Welcome to Merge's Monthly Mega Minute – a bite-sized, yet substantial and practical, nugget of information that you can use immediately to enhance your professional and personal success.

Getting to your destination is easier if you are facing the right direction

Late last month, while I was at a client event in Edmonton AB, winter arrived in all its fury! Now I shouldn’t be surprised, I do live in Canada after all. But an unexpected snowy mishap gave me a chilly lesson in achieving goals — a freezing reminder of why it's important to be pointed in the right direction if you want to get to your intended destination! Let me explain.

Overnight, in a matter of less than twelve hours, over a foot of snow had fallen in the city. In the morning, I drove from my hotel to the event location and pulled into the parking lot ... which was covered in deep and heavy snow. As I pulled into a spot, my car got stuck. I tried in vain to alternately go both backward and forward, but the wheels spun uselessly and I could not get out. After about 10 minutes of trying all the driving "tricks" most Canadians are familiar with, I finally braved the sub-zero temperature to get out of my car and take a closer look at the problem. I noticed right away that my wheels were not straight; they were still in the same "turned" position as when I pulled into the spot. I got back in the car, straightened my wheels and tried again. And this time, with a little bit of rocking back and forth, I was able to pull out of the snow rut.

Isn't it amazing how something as simple as facing the right direction will get you to your intended destination a lot faster? Not just true for getting out of a snow rut, but also accurate for most things in life as well, I suspect!

So what examples do you have for this truism at work? Please share them online at my blog at: www.turningmanagersintoleaders.com/blog.

Three live online events planned for 2015

Can you believe 2014 is almost at an end? We're excitedly looking forward to 2015 and are in the midst of planning three live online events in 2015. These are tentatively scheduled for early February, early May and mid-fall. We will be drawing upon the results of our Leadership Topic survey conducted earlier this year in determining the subjects of 2015's online events. So stay tuned!

Turning Managers into Leaders

• Paraphrasing leads to active listening.
  Active listening is an essential tool in your leadership toolkit, and here's one effective way to teach yourself to become a better listener.
• Active listening can be accomplished by taking notes.
  Active listening is a key skill in exceptional leadership but not always easy to accomplish. Don't despair, taking notes can help you!
• To motivate employees, make work fun.
  Fun workplaces motivate employees! And it is possible to have fun without compromising professionalism and performance!
• To motivate employees, organize a team volunteer event.
  Participating in a team volunteer event is a great (and low-cost) way to motivate employees and build team morale!
• Defensiveness in employees — who is really at fault?
  An unexpected interaction with a professional colleague makes me question whether defensiveness in employees is truly that, or something else completely.
• What can I do for you?
  A column in last week's The Globe and Mail — "Don't forget to ask: What can I do for you?" — gave rise to today's post, and also leads to an interesting yet paradoxical question.

That Merge's online columns in The Globe & Mail's Report on Business are usually also published in the paper's print edition?

This past year, Merge was invited to write seven online Leadership Lab columns for The Globe's Business section. Six of those were so popular that they were published in the newspaper's print editions. In case you missed any, here is a summary with links to the online versions.

• January 23: How to be the boss when your co-workers are your friends
• March 31: Four things millennials hate about you — 60,000 views in just the first two days — went to print on April 4.
• April 30: Don't gripe about millennials at work, appreciate their talents instead — went to print on May 2.
• June 10: Want respect, millennials? Here’s how to earn it — went to print on June 13.
• August 20: How to inspire the close-to-retirement employee — went to print on August 29.
• October 3: Why are so many managers useless as leaders? — over 30,000 views and 24,000 direct shares in the first three days — went to print on October 10.
• November 4: Why do smart managers do stupid things? — went to print on November 7.

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