Celebrating these "wins" may make your company a loser

If you're celebrating your staff for coming in under budget, or conversely for hitting big numbers or for putting in long hours, you could be doing irreparable harm to your company culture, writes Scott Cochrane. Long hours, not spending an entire budget and celebrating big numbers outside of their context could be encouraging burnout, discouraging investment in critical areas of growth or masking a more significant downward financial trend, Cochrane notes.

Put it into practice: Working more than 40 hours a week used to be the marker of "go-getter" teams, but Cochrane writes that it may be disguising a habit of poor time management or inefficiencies leaders need to address. "Rather than celebrating long working hours, better to celebrate 'working until the job gets done.'"

Disciplinary actions are never pleasant, but leaders should approach giving negative feedback as a form of "tough love," writes Paul Thornton, author of "Leadership Styles." Thornton recommends issuing a verbal or written warning in a private location, outlining expectations for improvement and spelling out consequences for failing to change behaviors.

Put it into practice: Most employees will respond to feedback by altering their behavior but try to deliver warnings in a dispassionate tone. "Stick to the facts and do not go into excessive details," Thornton writes.

Filler words such as "um" and "like" can sneak into conversation despite your best efforts, while filler phrases such as "you know" also clutter up communications, writes Jeff Davenport. To avoid using meaningless sounds and words, Davenport advises pausing for a second or responding with, "That's a great question" if you need to think about your answer.

Put it into practice: Filler words prevent people from interrupting you, but that's unlikely to happen during a presentation. "Practice replacing with pauses and, when you forget, shake it off and try again," Davenport writes.

If you want to step into your favorite book on your vacation instead of reading it, Loews Hotels is joining independent hotels like The Loutrel in Charleston, S.C., and The Marker Key West Harbor Resort in Florida in offering vacations organized around guests' literary interests. "We thought this could be a unique activity to integrate into our experiential programming to allow guests to detox with a book, which is in some form related to Charleston, but also allow them to explore the city even further by including a suggested itinerary with each book," said Loutrel General Manager Karl von Ramm.

Monday will mark the first of four supermoons we'll see this year, with three more coming in September, October and November. Monday's occurrence, known as the Sturgeon Moon, will look significantly closer and brighter than regular full moons because it will be making its closest approach to Earth during its orbit, though experts say the largest supermoon in 69 years took place in November 2016.

Okay, so filler words used to be, like, my best friends, y'know? Then, as I grew into the role of a weekly speaker either at my spiritual community or someone else's, I realized that those space fillers were killing the power of the message I was trying to convey. Those words also make you sound unsure of what you're saying, which means your credibility with your audience is on the line.

My secret weapon became the power of the pause. If I leave a little bit of silence between sentences or between ideas (and get over my discomfort with that silence), it will make my talk even more moving and powerful. Confession: Sometimes, those pauses came because I lost my train of thought or my place on the page if I was scripted. Either way, just a beat or two of silence adds far more to a talk or presentation than a million "ums" and "ahs." Here's a bonus: The silence makes people look up from their phones or whatever else they're paying attention to because they wonder if they missed something, so they start to pay attention after that. (Or, conversely, they hope you're wrapping up. Either way, you get them to pay attention again.)

The best advice Jeff Davenport gives is to video yourself (or just audio will be fine) and count those filler words. When I was in radio, we taped our shows and would spend an hour with the program director going over it, looking for ways to eliminate things like my heavy southern accent or other verbal tics that distract the audience.

However you do it, get rid of any unnecessary utterances in your talks, presentations or speeches. Your audience will be more engaged and grateful.

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