Welcome to the third of three posts on Team Engagement.  Here’s where we Sharpen the Saw (as Stephen Covey would say) in regards to keeping Teams focused and productive.

Let’s say you’ve managed to Engage your Team, and worked on making them more Effective, how do you ensure that they stay on track?  I find the following are important behaviours to ( Read more... )

To continue from my previous post on A Quick Intro to Team Engagement, here are some of the tips I like to share with new Managers. These are as valid for a team that you are leading as much as they are for teams you are a part of.

Everyone knows that the old saying that there’s “never a second chance to make a first impression” is quite true.   ( Read more... )

I have found that when it comes to Teams, the best way to approach them is like an extended family.  If you’re lucky enough to be the one pulling in or creating a team, you can pretty much ensure that (depending on how well you interview) you’re getting a group of people who share your values, drive, or maybe even sensitivity.  When I speak about ( Read more... )

The votes were tallied and I came in second for the Morning Rain Publishing 2015 Holiday Flash Fiction challenge
( Read more... )

I have to admit that out of all the writing I do, Flash Fiction is the most fun. I still love the challenge of creating a story within the boundaries of Fast Fiction (200 words or less) but having the space to breathe gives Flash pieces more wiggle-room to be silly when I need to be.

Of course, with all the other things on my plate short pieces ( Read more... )

If you don’t already know, my Mysterious Minute-Men books are available on the Kobo platform:

Mike Aragona’s Mysterious Minute-Men

There are a couple of days left on the Kobo international sale that is currently running. Customers are able to redeem 50% off of select titles, including mine, using the promo codes below an unlimited number of times. ( Read more... )

After 40 years of working at the same company, a friend of mine retired recently. During her farewell party, she commented how she felt like she was, “…watching my life be dismantled piece by piece…” during the transition phase leading up to her last day.

This reminded me of a similar feeling I had many years ago when I was moving to a new company ( Read more... )

I have always been a voracious reader, and by extension I guess I also spend a lot of time thinking. Most times, I think about ways experiences can be improved. It’s a simple motto of looking at any situation and asking the question of “what can we do that would make this better?”

When I was first starting out my career and had taken “ownership” ( Read more... )

Every year, August slowly brings back that crisp morning air and the sense that Autumn is just around the corner.  With it, of course, comes the beautiful transformation of nature as we (at least here in Canada) begin to prepare for the coming winter. It is always during this point in time that I begin to reflect on my own transformation.  What has ( Read more... )

My wife forwarded me an awesome quote from Stephen R. Covey that went, “If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won’t require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.”

This ( Read more... )