When you withhold your recognition of another person's contribution to the team's success, you are not just treating people unfairly, but you are depriving people of the emotional payoff that comes with success. 

And they resent you for it. 

One example of this was when a colleague of mine was excited about a grant he received to build an outdoor garden to help the "at-risk" youth he served to build emotional resilience and life skills. 

He told me that his principal came to him very excited and wanted to know all about the grant and the plans. 

Then, she went to the Superintendent meeting and took all of the credit, receiving accolades in the newspaper. My buddy, not a word was written about him or the students. 

He told me that he would never trust the principal and thought about shutting the project down. 

The principal's actions not only impacted his behavior, but now the students would suffer. 

Recognition is all about closure. 

When you fail to recognize someone, you are ...

Acadia NorthStar has been assisting public charter schools with accounting, budget management and compliance since 2001. For over a decade, Acadia's experienced staff has been exceeding their clients' expectations.

Most of you have heard of Acadia.

Many of you have a contract with Acadia. 

But what you might not know is that 365 days a year, the team at Acadia works with their clients to ensure long term, fiscal vitality. 

Here is how I know: Five years ago I was the Executive Director to a charter school board overseeing two charter schools. One of the schools was in financial hardship. It's expenditures far exceeded it's revenue (over one million a year). The school could not pay rent. The school was losing enrollment.

One day I just happened to find a folder that was labeled "unpaid invoices"on the desk of the former principal. In the folder was over $500,000 in unpaid invoices tracking back to the previous fiscal year. 

This was not a problem I, or any member of our team had ...

Unfortunately, this week when I sent out a message highlighting two of our teacher leaders who were special guests on our Empowered Educators webinar; I incorrectly typed the name of one of our teacher leaders, Sarah Douglas. 

Sarah is one of the most valued teacher leaders at East Wake Academy.

My deepest apologies Sarah.

When Sarah let me know about my mistake I remembered what Dale Carnegie most famously wrote in his best selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. 

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language”. 

When I first heard this phrase, I felt it was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I was given. Being an educator for over 20 years and currently a consultant, I have been fortunate enough to meet tens of thousands of people. It is critical that I work to make people feel safe and appreciated. 

With my personality type, according to DISC Leadership Profile, being more of a task oriented "let's ...

Hey, I am Dr. Tom Miller and I have a really big idea and an important book that I wanted to share with you today. 

I believe that good leaders ask great questions. 

Roddy Galbraith, the world's best speaker trainer and coach (who also happens to be my mentor) wrote a great personal growth book titled Go Out and Make a Mess that helps anyone who is feeling stuck or suffers from procrastination due to a desire to be perfect.

 During these times of unchartered territory, we are all being stretched personally and professionally and might be questioning what their future may look like.

Roddy's questions forced me to take a deeper look personally and professionally. They raised my awareness and brought key answers to questions at one time I wasn't comfortable asking or answering. 

You see, your success will be determined by the questions you are willing to ask and willing to answer.

Questions can connect people. Enhance collaboration with team members, build and grow ideas, and develo...

When I was a public charter school principal my team will tell you I had some horrific habits and a very little discipline. Whatever article I happened to read the week before, that's what the faculty meeting focused on. I would arrive at school each day prepared to observe, coach, lead and implement strategic initiatives. Then, the school day started and I got out of the firehose. The next thing you know cars are lining up for afternoon dismissal and my beautiful list of things to do has not accumulated one check off. I was active, but not productive. 

One might say, I had shiny object syndrome!

Over time, I got on activity auto-pilot. We were a good school, but not great. It was not until my third year and the second trip to the emergency room that I realized I was the problem and I was doing it ALL wrong. I had an incredible work ethic, but too many faulty assumptions and a lack of discipline in keeping the main thing the main thing. 

Everything started to change when I wrote my ...

This is one of those topics that I could write about all day every day.  Goal setting, goal achieving, goals goals goals!

We all have goals.  Each and every one of us.

Some of us think we gave up a long time ago and don’t have any but we do.  Every day we wake up with the goal to live another day.  Ok, maybe that is a stretch but don’t we all have goals to some extent?  And why is it so important to have goals? 

The most successful people on this planet didn’t wake up one day with an idea and a few minutes later after they got dressed became successful… No way.  They had an idea and they developed a plan.  Within that plan there were goals – some big, some little – some attainable, some way out there. 

And each day, they worked at it – chipping away, having triumphs and failures along the way but tweaking and re-evaluating and working toward goals. Goals!

We have had goals from the day we were born.  Sit up. Crawl. Walk. Talk. Feed ourselves. Dress ourselves. Express ourselves. Ma...

Your environment plays a big part in how much you you grow.

Have you ever heard the old tale of the goldfish? The one that says that if you put a goldfish in a bowl it will always stay the same size, but put them in a pool and they will grow to a foot long and ten pounds? Well I have to tell you it is somewhat of a myth! It is true that the fish will grow to different sizes, but it has little to do with the size of the tank.  I did some research on this. Does the fish sense that it cannot grow any bigger because of the size of its tank?  No!  It turns out that the growth of the fish is directly related to the quality of the water.  Think about it - when you keep a fish in a bowl, there is no filtration, no aeration to provide oxygen, there are few nutrients, and the fish is fed one basic food.  But the fish in the pond has limitless opportunities. Plants in the water provide oxygen, there are a wide variety of nutrients, and the ecosystem provides a system to clean the water on consta...

There's only one thing more painful than learning from an experience, and that is NOT learning from an experience.  

A couple of years ago my family and I were at a friends house for a 4th of July barbecue and someone brought fireworks. The list of goods included bottle rockets, Roman Candles and sparklers (which are more my speed). 

Out of the corner of my eye I happened to notice that the teen was attempting to light a Roman Candle in the street. He was struggling to get the lighter lit and was lighting the candle with the fuse pointing towards him and the crowd. See where this is going?

When the fuse finally lit he held the candle towards the sky, like he saw everyone else, however he had the lit fuse facing towards him. It was like watching a movie as I thought, is that right?

I yelled for him to turn it around. At this point others noticed what was going on and yelled as well. He looked at us and dropped his hands, luckily pointing the rocket away now. Unfortunately it was poi...