Just decide already
Think of decisions instead as “best” in the moment, and “adjustable” if necessary. You can trust yourself and be all in – just decide.
Leadership
Leadership development and optimal management strategies
How you show up is all that matters
Decide how you’re going to show up regardless of others’ reactions, responses, or behavior.
When meditation doesn’t work
Sometimes, it’s hard to kick down the intensity of your thoughts in these crazy times. So stop trying. Do this instead!
Discomfort is the currency of success
You have to be willing to feel the discomfort of growth and risk in order to achieve the levels of performance you seek.
Career risk: get to the other side
On this side of career risk, where you are today, you may have fear and uncertainty. But on the other side of that risk, once you take that leap, you will know exactly what happened. The difference is simply preparation – knowing what to do if things go sideways. Avoiding risk isn’t the answer. Check …
Promotion: how long should I wait for one?
You need a crystal clear roadmap to your next promotion. Without it, you’re floating around aimlessly, hoping for lightning to strike.
Add a sprinkle of curiosity into the mix
There’s not enough curiosity in our jobs, and there should be. Curiosity can be an excellent alternative to anxiety or uncertainty.
Revisit the “career stories” you tell yourself. Are they holding you back?
Positioning yourself for opportunity is all about storytelling. But before you get wrapped up in how you tell your story to others, revisit the “career stories” you tell yourself. Make sure you evaluate the narratives you’ve developed about your interests and goals, your work history, your failures and capabilities, and determine whether those serve you …
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(Not) working on vacation
A little planning, a little letting go, and a heavy dose of gratitude will help you effectively manage working on vacation.
Using leadership communication
The focused and effective leader knows how to communicate well. Here are 3 ways to determine whether you are in command of your communication.
Speak up at work: you have 4 options for communicating more effectively when you feel uncomfortable
There are different ways to speak up at work, and you can decide which strategy to use at any opportunity.
Delegate tasks – but not to get more time
Recognize the opportunity that arises when you delegate tasks… and discover how to ride out the ensuing frustration you experience from oversight duties.
Positive habits: a new approach
A number of clients seeking my guidance on becoming better workers, better managers, or better planners inevitably ask about how to develop positive habits… and stick with them. When I ask what they’ve done to date in developing new positive habits, and why they believe they’ve failed to maintain them, two themes arise: The achievers …
Big age gaps between managers and direct reports
Many leadership articles discuss how to communicate with and effectively manage the millennials. But what about managing an age gap in the other direction? How should millennial managers supervise someone older – maybe much older? There can be a decades-wide spread between a manager and a direct report. Awkward, uncomfortable, even upsetting? Most of the …
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The learning cycle at work
I had a few clients who were expressing sentiments such as: “I’m not feeling like myself,” or, “I’m just not how I used to be on the job,” or, “I’m not really feeling it anymore, and I don’t know why.” They attribute these feelings to no longer being challenged at work, or having no growth …
Procrastination gets a bad rap
Procrastination can feel stressful. For some, the stress comes from not having produced anything yet. For others, the stress comes from the label “procrastinator” and actually has little to do with what has been produced by when. Which are you? Because it matters. If the stress of procrastination comes from the label – and all of …
Rethinking how to be assertive
How to be assertive is one of those topics that I’ve always found to be a little funny. Assertive in what way? Assertive according to whom? If you’ve ever received the constructive criticism or professional feedback to be more assertive or to be less assertive, and you’re struggling with this feedback, I’ve got some great …
Avoid an implementation issue that ruins a great strategy
Just one critical implementation issue will ruin the most beautiful, perfect strategy. I’d like to talk about those types of implementation issues. In my mind, there are only three: insufficient buy-in from people; failure to achieve brilliant execution; and lack of a pivot when new information points to the strategy being wrong. Even if you …
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Customer service secrets
The bottom line in any service interaction and engagement is to move forward toward resolution. When you feel stuck in those customer service engagements, when things are really not moving forward (or moving forward productively), maintain the following tricks up your sleeve to gain some traction. (Note: I use the term “customer service” very broadly. Customers …
3 questions to ask before you set boundaries at work
Knowing how to set boundaries at work in unhealthy or unproductive situations is an important skill, both for yourself and ultimately for the team involved. But what does it mean to set boundaries at work, and how should you do it to achieve the desired outcome? Let’s start by talking about what a boundary is. …
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Two questions if you are managing with limited resources
Challenges of midlevel managers have some common themes, one of them being managing multiple initiatives within limited resources. “Limited resources” might be defined as not enough people, not enough budget, or not enough time (or all three). There are two types of work we perform: daily whirlwind tasks and larger, overarching initiatives. You’ll need to …
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After employee termination: how to care for the existing team
Working in isolation is very rare these days, so when one of your team members is fired, it can have a negative ripple effect that can seriously impact productivity. So when employee termination affects your team, what should you do? Of course, it’s important to get work done – even more so when you’re one …
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The 10x Rule: How Fear and Discomfort Can Signal the Path Forward
In 2011, Grant Cordone wrote a book called The 10X Rule. In it, he described how to take “massive action” toward your goals. It’s very much a rah-rah-rah book, geared toward salespeople and entrepreneurs, but when I read it, its concept of “more is more” didn’t quite resonate with me. Other books and online resources about …
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Writing effective SOPs: 3 points most people miss
Good management requires some solid systems in place to manage toward or against. You can create systems and effective SOPs (standard operating procedures) for any operational aspect of your and your team’s work. This includes running meetings, documentation, projects execution, individual and team reviews – the list goes on. Naturally, companies have systems and SOPs …
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Employee recognition: Here’s how to do it right.
