Business Toolkit – Page 11 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

How to Assess What Happened in a Negotiation

October 1, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Reflect on your negotiations to improve your performance in future rounds.

Throughout a negotiation, you should be assessing what’s happening. Track major negotiating points over time. See what’s a plus or a minus versus the last round of negotiations. If you go back to your initial goals and what the other party’s initial goals were, their must-haves, want-to-haves, nice-to-haves, and also evaluate it for your end, you can track where you’re making concessions over time. Where’s the other party fighting hard for something? Doing this type of assessment can help you identify what’s really important to them and what’s not. Assessment can help you identify topics that recur and also areas where they’re more willing to make concessions.

Be very aware of prior offers that you make. Make sure you have documentation because the other party can bring them back up later and use them against you. Now the good news is you can do the same thing. But if you’re not aware of an offer you make or an offer, even worse, that somebody on your team makes that you’re not aware of, those things can come back to bite you in the end.

I had a situation where we were negotiating for a long period of time, and after each set of emails, because that was the dominant communication vehicle for those communications, my partners and I sat down and we compared notes. We looked for concessions they were requesting. We also considered negotiating techniques they were using, things like the invisible man where they were saying, “Hey, I need to go check with someone else before I can offer this point,” or a technique called the bogey, where they were making something out to be really important to them, but as we tracked it, it was clear that it really wasn’t. We were able to look at how our old quotes and conversations were being used against us in the deal.

Now the first deal we made with them, we didn’t really understand all of these dynamics, and it didn’t go as well for us as we would have liked. But we learned because we assessed that deal after the fact. It made us much more mindful of how we should structure our future quotes. We knew what was really important to them. We knew how they would use these various tools and techniques against us, like the invisible man or the bogey. And all of our future offers were based on an understanding of how that last negotiation went. We were much more successful in future rounds.

Make sure you’re taking the time to pause and assess what’s going well and what’s not. What are they pushing on, and what are they willing to concede? Think through how that’s going to impact your overall negotiating strategy and the position you take in subsequent rounds.

Want to learn more about strategic negotiation? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

What Are We Missing???

September 29, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy, Training /by Trevor Jones

Employees need to know that what they do matters—how it matters, where it matters, how long it matters, for whom it matters, and why it matters.

Today’s guest post is by Wendy Lipton-Dibner, author of What MATTERS Matters Most.

They’d tried everything from bonuses to retreats, and while each intervention produced motivational boosts, the results were always short-lived.

In the meantime, disengagement was spreading throughout the organization, and their frustration was growing by the day.

“Nothing we do matters,” Brian sighed.

“Wait, that’s it!” Kathy exclaimed. “I bet that’s what everyone thinks!

“If our employees believe nothing they do matters, then why would they bother to step up?

“We need to give our entire team proof that what they do really matters.”

They called a lunch meeting for the following week and when they arrived, the auditorium was packed.

Kathy picked up the microphone. “Raise your hand if making an impact in people’s lives is important to you.”

Nearly every hand went up, so Kathy continued.

“Brian and I agree with you. Impact is important, and we think the work each of you do is likely creating a lot of impact.

“In fact, you could be enabling our products and services to deliver way more impact than we ever anticipated.

“It’s entirely possible that your work is creating ripple effects that bring ongoing impacts to multiple areas of our customers’ lives, and we intend to prove it!”

The attendees burst into applause as chants of, “Prove it! Prove it! Prove it!” reverberated throughout the auditorium.

Brian smiled broadly as Kathy instructed each department to make a quick list of the potential impacts their work produces.

The energy was electric as each team moved their chairs together to make a list of their impacts.

Next, Kathy told the group to discuss how they could purposefully infuse impact into existing and future products and services to increase customer engagement, loyalty and growth.

Finally, she invited each department to send a representative up to the stage to read their list.

Each presenter received applause that grew louder with every list that was shared.

“Let’s do a little research study,” Kathy challenged. “Starting today, we want every single one of you to prioritize impact-driven results in everything you do.

“We’ll do this for six months and see how this affects our metrics.

