Are you habitually excellent?

This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.

The Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”Malcolm Gladwell brought this same phenomenon to our attention in modern times in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. A common theme throughout Gladwell’s book is the “10,000-Hour Rule,” based on a study by psychologist Anders Ericsson, suggesting mastery in anything requires a 10,000-hour investment.

Successful Trustworthiness Training: A Nine-Point Checklist

Can people learn to be trustworthy? The short answer is yes, with the right design.

Excerpted from The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, this article addresses some of the biggest challenges of trustworthiness training (or any “soft skills” training, for that matter) with nine specific strategies.

Use them as a checklist to make sure your investment in trustworthiness training is designed to pay off—whether you’re creating your own learning program or considering hiring others to help.

Real rant: tweeting is for birds

Last year I attended the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) 2013 Annual Conference and Exposition in Chicago. Over 15,100 people in attendance. Extraordinary keynoters like Blake Mycoskie and Dan Pink. Content-rich breakout sessions. (With any luck, attendees thought the breakout that Gary Jones and I co-led was one of them.) Throughout it all, to my dismay, there was a whole lotta tweetin’ going on.