The Water Cooler: Recent Episodes
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The Water Cooler is a sports talk show that is desiged for the fans and by the fans. Become a fan of the Water Cooler on Facebook to suggest possible show topics in the discussion area or e-mail us at watercoolermail@comcast.net
Kyle scrubs the police records for every player in every sport. Brandon gives his first anaylysis of the MLB season, but a lot of good team sare on the bottom. The NBA playoff picture is almost set. Brandon and Kyle debate on the real reason we have a new NCAA championship.
Kyle rubs the latest Duke victory in Brandon's face. The stage is set for the NCAA Tournament. We'll tell you who's in, who's out, and what we think about the brackets. A Pac-10 coach takes an early exit from the tournament after a "verbal altercation" ended in lacerations to a Arizona fans face. Another high school athlete passes away this week. This time a track star in Florida. This and more on the Water Cooler. Also, the NFL is officially locked out. Hear our thoughts
NBA trade deadline mania is running wild all over the league. Melo finds a new spot in NY. A female pitches batting practice for the first time in MLB history. Colts safety Bob Sanders is released. College coaches show tempers as one gets escorted from a game by the police and another is facing charges for shoving and kicking a player. Another college football player emerges with trick shot youtube videos. A series of losses for big teams benefits Duke University as they become the new #1 team in Men's Basketball. Also, we discuss the events of NBA All-star Weekend.
In every sport, players continue to break the rules, the law, or moral codes. A great baseball player gets caught driving drunk and continues to drink...in front of the cops! A high profile NFL QB shows why he's a hit with the ladies...epecially when they're only 17 years old! Haynesworth continues his tomfoolery as Shaun Rogers moves in on his turf. Tiger spits on the field of play and takes a fine. Losing streaks are broken as Cleveland gets their first victory in 26 games...but wait, the Wizards broke their home losing streak against the Cavs. So who was the unsuspecting victim? These topics only scratch the surface of what we have in store for this episode! This and more tonight!
The crew discusses last week's big game. The Cleveland Cavaliers are the worst team in all of sports. Carmelo and Bynum possibly switching cities. The last of the AP awards for the NFL. Sean Payton packs to go to places that Christina Aguilera should stay away from and Super Bowl fans are getting kicked out of.
With Super Bowl Sunday right around the corner, the Water Cooler team has a special edition, 90-minute show. The crew goes into an in-depth breakdown of the the Packers and Steelers. JJ analyzes the problems with recruiting in the Virginia Tech football program. Kyle discusses trade rumors that have been surfacing in the Lakers' locker room. Cam Newton is going to have a private workout for the media...two weeks before the NFL combine; and Brandon's not buying his reasons. The Associated Press hands out their annual NFL awards and some strange happenings in the Philadelphia Eagles organization. This and more, on tonight's episode.
Football is almoast over for the season but the drama of the NFL and the NCAA is not. Hall of Fame RB Herschel Walker wants back into the league...at 49! The Packers IR roster fights tooth and nail to stay in the Super Bowl picture...literally! MJD apologizes about Cutler comments but that's not good enough for angry fans who want his blood...literally! The Iowa Hawkeyes overwork themselves and now have a muscle disease. These stories and more!
It turns out that the Bears really aren't who we thought they were, Brandon speaks out on recent threats threats by Carson Palmer while the NHL finds a way to destroy the All-Star Game. JJ tries to hold back tears while Kyle makes his campaign for Caleb Haine as the Bears starting QB in the midst of all of the Jay Cutler controversy! A recap of the AFC/NFC Championship games and the Water Cooler cast presents their picks for NFL season awards.
Four NFL teams reamain...so do four great defenses. Brandon and JJ tell you who they think are going to prevail. Hue Jackson just got on the job and may be in a possible drug scandal? The Carmelo Anthony trade comes to an abrupt end? We'll tell you why, on this episode of the Water Cooler.
Green Bay hits the road but it's Atlanta is the one that will be packing. The Jets walk the walk after a week of talk, especially LB Bart Scott as he speaks out. McDermott is out and Philly and Ryan is in for Dallas (Rob Ryan that is). Suspensions are a plenty after a brief skirmish between the NBA's two LA teams and we discuss the weekend in NFL divisional playoff action.