“Thank you for your enthusiasm today. We’ll keep you posted.”

Brian and Kathy stayed for more than an hour, shaking hands with leaders and employees as they expressed congratulations and asked about next steps.

The CMO and CFO stood watching. When everyone had left, they walked up to Brian and Kathy, shook their hands, and said, “Best. Meeting. Ever. What do you need from us?”

Over the next weeks and months, leaders reported increasing engagement among their employees, including increased productivity, initiative, collaboration, innovation, sales, and more.

Six months later, Kathy called the full team together again. This time, she celebrated their significantly increased metrics, spotlighting customer engagement, satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat and referral revenue.

At the close of the meeting, Kathy read a congratulatory email from one of their shareholders, and another from an inspired vendor offering a sponsorship.

Then Brian stepped up to the microphone. “I must confess, I never believed this initiative would work.

“I’m here to tell you guys, you proved me wrong. The impact you made on this organization, and on me personally, is something I will never forget. Thanks everyone!”

This story is just one of many that have shown what can happen when leaders prioritize impact in every area of their organization.

As a social scientist and decades-long organizational strategist, I’ve witnessed the damage employee disengagement inflicts on internal and external stakeholders.

I’ve also spoken with leaders who invested tens of thousands of dollars implementing respected solutions, only to rebound far worse than where they had started.

After serving more than 1,000 organizations in every industry from healthcare to hospitality, my research revealed a missing component that is critical to employee engagement.

The missing piece is also crucial for stakeholder loyalty and ongoing growth.

Bottom line, what leaders have been missing is proof of the ongoing, long-term, Real-World Impact of products and services.

Real-World Impact is the immediate, ongoing, and long-term changes, outcomes, differences, results, events, and experiences that occur after customers, patients, or beneficiaries receive the planned benefits of a product or service.

Employees need to know that the products and services they help research, innovate, develop, design, manufacture, market, sell, deliver, service, and support are creating an ongoing stream of desirable, meaningful, important, potentially life-changing impacts in multiple areas of customers’ lives over time.

Real-World Impact Metrics provide invaluable proof to employees that what they do matters—how it matters, where it matters, how long it matters, for whom it matters, and why it matters.

Real-World Impact Metrics also provide unprecedented proof to customers, patients, and beneficiaries, increasing the value they place on the products they use and the services they receive.

This proof is the missing piece that enables leaders to build and sustain impassioned engagement, unrivaled loyalty, and boundless growth among all stakeholders.

Can it really be that simple? Yes.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner is internationally recognized as the leading authority on Organizational Impact Strategy. President and CEO of Professional Impact, Inc., Wendy is the inventor of the Real-World Impact Metrics // Journey of Impact technology [ProveYourImpact.com], and author of What MATTERS Matters Most^™. [WhatMattersMattersMost.com]

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

What’s your view of socializing with customers or vendors outside of work?

September 25, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Poll /by Trevor Jones

Our reader poll today asks: What’s your view of socializing with customers or vendors outside of work?

It’s a great idea, and I strongly encourage it – 14%
It’s a good idea, but it needs to be limited and monitored – 62%
It’s a good idea, but it needs to be limited and monitored – 62%
It’s not a good idea — a lot of things can go wrong – 14%
I avoid it, and instruct my team members to do the same – 10%

Socialize but with boundaries. 76% of you are in favor of socializing with customers or vendors outside of official business. That said, the majority of you prefer to have limits on those interactions to prevent things from going awry. Another large percentage of you (24%) are against the idea of any outside of work socializing precisely because so many things can go wrong. Given many social events can involve alcohol or more relaxed environments, it’s easy for poor judgment to be exercised and those actions can carry large at-work implications. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of how appropriate out-of-work socializing is, be sure to clearly and frequently communicate expectations and standards to your team. And when bad things do happen, ensure people are held accountable and standards are recommunicated and reinforced.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Overallocating to Meet Your Goals

September 24, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Overallocating is a strategy that can help you meet your goals by aiming higher than you need to.

