During my work as coach and consultant, I meet a lot of people. And they tell me a lot of stories regarding their work and personal life. And all those stories taught me an important thing: People are very agile. Even when life is not so ‘sweet’ for them. I never met a person who had a perfect life. Always there were ups and downs and sometimes those downs were heavy. And most of them, when they look back, they say: ‘But you have to do something, life is going on’.
​This article was published on the website www.cariereonline.ro on the 29th August 2017.

When we are talking about bonuses, we immediately think of money. In a lot of companies, the bonus is used as a motivation tool. And, actually, we know for more than 40 years that the carrot (= bonus) and the stick method is not working as motivation, and, even more important, not in the benefit of the company. Actually, it works against when the bonus is not related to a good key performance indicator. We also know more than 40 years that motivation is not coming from bonuses.
​This article was published in BIZ Magazine, on the 31st July 2017.

John was 55 years old and, within the last 10 years, he was leading the maintenance department. At that time, I was the HR-director. John was visiting me every week, asking when he could be pre-retired. He wanted to enjoy life and especially spending time with his grand-children. Unfortunately, I had to disappoint him every time. The pre-retirement was only for those employees whose job would disappear. A few months later, we needed a big restructuring because of bad financial results. I was able to cancel the job of John. And he was on the top of the list of the people who could go with the pre-retirement procedure.
This article was published on the website www.cariereonline.ro, on the 21st July 2017.

Often, we don’t realize how important our work is in our life. People in Romania make long working hours. Ten hours a day is no exception. In these cases, people spend 30% of their time on work, an equal 30% for family and friends and 40% is spend on sleeping and travelling. And this all includes the weekend. So, I think it is very relevant to think about those life questions.
This article was published in www.cariereonline.ro, on the 22 June 2017.

Bonuses, in this article, I mean bonus in money, is meant to increase the motivation. And an increased motivation increases the performance. But is that really the case? When people receive a bonus, two variables are important: When you receive it and how much you receive.  And these variables are also connected with each other. Let’s have a closer look to these two variables.
​This article was published in BIZ Magazine on the 29th May 2017.

Leadership is all about relationships. As a leader, you don’t need to ask if you have relationships with employees, the question is what the quality of the relationships are. And, also generally speaking, women are better in managing the relationships than men. Men are better in the content of the subject.
​This article was published on www.cariereonline.ro, on 26th May 2017.

how do we recognize the dictatorial leadership style? Actually, this is quite simple to determine. A dictator doesn't ask questions. Because a dictator isn't interested in other people's opinions. The dictator expects that the people in his or her team are following without questions and without questioning his or her authority. The dictator doesn't allow mistakes. They expect a high performance with the highest quality all the time.
​This article was published on www.cariereonline.ro, on the 25th April 2017.

In successful companies, assertive employees and leaders go hand in hand. Shanon Anthony Bower describes the difference between assertive and aggressive people as follows: “The basic difference between assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behavior affect the rights and well-being of others”.

When I was asked to write an article special for the 8th of March, I had some options. I could write about a trending topic in business: Gender diversity. But I would like that firms are busier with the diversity of the mind. Much more interesting and more useful than talking about differences between men and women. I could write about the glass-ceiling that women often experience, the prejudices of men.

When I see that in a management team there is a discussion about a decision I suggest almost every time to look for a third possibility, that is not a merge of the other 2 possibilities. Background: if people are not agreeing on the decisions there is a realistic chance that both are not the best. Go to look for the alternative third.

How negativity affects work productivity. What does the manager when the employees say often ”No” at the office. The original article was published in Romanian language, on the website www.cariereonline.ro, on 16th February 2017.

Conforming and copying of the behavior of others leads often to strange and irrational behavior. And we see that often in the world of business. Copying or automatically doing what the competitor also is doing.

The Horse Connection on television

How can we recognize good leaders within our company.

Psychologies Magazine article published on 20 September 2016. In this article our unique project The Horse Connection is the subject. ​Original this article is in Romanian. Here you can find the English version.