Ocean Palmer

The Official Site of Ted Simondinger

JOIN TED'S MAILING LIST

A Tale of Two Kennys

by Leave a Comment

This is a story of two men named Ken who took different approaches to retirement. Both were friends of mine. I frequently reminisce about one, the other, or both. Kenny #1 Kenny T lived in central Florida at a very fortunate time. A California company was looking to expand and needed to acquire a whole […]

LEARN MORE

The 3 Rules of Good Coaching

by Leave a Comment

Inspiration for this column comes from revisiting the teaching tenets of legendary Baltimore Oriole baseball coach Cal Ripken, Senior. Cal Senior was with the franchise as player, coach, manager, and scout for 36 years. He was hugely responsible for the Baltimore Orioles’ sustained excellence during the franchise’s glory years. He created and taught developing players […]

LEARN MORE

How to Turn A Negative Situation Into A Positive Experiences

by Leave a Comment

I came across an article in Inc. magazine recently that really lit my tail on fire. In it, the author shared his opinion of how to criticize employees. Basically speaking, his advice was to berate and browbeat your people so they’ll straighten up and perform better. Everything about his approach and techniques rankled me as […]

LEARN MORE

Why Good Talent Leaves

by Leave a Comment

Talented people choose to leave organizations for a simple reason: Talent has options. The further you slide back along the excellence curve, the fewer options those lesser performers will have. Because of that, mediocrity tends to stay. But top performers live with a different realism. They will be courted by other companies, recruited by headhunters, […]

LEARN MORE

Difficult Conversations: 10 Tips

by Leave a Comment

As more people withdraw to keyboards interactions instead of talking over the telephone or in-person, interactive effectiveness when confronted with a difficult conversation is diminished for two reasons: lack of comfort and lack of experience. Tortuous to the uninitiated, experience makes them easier. Conflict resolution is sometimes a choice, sometimes a necessity. When faced with […]

LEARN MORE

Why Millennials Are the Most Stressed Out Generation

by Leave a Comment

A recent survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association measured the relative stress levels of four generations: Matures (Post-WWII workers, aged 67+) Boomers (48-to-66) Gen Xers (34-to-47) Millennials (Gen Y, ages 18-to-33) For clarity’s sake, we’ll define anxiety and stress this way: “The unpleasant emotional state consisting of psychological and physiological responses to anticipation of […]

LEARN MORE

Why Many Sales Coaches Aren’t as Good as They Think

by Leave a Comment

I read an article recently from the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) in Washington, D. C. that shed some light on the dearth of coaches and excess of managers (and micromanagers) in many sales organizations. The culprits: situation and circumstance. It also seems that a perception gap exists between how sales managers see themselves as coaches […]

LEARN MORE

Why Worker Burnout is Escalating at an Alarming Rate

by Leave a Comment

ComPsych Corp., a Chicago-based employee assistance consulting company, recently release some startling information based on a survey of nearly 2,000 workers. Since ComPsych provides programs for more than 17,000 organizations and 45 million employees worldwide, they are in a strong position to accurately read the pulse of the current American work force. A couple key […]

LEARN MORE

6 Reasons Why Your First Loss is Usually Your Best Loss

by Leave a Comment

Financial decisions, especially those made during tight economic times, are harder to make than those of previous times of prosperity. Especially dicey are tough calls that demand a difficult decision to hang on or cut the cord. No one makes the right decision all the time, but some draw better conclusions than others. Listed below […]

LEARN MORE