If your goals are not clear, why not propose your own? It's an opportunity to shape your goals and your role toward your own interests and should be based on a better understanding of your own job than anyone else has.

Most of us are programmed from an early age to defer to authority even if we don't understand or agree with the instructions. So how can you counter your conditioning and question authority? Here are some ways to start.

Whether or not your people are learning anything from what you're saying to them, rest assured, they're learning from what you're doing.

I ran across VitalSmarts -- a corporate training and research behemoth -- when I was teaching a course on social marketing at Tufts University. Their ...