Online Articles

By Alan Wurtzel In 1949, Samuel S. Wurtzel opened the first Wards Company retail store in Richmond, VA. By 1959, Wards Company operated four television and home appliance stores in Richmond. Wards Company officially changed its name to Circuit City and became listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1984. Human Resource Policies

By Cary Schuler, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, cfactor I always love self-righteously claiming my right of a “Mulligan” as it’s often referred to in golf. You didn’t like that drive? No worries, just tee up another ball and try again… Unfortunately, Mulligans don’t work so well in our professional lives.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP By now, you surely know the basics for successfully presenting a pitch, speech, workshop, or seminar to any audience:

By Bonnie Hagemann, CEO, Executive Development Associates (EDA),and Saundra Stroope, Talent Management and Organizational Development Manager, ATK Resolute look Silver streaks Confident gait Crow’s feet

By Michael Leimbach, Ph.D., Wilson Learning As a provider of both classroom-based learning programs (c-learning) and programs delivered virtually (v-learning), we often are asked by our clients which is better at producing the desired learning and performance outcomes.

By Margery Weinstein New York Life Insurance Company (NYL) provides a path for its budding leaders—a “Management Pathway,” that is. This series of courses was designed specifically to help new managers and supervisors, as well as experienced managers, develop the skills needed as a manager and leader at NYL. These Pathway programs:

By Doug Stevenson Why do you think Malcolm Gladwell is so successful? All three of his books, “The Tipping Point,” “Blink,” and most recently “Outliers—The Story of Success,” are best sellers. The answer lies in the subtitle of his most recent book, “The Story of Success.” Malcolm is a synthesizer, a pattern recognizer. After he’s done his research and compiled lots of examples to illustrate the points he wants to make, he writes his books by telling stories. He’s a good storyteller.

By Herb Greenberg, Ph.D., and Patrick Sweeney The first key quality we found to be of critical importance to sales success is empathy. Empathy is the ability to read others. It’s knowing what drives them. It’s being able to intuit their strengths, limitations, potential, and motivations. Empathy is the ability to pick up the subtle clues and cues provided by others in order to accurately assess what they are thinking and feeling.

By Ellen Freed Listening looks easy, but it's not simple. Every head is a world. —Cuban Proverb

By Sean Tierney, VP, Activate Networks What makes for a worthwhile executive coaching engagement? Personality inventories and 360-degree reviews long have been standard fare for coaches, but now there’s a tool that provides detailed information about what may be an executive’s most critical resource: his or her network of relationships. Many professionals have used this tool—Personal Network Assessment (PNA)—to look beyond the larger organization to their own networks of professional and personal ties.