Quality communication goes far beyond organizational structures, clear directives and efficient systems. Time and again, I’ve watched highly effective teams crumble due to a lack of effective dialogue. And that’s because the most successful way to engage and improve your company is not by talking. It’s by listening.

When can we officially declare Sacramento as no longer being a cow town? I’m pretty sure we’ve hit that milestone. Business leaders, developers and innovators are pushing boundaries they likely wouldn’t have considered even a decade ago, as can be seen on nearly every page of this month’s magazine.

Carrie Clark, a former teacher, says bullies aren’t confined to playgrounds. Sometimes, they run the whole school. And they do more than demand that work get done. They threaten, humiliate or intimidate for reasons unrelated to job performance.

The Workplace Bullying Institute would like to see legislation put in place to protect employees from abusive coworkers or bosses. The California State Council for the Society for Human Resource Management says legislation would leave too much room for subjective analysis. What do you think?

To find the kind of innovative employees needed to continue pushing the food movement forward, it’s important to look as much as listen. For instance:

“This position requires a vegetable costume as occasional work attire.”

The Society for Human Resource Management has developed a model procedure for handling bullying complaints. Key language includes:

Once you’ve invented the best thing since wearable technology, you’ll probably want to fund it. To impress the pockets out of investors, you’ll need to:

You may be ready to embrace change, implement new software or just create new rules around email. But getting the whole team on board can be a task in itself. Change is always harder than it seems. Here are a few tips for getting buy-in.

Are you known around the office for firing off emails in the wee hours of the morning? Are you in a leadership position? If you answered yes to both of these questions, you may be doing a disservice to both yourself and your team.

Investing in your community is about more than just doing what’s right; it’s smart for your business’s future — and its bottom line.