When you’re breaking department goals down and allocating portions of that goal to different teams, you can take an approach that’s known as overallocating the goal. This means, when you add up all the subteam goals, they amount to more than the overall department goal. This approach can improve your chances of hitting your high-level department goal, but this approach can also put unnecessary pressure on your teams to deliver more than they have to.

I saw one division that had a $200 million revenue goal. They had five regions. Each region was given a goal of $42 million of revenue. When you add that up, that $210 million. Within those regions, they overallocated too. Each branch in the region got goals that totaled up across the division to $215 million. Then, in the branches, they actually overallocated to their salespeople. The individual sales reps’ goals were added up, and that came to $220 million, so they were 10% over what their commit goal of $200 million was.

The behavior that resulted was some sales reps exceeded their individual goals. Some met their goals. Some fell short. The primary goal of hitting that $200 million of revenue was hit. Everyone was focused on sales, and the division achieved that goal because of this overallocating process. If they hadn’t overallocated, those sales reps who fell short would have cratered the overall division’s goal.

Now be careful about overallocating too much. When you do so, you might be breaking the rule of making a goal achievable. This can also lead to behavior of sandbagging. And if everyone knows you’re going to overallocate, they’re going to take on this sandbagging behavior during the budgeting and goal-setting process. That’s not productive.

Assess whether or not overallocating is appropriate for your organization. If you do it, make sure, when you overallocate, you don’t create that dysfunctional behavior of putting too much pressure on the team. But if you do the overallocation well, it increases the likelihood that you’re going to hit your goals.

Want to learn more about setting business unit goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

What’s your priority when bringing in a new team member?

September 18, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Poll /by Trevor Jones

Our reader poll today asks: What’s your priority when bringing in a new team member?

Defining their tasks and deliverables – 22%
Acclimating them to the team and culture – 65%
Helping them network in the organization – 4%
Working on their skills training – 8%
Something else – 0%

Get them acclimated first. Culture starts from how people are treated on day 1 in the organization. Clearly many of you put a heavy focus on helping new team members assimilate into your organization. The work and tasks will always be there to update them on but making that good first impression is key. It makes them feel welcome, helps them avoid making a cultural faux pas, and builds a sense of camaraderie with the teammates who will help them be successful. If you’re focusing on tasks and deliverables first, consider shifting your focus to acclimating them first. The payoff will be more than you realize.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Holding Your Teams Accountable for Missing Goals

September 17, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

There need to be consequences when a team doesn’t meet their goals. Hold people accountable so they know their goals mean something to the organization.

People are going to miss their goals. Things happen. But when it happens, there need to be consequences for missing that number. Unless there are mitigating events, follow your incentive plan’s implications.

I know one business unit that missed its top-level revenue goal and its bottom-line profit. Even though there were explanations and excuses, the bottom line is, the business unit didn’t adjust quickly enough. They didn’t plan well enough to be able to still hit their goals, even with these market changes. That year, their incentive payout was zero. The organization held them accountable. The impact of that was the next year, they planned a lot better. They acted more quickly when they saw issues come up. They did a better job of linking their goals to activities. That year they hit their stretch and they got a big payout.

If missing the goal was beyond the team’s control, assess how much that miss was attributable to them and how much responsibility lies elsewhere. Hold people accountable accordingly.

I know a retail business unit that had a revenue and customer satisfaction goal. There were several major IT outages over the course of the year. Those happened because of a new system implementation. This retail business unit lost out on web sales. There were service issues because their customer service reps couldn’t handle customer calls well. Their goals were adjusted downward because IT was out of this organization’s control. And by the way, IT was held accountable for poor implementation of the system and it showed up in their goals.

When teams miss goals, make the tough call out of fairness to everyone. Pain is a great teacher and you have to remember that if one team misses their goal and another hits their goals, that team that hit their goals and worked really hard will be pretty frustrated when they see the other team get an incentive they don’t deserve. Be fair about it, hold people accountable accordingly, so they know their goals mean something to the organization.

