Scientifically speaking, the ‘real’ smile is one called the ‘Duchenne’ smile.
Named after French physician Guillaume Duchenne, who first noted an anatomical distinction between a week, or fake smile, and one that reveals a truly spontaneous emotion. His work took place in the mid-nineteenth century during a study of human facial expressions.
The alternative to the Duchenne [...]

Solutions Vault Book Review
Author David Cottrell, president and CEO of Cornerstone Leadership Institute, invites you to look at Monday in a whole new way – while some may dread Monday, he shows how it can be the perfect kick-off to a winning week. The book includes dynamic quotes that reinforce ideas and themes laid in [...]

While there are many ways to go about creating a valuable PowerPoint message, there are some primary rules that ensure the message participants hear, is the message you intended to deliver.
Working to deliver a clear message is the core of training any topic. Getting that message across has come to include the use of PowerPoint [...]

Solutions Vault Book Review
The ability to take a bad situation and turn it around is a unique skill that can at times, seem like something only a super hero can do. In this dynamic book, Steve Zaffron, CEO of Vanto Group, a consulting firm dedicated to elevating organizational performance, and Dave Logan, faculty member at [...]

Solutions Vault Book Review
The title, ‘Why People Don’t Buy Things’, written by Harry Washburn and Kim Wallace, caught our attention as it asked a different question about buying motives – a question we have not heard very often. While it is easy to look for the many reasons why a person DOES buy a [...]

In Stephen Covey’s book The Speed of Trust, co-authored by Rebecca R. Merrill, there is a summary on page 214 of Behavior #11 ‘Listen First’ which reads as follows…
Listen before you speak. Understand. Diagnose. Listen with your ears – and your eyes and heart. Find out what the most important behaviors are to the people [...]

Suggesting that ‘training is important’ might seem a rather weak and obvious statement. Precisely because of this I want to look at the latest data about how learning and development has become the very best investment any organization can make, perhaps now more than ever. I want to provide you with data, insights, and clear [...]

The word “strategy” is from the Greek strategia, which means “office of a general” which itself comes from the Greek word strategos, meaning “general”.
The military roots of the word “strategy” and the actions taken to fulfill a strategy create your battle plan for achieving success. When you evaluate the training actions in which you are [...]

Solutions Vault Book Review
This book is a fast read and one that is effective in delivering a clear message: Positivity pays big dividends. While there has been a lot said, written, and shared about the power of positive thinking, positive interaction, and positive focus this books identifies where it all began as a psychological study. [...]

How we choose to respond is the key to creating the environment we want most, one filled with success and energy.
“I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond [...]