Being a boss is a job, an actual job. Being a manager means you need to learn how to do employee recognition well for your direct reports as part of your duties and responsibilities… even if it’s not explicitly listed in your job description. Employee recognition = acknowledgement + reward. If you know how to …
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Successfully Manage the Mental Work-Home Transition (The Solution Is Not What You Might Think!)
Even if you’re the type of person who loves your job and doesn’t mind being consumed by it, at one point or another, you’ve probably faced the challenge of how to limit the mental energy you expend on work in non-work situations. You’ve searched for a way to make sure you leave work at work …
You can actually cultivate creativity. Here’s how.
I remember having to fill out performance reviews where one of the questions on the forms assessed the “creativity” of the employee. Creativity? Hm. At that time, to me, creativity either had to do with art (not relevant in my line of work), or the demonstration of some grand, brilliant solution to a problem that …
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Conduct an Interview to Land the Right Person: The Midlevel Manager’s Guide
Turnover sucks, but it happens! As a manager, congratulations: it might be your job to replace people who leave your team. While you may or may not have complete authority in the whole process, you know you’ve got to conduct an interview (probably a bunch of them). This is your roadmap for making sure you …
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Mid-Year Reviews: Only Two Solutions You Need to Get Back on Track
For many organizations, mid-year reviews on job performance are either underway or soon to be underway. You probably developed goals for 2018 in the latter part of 2017, and it’s the perfect time to see how far we’ve come! … or how far we haven’t come. Every year, a few of my direct reports would …
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Email communication: Discover the one guiding principle that governs how to email well
Use email only when you need to impart information, not have an exchange of information.
Growth Mindset: The #1 Key to Management Mastery
Companies often set up their management roles as rewards for outstanding individual performance. There is one fundamental problem with this: individual achievement has nothing to do with good management. (See my post on the differences among leadership and management and authority.) But all is not lost! In order to transition well from stellar individual performance to …
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Managing Up: Address the 3 Biggest Challenges to Mastering this Elusive Skill
When I interviewed a number of mid-career managers about their greatest pain points, one item came up again and again: managing up. You can find a lot of great articles online about managing up, and they’re useful for tips and things you can try to do to manage up better. However, I’m interested in exploring …
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New perspective in critical thinking
This week, we are reviewing the 3-2-1 Model for Critical Thinking. I walk you through it in the video above. In the Analysis step, we ask two questions: (1) How we decide to interpret the information we receive, and (2) What principles, whether from different perspectives, viewpoints or assumptions, we are applying. Let me make it …
Application of the 3-2-1 Model for Critical Thinking
I simplified critical thinking into a short model because I would rather we all practice it more systematically in our daily lives. I would prefer to see that critical thinking is not something we have to strive toward when it really matters, but rather, we flex that muscle so regularly, it’s second-nature. Super complex critical …
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The 3-2-1 Model for Critical Thinking
I have a simplified model for critical thinking to share with you. (If you are interested in more complex models, you can check out The Foundation for Critical Thinking, Pearson’s RED model, or others.) We define critical thinking as analyzing information prior to making a judgment. Therefore, at its most elemental, my version of a …
Talking about accountability at work
For situations in which you do decide to be 100% accountable, it’s not something you mention to people. It is only something you can rise to the occasion for.
Deciding to be accountable
Good managers understand that they cannot make someone be accountable. That is only for the individual to accept and act on.
Know the difference between being responsible and being accountable.
The key to avoiding the victim manager mindset is understanding the difference between responsibility and accountability.
Avoiding typical mistakes in meeting notes
The D.A.R.T. Method(TM) applied to note-taking for meetings: doing it right.
You only need 4 sentences for meeting notes
Reduce brain clutter with a proven method of taking efficient meeting notes.
Game Changer: a refreshing lens on “proactive vs reactive”
What if being proactive meant not that you prepare for what’s coming, but that you CREATE what’s coming?