Being personally empowered is supported by effective decision-making. Some of us thoroughly understand our decision-making process and are happy with our approach, others don't have a clue how we choose to make decisions or how we can improve our decision-making. This episode will help us analyze our decision-making process to understand how we choose to make decisions and how we can reduce or eliminate elements of our decision-making process that work against us when making important decisions. We will discuss: 1)Decision-making styles and approaches, 2)How critical thinking contributes to better decisions, 3)Risk management and decision-making, 4) How are decisions influenced by ethics and values, 5) How our personality traits and characteristics influence our decision-making style and effectiveness.
Personally empowered employees are more confident when they trust their decisions. This episode will provide many of the tools that will help us become a more confident decision-maker.
A wise person once said, the only constant is change itself. In these times of constant change an important skill of the personally empowered is learning to thrive in changing environments. This episode provides tips on: 1) How to face your fears, reservations, and negative feelings when change is inevitable 2) Steps to help change really work for you 3) How to support your boss and organization during change, versus being a ‘hidden rebel’ 4) Ways to become a sponsor for positive change Learn to thrive in changing environments and to shape the change you seek!
A wise person once said, the only constant is change itself. In these times of constant change an important skill of the personally empowered is learning to thrive in changing environments. This episode provides tips on:
1) How to face your fears, reservations, and negative feelings when change is inevitable
2) Steps to help change really work for you
3) How to support your boss and organization during change, versus being a ‘hidden rebel’
4) Ways to become a sponsor for positive change
Learn to thrive in changing environments and to shape the change you seek!
In an ideal world we would all like to work for the perfect boss. Someone that gives us everything we need to be happy and successful in our work. Instead, we live in the real world, where bosses come in all shapes and sizes; effective and ineffective, skilled and unskilled, experienced and inexperienced and all points in between. We have a limited amount of control over who we work for but, what we can control is how we chose to respond and interact with the person for which we work. Furthermore, often we can control how the person we work for responds to us! This episode is about learning to help your boss help you. To help them give you what you need to be happy and successful in your work.
Increasing our personal empowerment includes managing our emotions and effectively resolving the inevitable conflict that comes from expressing our ideas and putting ourselves out there.
To be effective at resolving conflict, we must be able to recognize and use the five conflict resolution styles appropriately. The five styles are:
1. Accommodation
2. Avoidance
3. Competition
4. Compromise
5. Collaboration
Each style is very effective in certain situations; however, the problem most of us have is we tend to have a preferred style that we use in almost all situations. Consequently, we often don’t get the desired result because our preferred style is not right for the situation that is the source of the conflict.
This episode will explain the five conflict resolution styles, assist you in identifying your preferred style and help you learn to use the right style for the right situation!
The door to self-development opens from the inside. This episode provides a structure and methodology to enhance your self-development efforts. We will discuss: 1) Focusing on your knowledge, skills and abilities and competencies. 2) Identifying ways to capitalize on your knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies. 3) Aligning your individual goals and purpose with the needs of your organization. 4) Assessing your knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies, and identify gaps. 5) Identifying potential career paths. 6) Creating and individual development plan
7) Identify a variety of employee development activities and opportunities.
Remember you can also call-in to the show to discuss any human resources issue you may face. 646 721 9515
Leadership skills are an important part of personal empowerment behavior. Many of the behaviors that cause others to see us as leaders are the same behaviors that increase our personal empowerment. Leaders exist at all levels in organizations and those that are not natural leaders can learn to become more effective leaders. That is the subject of this episode.
We will discuss;
• Which behaviors cause others to see us as leaders.
• How management behaviors differ from leadership behaviors
• How we can be viewed as leaders even when we are not in leadership roles
• How supervisors can become more effective by adopting leadership behaviors
• The importance of adapting your leadership style to fit your followers
• The four different leadership styles and when to use each
• How leadership skills support improved personal empowerment
As always, you can also call into the show to ask questions about the topic or any other human resources issue that may be troubling you.
