to get greater buy in for those decisions once they’re made.

Imagine you’re on the verge of launching a new project. It could be a game changer for you, your department and your company. You’ve invested a lot of time and energy building it out. You have buy-in from higher ups. And your people are enthusiastically on board. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, actually. But there’s something about our brains that often prevents us from seeing problems until it’s too late. In this Quick Take you will learn a technique psychologists call 'prospective hindsight,' how it can help you identify fatal flaws before a project is launched, and how to run a team meeting that harnesses the power of 'prospective hindsight.'

Managers get paid to make difficult decisions – about hiring, firing, promotions, salaries, resource deployment, operations, new products, new markets and more. A decision-maker’s worst enemy is lack of information or inaccurate information. In this Quick Take you will learn the Five Whys technique that can help you quickly get the information you need to make fact-based decisions, what it means to have a 'threaded conversation', and how the Five Whys can make you a better manager.

In this Quick Take you will learn why groups often fail to consider all the relevant facts when making decisions, why people who possess critical information often don’t speak up in meetings, and how leaders can structure team meetings to uncover this information and make better decisions.

Tom is your employee. He’s been at your company for nearly fifteen years. In that time, he’s done a good job and risen through the ranks. Tom knows what needs to be done and you can count on him to do it. But he could be doing more. In this Quick Take, you will learn why disengagement among employees tends to rise when they’ve been in the job a long time, what managers are doing that contributes to this disengagement, and how to re-energize long-tenure employees.

Bob was recently promoted to his first management job. He inherited a small problem from his predecessor. If he doesn’t address it quickly, it could turn into a big one. Some people are showing up late for work. But Bob wants to send a message that punctuality is important and expected. If you were Bob, how would you get your people to show up on time? In this Quick Take, you will learn how the 'transaction trap' can derail your efforts to improve results, why incentives and disincentives often backfire, and the difference between 'market interactions' and 'social interactions' – and how to know when to use each one.

What inspires employees to show up every day and give their all? Good pay and benefits? That helps but it’s not enough. Most people want more than to show up, collect a paycheck and go home. They want their work to make a difference. Yet research shows that most employees don’t feel a sense of higher purpose. So what can you, as a manager, do to help? In this Quick Take you will learn the key element that gives work a sense of purpose – no matter what kind of work it is, why it’s so important to create 'lines of sight' between employees and the people who benefit from their work, and clear, actionable steps you can take to create these lines of sight for your employees.

Imagine yourself deeply immersed in an activity you love. That activity might involve tedious work, but it doesn’t seem tedious. On the contrary, it's so enjoyable that hours fly by like minutes. How much more motivated and productive would your employees be if they felt that way about their jobs? What if they simply loved coming to work and were so fully 'engaged' in what they do that they gave 'discretionary effort' to every task. In this Quick Take you will learn what it takes to earn this level of employee engagement, how engagement affects the bottom line, and how to combat three destructive narratives that cause employees to disengage.

Why do some teams succeed where others fail? What is it that gets some workers to engage 100% while others simply keep a seat warm? When things aren’t working, should you blame the employees or does the fault always lie with their manager? In this Quick Take you will learn how the principles of Attachment Theory apply to leadership, why attachment enhances engagement, and four triggers that weaken attachment bonds – and how managers can avoid them.

Harvard researchers analyzed what made employees happy – and therefore more engaged and productive. For managers this means your best opportunities for motivating your people occur in something you’re already doing on a regular basis: Holding people accountable for their goals. Learn a three-part model for getting it done.

In this Quick Take you will learn what causes people to instinctively resist some efforts at persuasion why this reaction often has more to do with how a proposal is presented than the quality of the proposal itself, and language to use when you’re trying to get buy-in for your ideas.

Think of a time when you were swamped at work. Too many deadlines. Too many people demanding your mind-share. Not enough time or resources to get it all done. You may be thinking, 'That’s how I always feel.' Fortunately, there are steps you can take to prevent such workplace stress from crushing your focus, productivity and morale. In this Quick Take, you will learn the results of a study on people working in one of the most high-stress workplaces you could imagine, and how a series of short, simple exercises resulted in a surprising boost in productivity and kept stress at bay.

Has your boss, or maybe even a colleague, ever said, 'You need to manage your time a little better'? If so, that’s code for, 'You’re not getting things done.' And it’s not a minor problem. It’s a game changer, one that affects your promotability, your salary potential and, possibly, the likelihood that your company will keep you around. In this Quick Take you will learn why employees in organizations are perceived as being good, or bad, at managing their time; the list that matters more than any other; and the #1 enemy of good time management.