Want to learn more about setting business unit goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

When you’re hiring for an opening on your team, what best describes your approach?

September 11, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Poll /by Trevor Jones

Our reader poll today asks: When you’re hiring for an opening on your team, what best describes your approach? I hire someone who…

Has a proven record of delivering in exactly that role. 8%
Has a lot of experience with the role, but some growth ahead. 47%
Doesn’t have much experience in that role, but they have a lot of potential. 45%

Leaving room for growth. The overwhelming majority of you (92%) are hiring people who have room to grow in the role you’re bringing them into. It’s all a question of how much risk you’re willing to take. It seems half of you are taking more risk and are willing to hire people with little experience but lots of potential. While that might lead to some failures along the way, it creates great upside, challenge, and growth potential for those employees. That growth should keep them engaged, lower attrition risk, and ultimately help you build the next generation of talent. Just be sure to give them the support they need to prevent them from floundering in the role. If you’re in the 8% who are only hiring people with the exact experience you need, recognize you’re taking little risk on their performance but you’re increasing the risk of boredom, disengagement, and ultimately attrition.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Do You Need to Revise Your Business Unit’s Goals?

September 10, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

When the environment changes, revisit your goals and see if they need to change.

Markets can change quickly. Those changes can alter priorities. They can render some of your goals irrelevant. When that happens, change the goal. Do so quickly so the team can change its focus to higher priority objectives. It’s foolish to continue pursuing an irrelevant goal. Be willing to change it and set new goals that are more appropriate for that new environment.

I know one startup that had an original goal of site traffic. They were concerned mostly with how many people are coming to their website. The initial funding they received was based on those initial goals. Follow on funding was based on them hitting those traffic numbers. Their business model changed. They learned more about the customer. They figured out it was much more important for them to focus on how much time a user was spending on their site instead of just overall traffic.

The company was about to have a big meeting with possible partners and a new funding source, but to have that meeting they needed money to fly the executive team out to California to meet with this new partner. When they went to the original investors and asked for money, they original investors said no. They refused to change the original goal. They said they wouldn’t provide any additional funding until the organization hit that metric, but the metric was no longer relevant. The company went under, and it was pretty sad that they did. Even though this is an example of a company versus a business unit, the lesson remains the same.

When the environment changes, revisit your goals and see if they need to change. Review your current goals. Ask, are any of them no longer relevant? Has the market changed? If they’re not relevant, revise the goal. Focus the team on something more meaningful. Change your priorities accordingly. If you’re inflexible and say, “Well, we set this goal at the beginning of the year, and, you know what, we’re going to stick with it even though the market has changed,” you’re going to get results that follow that metric.

Be willing to shift. That’s a sign of maturity in your organization that you’re willing to assess the market environment and change your priorities accordingly.

Want to learn more about setting business unit goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Build The Business Wall: Crush The Busyness Noise

September 9, 2025/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Business, not busyness: the Wall fuels brutal focus to win big. Build yours to slash egos and chaos, and drive victories in growth and results.

Today’s guest post is by Jonathan Escobar Marin, author of LEAD TO BEAT: The Leadership Rhythm That Shapes Tomorrow.

The meeting room was a pressure cooker, the kind where careers are forged or shattered. The CEO, a wiry woman with a gaze that could cut steel, stood at the head of the table. Her team, a mix of seasoned executives and hungry upstarts, shifted uneasily. The company was bleeding—market share slipping, competitors circling like vultures. She didn’t mince words. “We’re not here to play defense,” she said, voice low but electric. “We’re here to win. And winning starts with focus—brutal, unrelenting focus.”

The CEO had seen this before: a company drowning in its own ambition, chasing a hundred priorities and catching none. Two years ago, she’d taken the helm of a tech firm teetering on irrelevance. The boardroom was a circus of egos, each department head clutching their pet projects like life rafts. Sales wanted flashy campaigns. Engineering demanded endless R&D. Operations begged for supply chain tweaks. The result? A bloated mess of initiatives, none moving the needle. Customers were defecting, and the stock price was a slow-motion car crash.