Performance evaluations can be terrific tools for empowering and developing employees; however, they are often the source of conflict, resentment hurt feelings and misunderstanding. The reason for these unfortunate occurrences is often poor execution by the supervisor AND employee. Ineffective goal setting, communication, feedback and review meetings typically result in inaccurate and ineffective performance review outcomes. Of course, your supervisors should be trained to prevent these mistakes and bad outcomes, but often they are not. Consequently, it is the empowered employee's responsibility to ensure these bases are covered effectively to promote their accurate and constructive performance reviews. This episode will teach employees how to do just that! Don't be a victim of your bosses poor performance evaluation skills. Listen and learn how to manage upward in this important area and get the performance rating you deserve.
Most successful individuals will tell you that they had one or more mentors in their life that helped them achieve their level of success. As discussed in an earlier episode, individual development and personal empowerment relies on the kind of feedback and coaching that comes from mentors.
Mentoring is a development process achieved through collaboration between individuals committed to the same goal. If done right, it can prepare protégés to assume greater responsibility earlier in their careers and help them address personal developmental goals.
This episode will explain how to source, recruit and successfully collaborate with a mentor as part of your personal empowerment strategy. We will also discuss the benefits derived from mentoring and the potential pitfalls that can ruin a mentoring relationship. As always, you can call into the show to ask questions about the topic or any other human resources issue.
This segment provides insider information on some of the most frequent HR issues facing employees today! More and more employers are attempting to get their employees to sign employment contracts. Do you have to sign them to keep your job? It seems a sexual harassment charge is in the news every day. What really constitutes sexual harassment? When does an employee have a potential claim? Workplace discrimination continues to be a problem in U.S. organizations. What are your rights, what does it look like and what can you do if you are targeted?
One of the beautiful things about human behavior is that we can change it, if we are committed to making the change and approach the change process in the right way. Personal empowerment is about behavioral change which can increase your job performance, career opportunities, self-esteem and job satisfaction. If we don’t like being afraid of public speaking, we can change, if we don’t like being reserved and passive, we can change. In fact, most behaviors are not genetic; they are a product of our early childhood development, life experiences and other nurturing elements.
In recent years enlightened companies have spent millions of dollars to empower their workforce.
Because they know an empowered workforce will result in a more efficient and effective organization.
Most people have difficulty changing for a myriad of reasons which include:
1. They do not realize they exhibit a certain type of behavior
2. They realize they exhibit the behavior, but they are not motivated to change
3. They are motivated to change, but they do not know how to change
4. They are motivated to change and know how to change, but they do not set themselves up for a successful change
5. They do not believe they can change
6. They do not see the benefits from making a change
If we remove the roadblocks to learning and behaving differently, and are committed to making the change, we can change!
The Employee Empowerment Institute is dedicated to helping employees make behavioral changes that will empower them in the workplace and contribute to their success. This episode will summarize the Institute's ten Personal Empowerment Development Strategies (PEDS).
It is not always our employers fault when we don't get promoted. Throughout my 35 year human resources career, I have heard from many employees that believe they are not being treated fairly when it comes to promotion. They work hard, get good performance reviews but are not keeping up with some of their peers. I heard this from all races and genders, but especially minorities and women. Now before you get it twisted I am an African-American originally from Watts and Compton, CA. I am not here to dump on African-Americans, I am here to advise all of my listeners in the very best way I can, to help you assume more power in your organization and more control over your career.
There are a number of reasons working hard and getting good performance reviews are not enough. During our show we will discuss my top six which cover about 90% of the employee controllable reasons hard workers with good performance don’t always get the promotions they may deserve. Remember 'employee controllable reasons' are our choice and within our control. Let’s take control and remove those buts from behind our names; you know, Pierre is a hard worker and good performer BUT (I am not recommending him for promotion because...).
Employee misclassification was the most highly litigated labor law issue in 2009. Over the past 4 years, class and collective action litigation increased from 1,094 cases in 2004 to 2,411 cases in 2008, a 120% increase.
Employee misclassification comes in two primary forms:
• Workers classified as independent contractors instead of employees
• Workers classified as exempt instead of non-exempt employees.
Both administrative errors can impact whether you receive benefits or are paid overtime!
According to Department of Labor and other research institutions, several companies inappropriately misclassify employees as independent contractors. Sometimes it is due to a lack of experience or knowledge of the applicable labor laws. However, at times the motivating factor is an effort to avoid paying overtime, payroll-related taxes, employment benefits and other employee obligations.
This program will help you answer the following questions;
How do you determine if you are misclassified? What can you do about it?
Can your company punish you for asserting your rights?