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Employer Loyalty

This week has been a wild week. • We completed our federal taxes. • I spoke at a conference in Chicago. • We closed on a $13 million loan. Nearly every minute of my day is scheduled. The pace of things that come across my desk is mind numbing sometimes. With all of that said, our leadership team met to talk about employee engagement. Some of the feedback I personally got was great to hear but also hard to hear. The primary feedback was that I need to spend more time connecting with our s

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 22, 2018•2 min read

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Moral Intelligence Significantly Impacts Business Performance

This week I had the honor of meeting Fred Kiel. Fred has written a couple books. One is titled Emotional Intelligence, and another is called Return on Character. Through his organization’s research they have discovered an incredible fact: Character-led organizations out-perform organizations with self-focused leadership. There is a 5 times greater return on assets on average. Character-led organizations have 26% higher workforce engagement. Their high-character leaders on average are perce

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 19, 2018•2 min read

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Starting a New Business – Meet Vincent, CEO of HomeTread

A few months ago Vincent, from HomeTread, sent me a message on LinkedIn. It was a humble message that shared with me his vision about how auto repair could be done better. I loved his idea and agreed to meet with him. Once we met I got to hear his passion. His company will come to your home and repair your vehicle on your time. Let me pause there. Think about it. You do not need to bring your car to an automotive shop. You do not need to wait. You do not need to be inconvenienced by not

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 15, 2018•1 min read

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An Unconventional Interview

A recent job candidate had an unconventional approach that worked! We recently had a job opening. A candidate applied for the job. He had no experience and no relevant education. But he was a phenomenal person looking to work for a company that was doing work he could believe in. During the phone interview, I questioned him on his technical skills. They weren’t strong, but I liked his passion. So, I gave him a couple of books to read before the interview. I wanted to see how fast he could le

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 12, 2018•2 min read

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Stop Doubting Yourself

Last week we were invited to the corporate headquarters of Target. Target is one of the world’s largest retailers. They have about 2000 stores and take in about $70 billion in revenue every year. They are number 39 on the fortune 500 list. I have never been invited to such a large corporation. I was terrified. We were invited to talk about the possibility of doing a deal together. I can’t go in to the specifics. But it isn’t anything too exciting. Regardless, it would be an interesting o

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 10, 2018•2 min read

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Great Leaders Bring out the Best in Others

It’s important to inspire the best in other people. Recently a job candidate turned me down for an interview, but I hired her anyway. Let me share with you why. Ann (not her real name) was quiet and nervous. She was soft-spoken and unsure of herself. During the phone interview I noticed something special. She didn’t have years of experience in the field she was applying for. She had a relevant, but not perfectly matching degree. On paper there were many other stronger candidates. But still,

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 8, 2018•3 min read

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Believe in Your Staff and They will do Incredible Things

Only two people said they would come to our new resident board information meeting. This seemed like a disaster. See our goal is to create a better way for our residents to live. One key strategy is to build a stronger sense of community in our apartment buildings. One of our employees came up with an incredible idea to start a resident board. We carefully selected residents, sent letters, and made phone calls over the course of a month. Despite all our hard work, only two people said t

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 5, 2018•1 min read

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An Appreciated Staff is a Motivated Staff

I almost blew it! One of our staff members came up with an incredible idea. And I just about missed it. Last Friday was Good Neighbor Day. One of our employees came up with the idea to share a little gift to all of our residents and neighbors. She shared the idea with her coworkers. Her coworkers loved the idea as well. So together they spent extra time creating little gifts with a nice inspirational note. They handed them out and people loved it! We got comments from people who were so

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Mike Kaeding

Oct 3, 2018•2 min read