She introduced a simple way of working backboned in “The Wall”—a simple, ruthless tool to force clarity. Picture a massive board, visible to every employee, where only the most critical missions lived. Not tasks, not busywork—missions. Each had a clear owner, a measurable outcome, and a deadline that loomed like a guillotine. The Wall wasn’t a suggestion; it was the company’s drumbeat. Every week, every team synced in ten-minute huddles, no fluff, just truth: progress, blockers, next steps. Anything not on The Wall was dead to them. “If it’s not mission-critical,” she’d say, “it’s noise. Kill it.”

The first month was brutal. Marketing’s darling ad campaign? Slashed. Engineering’s shiny prototype? Shelved. The CFO, a numbers wizard with a penchant for micromanaging, fought to keep his pet cost-cutting initiative. The CEO stared at him: “Show me how it doubles our market share in six months, or it’s gone.” It didn’t make the cut. The Wall demanded sacrifices, and the CEO was its high priest. She wasn’t cruel, just clear: winning meant saying no to the good to chase the great.

By quarter’s end, the shift was palpable. The company rallied around a few missions guided by three simple north star metrics: one to dominate a key market segment, a second one to streamline delivery to cut costs without gutting quality and service, and a third one looking to the future to become market makers in a new laser-focused segment. The Wall forced alignment. Sales and engineering, once at war, collaborated on customer-driven features. Operations trimmed fat, not muscle. Weekly syncs kept everyone honest—no one could hide behind vague updates or PowerPoint fluff. The C-suite walked the floor, not to micromanage but to show respect for the work that was done, ask questions to provoke reflection, and keep the ambition high and rhythm tight. People were valued, felt valued, and got value from the top leaders.

Three quarters later, the numbers told the story: sales up 11%, customer retention spiking, stock price climbing, costs consistently reduced with service and quality at highest levels, and seamless execution to make a new market where no one had been brave and ambitious enough to get. The Wall had rewired the company’s DNA. Teams weren’t just working; they were working to win. The CEO didn’t talk to people with speeches and promises in TownHalls. With all the learnings, she and the whole leadership team learned to throw away trophies and start over again, sharpening the Wall after a clear Keep, Improve, Start, Stop reflection. “We don’t rest on wins,” she told her team. “We build on them.”

The lesson here is stark: focus is your sharpest weapon, but it demands discipline most leaders lack. Stop chasing every shiny idea. Build your own Wall—physical or digital—and put only your most critical missions on it. Assign clear owners, measurable outcomes, and unambiguous deadlines. Review progress weekly, in short, brutal syncs that expose truth, not egos. By doing less, you achieve more. Eliminate the 80 percent that dilutes the vital 20 percent. This isn’t about busyness; it’s about winning today and building tomorrow.

The CEO’s story isn’t unique. Leaders who win don’t just set goals—they enforce a rhythm of brutal focus and distributed ownership with a mindset obsessed with impact, not activity. They know the world doesn’t reward effort; it rewards results. In a landscape of chaos—fragmented markets, disruptive tech, relentless competition—your ability to zero in on what matters most isn’t just a strategy. It’s survival. So, build your Wall. Strip away the noise. Lead with clarity, hunger, and rhythm. And don’t just play the game—beat it.

Jonathan Escobar Marin, author of LEAD TO BEAT: The Leadership Rhythm That Shapes Tomorrow, has been bridging the nuanced gap between strategy and execution – and between executives and their associates – for the world’s leading corporations for over two decades. His distinguished efforts have resulted in an exceptional track record, marked by over 320 successful transformations across more than thirty-two countries. For more information, please visit https://www.JonathanEscobarMarin.com/

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

4 Pitfalls to Avoid When Setting Goals

September 3, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

Keep these four mistakes in mind when setting goals for your business unit.

Even if you set great goals, you might not get the behaviors you want if you fall in some common pitfalls. There are several major common departmental goal-setting pitfalls that you can avoid.