Every experienced manager knows how easily the workday can slip away. Employees pop in throughout the day looking for your help. Meetings run twice as long as planned. Unexpected fires need to be put out. Before you know it, the day is over and you haven’t accomplished what you set out to do. In this Quick Take you will learn the most important thing you own... and that you must never allow ANYONE to take away, the three words that are the most likely to steal that precious thing from you and a simple yet powerful tool that will help you to truly take charge of your time.

So you just got promoted. You probably got singled out for management because you were a strong performer, a producer who achieved excellent results. Now you’re in charge of a team, and your job is to get OTHER people to be strong performers. But that’s easier said than done. It’s so difficult, in fact, that most people want nothing to do with it. Of those who take the challenge, many underestimate the complexities of management, and fail. In this Quick Take you will learn the steps you must take to get started in the right direction.

In this Quick Take, you will learn why carrots and sticks are often the wrong approach to changing behavior, an often-overlooked driver of change that can be more effective than rewards or punishment and two questions you should always ask before you try to change anyone’s behavior.

In this Quick Take, we’re going to tell you the one thing you MUST do to make sure your nonmonetary rewards bring the results you expect. This is simple, but 90% of managers don’t bother to do it. You can start doing it immediately.

Experts tell us that we should deliver praise to our employees as often as possible. Recognition is one of the most powerful tools available to improve productivity, moral and loyalty. But giving praise isn’t as simple as it seems. Delivering it the wrong way at the wrong time can actually serve to de-motivate workers. In this Quick Take you will learn: 1) Examples of situations where 'praise' isn’t about praising at all, 2) An especially dangerous misuse of praise that could erode your credibility as a manager and, 3) The secret to ensuring that praise delivers the motivational message you intend it to.

Multiple studies show that hiring interviews are poor predictors of job performance. Candidates who seem like a perfect fit in the interview turn out to be all wrong for the job, and later we wonder how we could have missed the obvious warning signs. In this Quick Take, you will learn how the psychological phenomenon known as “confirmation bias” can influence hiring decisions, a simple technique that counters confirmation bias, and how to apply this technique in hiring interviews.

You hired Jerry 18 months ago. He lacked experience but turned out to be a quick study and a hard worker, so you gave him a nice salary bump in year two. Now Jerry’s in your office, telling you he’s moving on. He likes the company. He likes you. But this other opportunity came up. You feel betrayed. In this Quick Take, you will learn why expectations between employers and new hires are often misaligned, a concept known as the “psychological contract” – and how it governs the way an employee thinks about your organization, and how to create clarity and alignment so that expectations on both sides are met.

He looked so good on paper. But a year later he hasn’t lived up to his potential. Yes, he’s smart and talented. But when he encounters obstacles, he throws up his hands. In this Quick Take, you will learn why talent, credentials and past accomplishments don’t always predict on-the-job success; two key indicators you should look for in every job candidate’s resume or work history; and a hiring approach that can help identify candidates with the grit to get the job done.

Have you ever hired someone who seemed like a star in the interview but ended up being a dud on the job? If so, you’re not alone. According to multiple research studies, traditional interview questions often fail to reveal whether a candidate will succeed in your organization. But a recent study found one type of question that is especially predictive of an employee’s future success. In this Quick Take you will learn what a major study of job interviews discovered about why traditional interview questions so often fail to predict future performance, why 'situational interview' questions far outperformed all others in the study, and how to create and use these questions, based on the specific job you need to fill.

Managers check references for many reasons. But the most critical goal is to ferret out information that will accurately predict how a candidate will perform if hired. In this Quick Take you will learn the often-overlooked goal of a successful reference check, what researchers say is one of the biggest obstacles to getting truthful answers and why the way you phrase questions is the key to getting the information you need to make an informed hiring decision.

We’ve all interviewed people for key positions and come away thinking, 'This candidate is perfect.' And we’ve all had the experience where we looked back after hiring a 'perfect candidate' and asked, 'What was I thinking? What did I miss? How could I have prevented such a mistake?' In this Quick Take, you will learn: A communications model called 'Deep Conversations', how to use this model to 'peel the onion' and achieve deep levels of communication that will help you foolproof your hiring decisions, and why this technique works both for people who are concealing information, and those who simply lack self-awareness.

There’s a huge difference between making a good hire and making a great hire. A good hire is one that places a qualified candidate into the position you need to fill today. It meets your organization’s immediate need. A great hire, on the other hand, meets both short and long term needs – for your organization as well as your new hire. The question is, how do you make that happen. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn the real reason top performers accept jobs, the 'reality check' technique for gaining alignment between your goals and the candidate’s, and why long-term goal alignment protects you from the costliest mistake you can make in the hiring process.

