I stepped into a Human Resources role at EnergyCAP, Inc. (ECI) in 2016. Since then, I’ve been interested in the subject of employee engagement. I’d read the statistics from Gallup that said only 33% of the American workforce was engaged, which meant 67% were in some way disengaged.

I wondered how our workplace would stack up to the rest of the country, so as a company we took Gallup’s Q12 engagement survey. The Q12 survey contains 12 questions, which Gallup has perfected...

When I was head of marketing for EnergyCAP, Inc., my job was to create qualified sales leads for the Sales team. Since I have a passion for publishing helpful content, my tendency was to focus on content. We published ebooks, case studies, blog posts, slide decks, and videos aimed at attracting and educating potential clients. But that was only part of our plan.

Had we just focused on content, we would have missed a lot of leads. Some of them loved content, but not all of them did (sad). Our...

Note: This guest post is an open letter from my wife to the members of the Penn State fraternity in our hometown, who photographed nude pictures of unconscious women and posted them online.

March 20, 2015

Dear Young Men of Kappa Delta Rho,

Take a moment and dream with me:

It’s graduation. You worked this season the hardest you knew how. So you graduate, celebrate, say goodbye to the chapters of your life you will never redo again. Excited because you got a job in your field. Not a dream...

Note: I had the deep honor of delivering the eulogy at Grandpa Jack’s funeral.

October 28, 2011
Allentown, PA

I’m glad you’re here today.

A few years ago, Jack gave me a clock. His father gave it to him. It was a desk clock and originally had little arms on which it rested. But the arms had fallen off, so I made it into a pocket watch. A picture of it is in your program.

On a recent visit, I showed it to Jack. He held it, swirling the circumference with his fingers. “I...

Sometimes when my family is getting ready for the day, I’m told to “dial it down.” Not all of them appreciate my happy dance while they’re eating their oatmeal. At 6:30 AM, they don’t all share my enthusiasm for all the exciting things that could happen that day. For them, getting out the door on time is enough. That’s alright, dialing it down is fun, too.

What I’m describing is positivity, and it’s one of my main Clifton Strengths themes....

We’re in the midst of an unprecedented strengths movement. Folks are eager to discover their areas of strength, and what’s more, they’re expecting to use their strengths every day. There are more laborers than ever before focused on helping others to use their strengths. And what’s more, technology around strengths is burgeoning.

In a general sense, I think of strengths as “your best means of contribution and contentment." You’ve got all kinds of strengths...

It used to be that sports coaches were the only kind of coaches around, but a new kind of coach is permeating life and work. Professional coaching is on the rise today. But that’s doesn’t mean people understand what coaching is all about.

If you’re trying to sell coaching to individuals or organizations, you may face an upward climb. There are still myths that may hinder your efforts.

Here are 10 myths of professional coaching. Let’s bust them!

1. Coaching is always...

The CliftonStrengths Summit has come and gone (sad) and we’ll have to wait for June 2019 for the next one. Since it was a strengths summit, I would be remiss if I didn’t reflect on how I used my strengths at the event itself.

That’s the point of strengths anyway—to utilize your strengths to achieve your intended outcomes. Knowing and using your strengths is supposed to be utterly practical.

Here are the ways I used my top five talents at the Summit:

"Responsibility"

...

Last week I taught a leadership workshop to Human Resources (HR) professionals on keys for boosting employee engagement. There were various organizations represented from landscaping to higher education to temp agencies to transportation, but despite their differences, one thing was the same—they all wanted to increase employee engagement.

Why would they want to do that? Because according to Glassdoor, organizations with engagement programs report 26% greater year-after-year revenue...

Regardless of the type of work you do, you’re expecting some things from your workplace. They may not be top of mind, but they’re there, further down, lingering deep. Or they may be top of mind, like a checklist running through your head. Either way, your expectations will find their way out and into your work, relationships, and attitude.

It would be nice to know what employees are expecting. That’s where Gallup comes in. As I shared in “The Epidemic of the...