Setting conflicting goals

The first is not looking at an integrated view of all your goals. You may miss dependencies across departments. You might not see conflicting goals. To fix this, do a goal review for all your business units and business partners across departments. Look for places where one is dependent upon another. Look for goals that are in conflict with one another, and spend time revising the goals accordingly.

Not aligning incentives

Another pitfall is not aligning incentives. The behaviors you want and the behaviors you’re paying for might not match up. To fix this, understand the drivers of behavior. Monitor behavior and ensure it matches what you’re asking for. Before you roll out an incentive plan, try to break that incentive plan. Think about the bad behaviors people might demonstrate, and change the plan before you roll it out.

Setting overly aggressive goals

Another common pitfall is setting your goals too aggressively. Halfway through the year, people see they’re so far behind and they just give up. The way to fix this is to set a stretch or commit goal. Be willing to revise your goals as the market changes.

Not tying goals to strategy

The last pitfall is not communicating how goals tie to the broader strategy. People don’t see where their activities fit in. The fix is to tie the strategic plan communication to the goal rollout communication. Making the links between strategy and goals explicit. If the team is left confused about what the goals are and why they’re being pursued or they see the goals as unrealistic, you won’t have their commitment to achieving them.

Spending time reviewing your goals, thinking through the strategic context, and making sure you have a good set of integrated goals is going to drive the behaviors you want and help you hit the numbers at the top of your strategic plan.

Want to learn more about setting business unit goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

How well do you understand the differences between coaching, training, mentoring, feedback and counseling?

August 28, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership, Poll /by Trevor Jones

Our reader poll today asks: How well do you understand the differences between coaching, training, mentoring, feedback and counseling?

Extremely well — they’re all very different skills and disciplines 20%
Very well — I can distinguish them fairly easily 40%
Well — some of them seem the same with some minor differences 29%
Not well — they all seem to be focused on the same thing 9%
Poorly — they’re just words and it’s all semantics 2%

Know the difference in development techniques. It’s good to see 60% of you reporting you know the clear difference between coaching, training, mentoring, feedback, and counseling. For those who don’t, spend some time learning. Each technique has appropriate (and inappropriate!) uses. Coaching is asking questions to help the person come up with their own solutions. Training is showing an individual or group a skill and getting them to repeat it until proficient. Mentoring is sharing your personal experiences to help them glean insights they can use to resolve their challenge. Feedback is discussing an specific incident or behavior with the goal of changing that behavior in the future. Counseling is for deeply personal issues like addiction or mental health challenges and should only be done by licensed practitioners. Know the difference and deliberately select the right technique before a development intervention. It’ll increase your odds of successfully improving their performance.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Are You Giving Your Teams the Resources They Need?

August 27, 2025/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

If you don’t give your teams the resources they need, they’re not going to hit their goals.

Once your goals are set, you have a responsibility to provide the team the resources it needs to achieve those goals. These resources should be identified during the goal setting process. Include those resources in budgets and project plans. Failure to conduct resource planning and allocation is going to frustrate your teams. They won’t have what they need to achieve their goals.

At the business unit level of goal setting, resource allocation can be easier in some respects, and more difficult in others. The ways it can be easier are first, you have more control over your business unit’s resources. You can shift those resources more easily. There are also known processes like budgeting that can be linked to your goal-setting process. This ensures that the resources are available for the goals you’ve set.

Now it can be more difficult, too. Getting additional resources outside your business unit can be a challenge. Those resources have to come from higher levels, or you have to negotiate with other business units to get resources allocated to you. It’s not often they’ll give those resources up. If you don’t allocate resources during the budgeting process you either have to either wait to shift resources, or reprioritize all your other efforts due to this new goal.

Review goals that are falling short in your organization. Make sure they’ve got the right resources. If they don’t, shift them appropriately. Ensure your goal setting, budgeting, talent management, and staffing processes have explicit links to one another. If you don’t give your teams the resources they need, they’re not going to hit their goals.

Conversely, if you really think through the goals you’re trying to hit and make sure they’re appropriately resourced, your teams are going to drive the success that you expect.

Want to learn more about setting business unit goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to set business unit goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!