Why is hiring the right people so hard? Because many job candidates are remarkably good at persuading us that they can do things they can’t. What’s more, we often don’t realize how our emotions and personal biases can affect our choices. In this Quick Take you will learn: The most dangerous attitude a hiring manager can possibly bring to an interview, the preparation oversight that gives Impostors an opening, and two proven questioning techniques that will expose Impostors every time.

Reflect back on some exit interviews you’ve conducted. When the person walked out of the room, were you ever thinking: I still don’t have a clue why the person REALLY left and that was a complete waste of time. Clearly, that’s not your goal. You’d like your exit interviews to reveal useful information you can use to improve your company and your retention rates. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn: The one type of employee that will give you the most useful info. The #1 obstacle to getting meaningful input. And, a simple questioning technique that will transform the way you conduct exit interviews and get far superior results.

Why is it so hard to get teams to take on something new and make it succeed? Is it that people are too resistant to change? Are they too busy with their current tasks? Are they just not good enough? In this Quick Take, you will learn the key reason why teams fail when they try to do new things, the unexpected downside of success, and how you can improve the odds that new initiatives will take root and grow in your team.

In this Quick Take, you will learn why changing bad behavior isn’t just about changing bad habits, the role of social norms in shaping and maintaining behavior, and how to root out dysfunctional norms and replace them with positive ones.

When facing a really tough problem, you need your people to bring 100% of their brainpower to bear. In those make-or-break moments, fuzzy thinking can be disastrous. People grasp at simple solutions. They don’t consider unintended consequences. They fall back on what feels familiar, even when it hasn’t worked in the past. They focus on the wrong issues. In this Quick Take, you will learn why high-stakes problems inhibit the mind’s ability to come up with solutions, how managers may inadvertently hamper creativity and problem-solving, and what you can do to maximize your employees’ innate problem-solving potential.

As any manager knows, communication is the fuel that makes teams go. And today it’s easier than ever for team members to keep in touch. Tools like email, instant messaging, texts and conference calls allow employees to efficiently share information with their colleagues anytime, anywhere in seconds. In this Quick Take you will learn the number one factor that drives team productivity, why it has such a profound effect and how you can boost team performance by creating more opportunities for random encounters.

In this Quick Take you will learn the phenomenon psychologists call 'social loafing', why performance can dip when people become part of a team and how you can overcome 'social loafing' and build effective teams.

There is one thing all successful leaders 'get' that failed leaders don’t. They know they can’t achieve breakthrough organizational results by themselves. That wisdom is often hard-earned because most leaders started their careers as individual high performers who moved mountains all alone. But they figured out at some point that the key to their success as a leader was their team. But not just any team. They needed an A-Team. This program will give you a proven 4-point model for building and maintaining a high-performance team that consistently delivers extraordinary results

The #1 rule in brainstorming sessions is no judgments. Everyone knows that if you let team members criticize each other's ideas, you’ll discourage people from putting forward new concepts – and you may not get the best answer to whatever problem you need to solve. In this Quick Take, you’ll learn why traditional brainstorming techniques are actually counterproductive, an improved technique for brainstorming that DOES work, and how to prime people to generate problem-solving ideas.

What do managers often do when projects start falling behind deadline? They ask for more resources. Adding a few more good people to the project seems a logical solution to the problem. In some cases, however, that’s not the best course of action. In fact, it could make things worse. In this Quick Take you’ll learn about 'Brooks Law' and what it means to team productivity. You’ll find out what his landmark research revealed and how you can apply it in your organization.

Conflict is absolutely essential to a well-functioning team. When getting along is more important than getting it right, hard questions don’t get asked. Tough decisions don’t get made. The challenge for managers is keeping productive conflict from turning into a disruptive force that can crush morale and team alignment. In this Quick Take you will learn why conflict is a powerful tool that team leaders must use to their advantage, what’s going on under the surface when disagreements become toxic, and the ACES method of conflict resolution – a straightforward approach that can turn destructive conflict into constructive solutions.

In this Quick Take, you will learn how people feel when their boss makes a promise and breaks it, why it’s the frequency of promises – not their size -- that helps you earn trust and credibility from your people, and why it’s best to make lots of small promises that are easy to keep.

