While tempted to write a page and half about how amazing it is for a Cleveland fan to finally see “the curse” lifted with the Cavs winning the NBA Championship this past Sunday, I think as importantly is to acknowledge the lessons any leader who is interested in improving her craft can glean from this particular finals series.

Let’s be honest, when you have a vacant position within your team, it’s a total drag.  Your workload increases in two ways – carrying out the duties of the open position and searching to find a replacement for the role; and additional pressure may be put on the rest of your team too.  With all of this going on, it’s easy to overlook an important detail during the candidate selection process – they are evaluating you too!  Once this process comes to a close, the successful candidate becomes part of your team, and based on how the process went, they’ve already formed opinions about you and the company.  Make a positive impression from the very beginning, by following these guidelines:

In 2000, Microsoft did a study on adult attention spans and the average span equaled 12 seconds. In 2015, that same study revealed the average dropped to 8 seconds. Goldfish have us beat, clocking in at 9 seconds. Have you ever taken a good look at a goldfish?
Enter Mindful Leadership - a relatively "new" discipline that takes authentic leadership to a different level.  I am super pleased to be speaking about this topic at the annual THRIVE conference hosted by BLR (Business and Legal Resources Association) this week because I believe it's relevancy is growing by leaps and bounds.

We all know what it’s like to participate in a training session that is interesting and engaging versus painfully boring. Facilitators are often assigned this responsibility in addition to their “day job” duties, so no wonder many of them aren’t exactly sure what to do to make the session interesting. Developing and delivering training programs for our clients is a core service we provide at the Marlyn Group, and we maintain high standards that what we produce is relevant and actionable for companies and individuals alike. If classroom based facilitation is or soon will be part of your job, use these three tips to be more effective.