How do you want to be remembered when it is all said and done? There is a story told of a woman’s husband who had died and she wanted to let others know about the funeral by taking out an ad in the paper. The person in charge of funeral notices at the paper took the call. The widow asked, “How much do funeral notices cost?” The response was, “$5.50 per word, Ma’am.”

You better ensure you can answer questions like “what could I have done different this year to get a higher rating? What can I do next year to get a better rating?” If you can’t answer these types questions then you have failed the employee you are doing the review with.

A leader, for example, decides that his or her team needs to be more cohesive. It is agreed upon that the team will do some team building. So they hire a “team building expert” to come in and do some activities. The problem isn’t necessarily the activities, but the lack of planning and understanding what the teams needs are. Here are three important things to consider when doing team building activities.

When I was a kid I use to ask my parents why I had to do “stupid” Algebra. The only answer I ever remember was “because.” “Because” I would ask. “Yes because,” was their reply. If my parents had instead said because it will help you become a better problem solver, improve your chess game, make you more intelligent and finally if you take enough of these algebra classes you may never have to take another one ever again I may have been catapulted into algebra delight. However, their response had the opposite effect.