get connected

Emotional Intelligence: Data Show it’s a Must-Have for Team Success

Emotional Intelligence: Data Show it’s a Must-Have for Team Success

“Take a look.”

The leader of an academic and technical group pointed Connect the Dots Managing Director Brenda Hampel to the work area of team members who had just participated in a session with her on emotional intelligence.

What she saw: small groups of team members talking...

Continue Reading

Culture Clash to Culture Connection: One Company’s Leadership Onboarding and Early Feedback Success Story

Culture Clash to Culture Connection: One Company’s Leadership Onboarding and Early Feedback Success Story

Many employers take half-measures or do nothing at all to help newly hired leaders adapt to the new company culture and their roles.

As a result, these leaders, from a cultural integration perspective, are largely left to sink or swim. Some will inevitably sink, and thus fail to...

Continue Reading

What Should You Consider When Selecting an Onboarding Solution? Here’s What One Company Did.

What Should You Consider When Selecting an Onboarding Solution? Here’s What One Company Did.

For the third straight year, HR leaders (47 percent) rank employee retention and turnover as the top workforce management challenge, according to the 2018 SHRM/...

Continue Reading

Coaching Employees Who Aren’t Team Players: A 4-Step Process

Coaching Employees Who Aren’t Team Players: A 4-Step Process

All leaders and managers will likely have direct reports who aren’t being team players. Not only is this a common team dynamic and performance problem, but it also can create greater damage than you might think. 

Employees who aren’t being team players serve as...

Continue Reading

The Underused Onboarding Strategy for Turning New Hires Into Raving Fans of Your Organization

The Underused Onboarding Strategy for Turning New Hires Into Raving Fans of Your Organization

When new hires join your organization, consciously or not, they are asking themselves, “Did I make the good decision?”

A great (and underused) way to convince them that they made a great decision is to make talent development a key component of a strategic, structured...

Continue Reading

Providing Strategic Early Feedback During Onboarding Couldn’t Make More Business Sense

Providing Strategic Early Feedback During Onboarding Couldn’t Make More Business Sense

Just 21 percent of employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work, according to a Gallup survey...

Continue Reading

How Leaders Can Evaluate Their Nonverbal Communication

How Leaders Can Evaluate Their Nonverbal Communication

American poet William Carlos Williams once stated, “It’s not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.”

There in also lies a secret of effective leadership and management.

Much of the manner in which you communicate—to your reports, peers...

Continue Reading

A Strategic Approach for HR Pros and Leaders to Avoid Becoming Irrelevant

A Strategic Approach for HR Pros and Leaders to Avoid Becoming Irrelevant

The worst thing you can do, as a leader, manager or HR professional, is to allow yourself to become irrelevant—especially to the people you are responsible for developing.

To remain relevant, you need to stay current with the latest assessment and development trends and tools, and to...

Continue Reading

Why Performing a Company Culture Audit Is More Important Than Ever

Why Performing a Company Culture Audit Is More Important Than Ever

A strong company culture has always been important for sustained organizational success—with benefits including a clear company identity, improved talent attraction and retention, and a better brand and employment image.

New developments, however, make a strong culture a near necessity....

Continue Reading

Client in Actions

CTD's Managing Director, Brenda Hampel and Director of Client Services, Jennifer Johnson, recently completed a team development working session for an IT services group within a large academic medical center.

Shortly after the training, we received the following from the client: "Hi Brenda and Jennifer, I wanted to share some informal feedback about the training.  As I was leaving the office today I saw 3-4 of these from the training yesterday printed out and hanging in the cubicles...

Continue Reading

Pages