Cheryl A. Bachelder's Blog, page 2

A Positive Work Experience – is it possible?

Reading a newsfeed on my iPad last month, a headline captured my attention. “The World Took a Negative Turn in 2017.” The news story?  The Gallup organization measures the emotional state of most countries in the world each year. The 2017 survey results show a sharp increase in negative emotions – stress, anxiety, and sadness to name a few. The people of the world are feeling negative.

News like this can overwhelm us.  What can you and I really do about all this misery in the world?

I’d like...

Culture is Concrete, Not Marshmallow

There is a book titled Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch, by Curt W. Coffman and Kathie Sorensen, Ph.D. The title makes corporate culture sound important, strong, high-impact. Yet in far too many places, building corporate culture is considered a “soft skill.” Squishy, hard to pin down, outright marshmallow material.

So which is it? Is culture something concrete, we can touch and see and measure? Or is it a squishy soft skill that is difficult to see or find its impact? It can’t be both.

I’m h...

Why Work Has a Terrible Reputation

Saturday afternoon, I went out for tacos with my daughter and her family. The restaurant was a fun local place—and the dining area was decorated with a whole host of bumper stickers. On the wall next to our table, the bumper stickers had a theme. Life is good. Work is terrible. Work, it seems, has a terrible reputation.

If work has a terrible reputation, who is at fault?

Do the workers have a bad attitude? Or are the workplaces truly bad?

 

“You learn in life that the only person you can rea...

Cheryl Shares Three New Lessons

I am excited to be back in the blogosphere talking to you about leadership. The second edition of Dare to Serve hits the market in just a couple of weeks, and I can’t wait for you to see the new chapters. You can jump on Amazon today and pre-order your copy by clicking here.

Many of you have asked me what I’ve been up to since the sale of Popeyes—so I thought I would share with you three lessons I’ve been thinking about lately. Perhaps they can be provocative to you in your leadership journe...

Humility Isn’t Easy

Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others

I was once being interviewed for a leadership job in a restaurant company.  The interviewer, a senior executive at the company, asked me about my approach to leadership.  I said that I developed teams of highly competent people with their egos in check because I believed humility in leaders led to better teamwork and better performance.  The executive actually leaped out of his chair and said: “that will never work h...

Deliberate Dignity

Last week I was getting ready to board a flight at Newark airport.  The arriving plan was late and the gate crew was rushing around to quickly get that plane ready to go.  The gate agent called the first group of passengers to board, but as they got down the ramp to the door of the plane, it became evident that the cleaning crews were not yet finished cleaning the plane.  The flight attendant asked the passengers to step to the side of the jetway and wait for the cleaning crew to exit the ai...

Knowing Your Gifts

Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others

About ten years ago, I developed a bit of an obsession.  Of everyone I met, I started asking this question: “Why do you work?”

You could see them trying to figure out what answer I was looking for.  Because that is what we do when we are asked a question.  We try to give the right answer.

So they try to stay calm and say the expected.  “I work to put my kids through college.”  “I work to pay the bills.”  “I work to s...

Go Big or Go Home

Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others

 I have a weird personality.  I only want to work on big, huge, hard things.  Maybe it is my wiring of being an idea person. Maybe it is my love of turnaround opportunities. Maybe it reflects my total lack of patience for slow-moving endeavors.

This I am certain of, I want to work on something that matters.  I want to either go big or go home.

On that point, I don’t think I’m the only one.  I think the people that we...

How Could Service Change You as a Leader?

Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others

I began studying different approaches to leadership several years ago and that’s when I first encountered the idea of servant leadership.

Robert Greenleaf introduced the concept of the servant leader in the late seventies  – one who leads by putting the well-being of others first.      

Greenleaf was not a professor or a researcher.  He was a middle manager in one of the 20th century’s largest organizations, AT&T. ...

How Are You Coaching Your People?

Excerpt from Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others

It’s no secret people matter to me.  I consider the most important aspect of my career the opportunity to coach and develop people.  Coaching and developing people is a signature trait of a servant leader and servant leadership.

When I began working at Popeyes, it was not a core competency. We had good excuses.  The restaurant business is 24/7 – we worked long hours, we traveled from city to city visiting restaurants...