Through electrifying keynote speeches and actionable books, Hall of Fame award-winning speaker Eric Chester helps leaders of the world's top corporations, franchises, and associations attract, recruit, manage, engage, motivate, and retain the right employees.

Stemming the Tide of Turnover After a Tragedy

Immediately following the Columbine tragedy that rocked the world twenty years ago (4-20-1999), Frank DeAngelis vowed that he would remain the school’s principal until the class of first grade students in the elementary schools that fed into the high school had graduated. His goal was to prevent a mass exodus of faculty and staff and…

When You Treat Everyone as Special, No One Feels Special

This is not an angry airline rant. I’m going somewhere important with this, so please hang with me. As a professional speaker based in Denver, business travel is a necessary evil that comes with the job. United Airlines has a large hub in Denver, and thus, I’ve been flying them almost exclusively for 30+ years…

The Sad Elimination of the Most Important Job in America

It’s 8:07 am in Denver and the daily newspaper “guaranteed to be delivered by 7 am” is not here. Again. And when it finally arrives, it will be thrown from the window of a hail-damaged 2006 Saturn Ion by a 30-something woman, and it will land at the edge of the curb at least 35…

How AI is Impacting the Emerging Workforce

For his 4th birthday, my grandson August (Auggie) was given an Echo Dot for Kids – Amazon’s Alexa for children. Even though I don’t own an Alexa or similar AI device, I thought I was somewhat familiar with what they do. Turns out, I wasn’t. I watched Auggie’s face light up when his dad finally…

Do You Have to Pay Your Employees Like Superstars to Keep Them?

Last week, 5-time NBA All-Star, Kevin Love, signed a contract to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers. His new deal will pay him $120M over 4 years, approximately $30M per year. These days, it’s not uncommon to see professional athletes sign enormous contracts punctuated with a staggering number of zeros. What is uncommon about this particular story…

How Are You Filling the Non-Sexy Jobs in Your Organization?

Q. What do professional dancers, actors, musicians, and athletes have in common? A. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they’re all in the top 6 of the 15 dream jobs that our nation’s youth aspire to have one day. What jobs didn’t make the list? Roofer, custodian, auto mechanic, welder, truck driver, short order…

Stop Treating Your Employees Like Family; They Deserve Better

When I hear the word family, beyond the mental images of my own, I can’t help but think of the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Cunninghams, and the Huxtables. Growing up, I probably spent as much time hanging out with those families as I did my own. Television families of the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s…

If You’re Not Mentoring a Millennial, You’re Only Cheating Yourself

On the days Josh Drean is not in class listening to a lecture in his graduate program at Harvard, he’s in a school gymnasium giving one to hundreds of teenagers.  Only to his youthful audience, it doesn’t sound like a lecture. That’s because Josh is a hip, cool, relevant youth speaker who breakdances and beatboxes as he…

How to Transform Workplace Grinches into Gleeful Contributors

When the Grinch stole Christmas from all the Whos down in Whoville, he went about it with passion and fury. The scrawny-limbed hermit with a nasty attitude and a foul grimace felt like an outsider who was unappreciated by his peers, so he decided to turn the tables and ruin Christmas for the entire village.…

Southwest Airlines is Dead Serious about Employee Fun

Walking through Denver International Airport on my way to Nashville last week, it wasn’t difficult to pick out the Southwest gates from those of all the other airlines. They were the only ones that looked like …well, like it’s late October. That’s because Southwest Airlines takes fun very seriously. They know if they promote a…