You have some good news and some bad news to share with your team. On the plus side, a key project they’ve been working on is getting rave reviews from customers. What’s more, you’ve just learned that the project is a finalist for a prestigious industry award. Even better, the team was able to deliver it on time and under budget. On the downside, the company is having a tough year, and raises and bonuses must be deferred for three months. Meanwhile, employees will face somewhat higher deductibles and co-pays under the new health plan. And a key leader of the team will be taking a job at a different company. In this Quick Take, you will learn how people perceive “serial gains” and “serial losses” differently, why a series of similar events creates a powerful impact on the mind, the best way to deliver bad news, and the best way to deliver good news.

Working with people in other departments – or other organizations -- takes a subtle touch. You need their help, but your influence is limited. You’re not their coach or their supervisor. You don’t hire them, fire them, promote them or pay them. So how do you influence them? In this Quick Take, you will learn a counterintuitive approach that can help you build a better working relationship with “porcupine” colleagues in other departments or organizations, the psychological principle that makes this approach work, and what this counterintuitive truth reveals about how we make personal connections.

In this Quick Take you will learn why the 'illusion of transparency' can not only undermine effective communication with your team but also your credibility. You'll discover why people misjudge their effectiveness as communicators, and how to make sure that you and your team are on the same page.

What’s the best way to introduce a potentially disruptive change? Should you announce the change and immediately implement it? Announce the change and delay the implementation? Or Announce the change and gradually phase it in? In this Quick Take, you will learn a proven way to introduce and implement disruptive change, why this method will maximize employee buy-in, and the psychology behind people’s acceptance of change.

You can’t be a successful leader without mastering the art of persuasion. You have to get subordinates, peers, and even bosses to see things your way – that is, the way you believe best serves organizational goals. But it’s hard. People see things differently than you do. In this Quick Take you will learn the most persuasive way to communicate hard truths to employees, colleagues and senior management, how to present evidence in a way that’s less likely to lead to a debate, and why we’re more persuasive when we communicate in the brain’s 'native language.'

Leaders get where they are by being competent and confident. In certain situations projecting confidence and authority is necessary -- for example, in a crisis, when a time-sensitive project is behind schedule, or when rallying the troops behind a new initiative. But sometimes too much confidence can backfire, by shutting down contributions by the people on your team. In this Quick Take, you will learn when it’s important for a leader to appear capable and confident and when it’s important to dial it back

A lot of people love playing a leadership role until … the day comes when there’s a problem in the organization and somebody needs to sit down with an employee and have a really difficult conversation – say, for example, he or she has terrible body odor that coworkers complain about. You don’t want to do it. You’re looking up and down the ranks to find someone else who’ll break the news. But guess what? They’re all looking at YOU. This Quick Take will give you a template you can apply whenever you have to confront an employee about a performance problem, the use of foul language, inappropriate physical contact, excessive use of perfume, unconscious rude behavior, or a host of other problems.

Don has been working for you for a long time. He likes what he does and the way he does it. And you’re about to mess that up. You need him to take on new duties or change the way he works, but Don is pushing back. In this Quick Take, you will learn the “secret message” employees are sending you when they engage in passive resistance, how to get greater buy-in from employees and the worst thing you can do with an uncooperative employee.

Good people resist change for lots of reasons. Perhaps they’re comfortable with the way things are. Perhaps they feel threatened. Perhaps they think the new way won’t work. As a leader, how do you respond? If you try to 'sell' change, your people will feel, well, sold. And if you simply demand change, you get reluctant participation at best. In this Quick Take, you will learn how to deal with employee objections and win buy-in without being dictatorial or argumentative, why efforts to 'counter' objections often backfire, why an objection is something to be embraced, and a three-step method to disarm resistance instead of escalating it.

Rumors happen when employee anxiety collides with an information vacuum. If you don’t fill the vacuum with facts, your people will fill it with rumors. In this Quick Take you will learn the role managers play in spreading or defeating rumors, why rumors are a symptom of a larger problem – and why you must fix that problem to keep rumors at bay, two critical ingredients that feed the rumor mill, how to effectively address a rumor that’s already out there, and how to turn rumor mongers into TRUTH mongers.

Every organization has its superstars. They are often the most valuable members of your team – and often times they know it. You love the results they deliver but their 'prima donna' attitude can be a serious disruption to everyone around them. Fortunately there is a way to keep them in check. In this Quick take you will learn a common response to a disruptive star performer – which fails miserably every time, an often-overlooked fact about stars that gives you far more power than you might think, and the S.T.O.P. Model for getting disruptive tigers to change bad behavior without driving them away – or turning them into pussycats.

In this Quick Take you will learn the single most important leadership strategy in a crisis, which will give you the credibility to lead effectively, a key insight into the psychology of your employees that will help you motivate and retain them and a managerial roadmap for engaging employees in a time of crisis.