Who really owns a 1 on 1 meeting? Is it the manager’s meeting? Is it the team member’s? Who should be in charge of the agenda? If you read around, you’ll see people advocating for a lot of positions. I’ve seen some say, “It’s the team member’s meeting and their job to be adults and […]
How are you feeling right now? Like really…how are you doing? If you’re like most people I’ve spoken to, things are pretty rough with quarantine continuing. You may be feeling it, and there is likely some employee burnout on your team. An informal poll of my followers on Twitter showed that over 2/3rds of respondents […]
Do you know how your managers are doing? Would you be surprised if any of them suddenly had a few team members quit? Or maybe your spidey-sense is going off that something isn’t quite right with one of your teams, but you’re not sure why? The life of a senior leader is filled with challenges. […]
One on one meetings are a cornerstone to any effective manager <-> team member relationship from small startups to giant companies. What you talk about, and the one on one meeting questions you ask, make all the difference in the performance of your team. It’s why Andy Grove, legendary founder of Intel and author of […]
Have you recently shifted to working remotely? Has it been a smooth process, or more of a bumpy ride? Getting into remote work is tricky. Making the switch from a regular co-located team to a fully remote team as many of us recently have had to do is particular difficult. Fortunately, these are well-known issues […]
Uh oh. What’s Plan B? When a crisis hits, it can leave many leaders in a panic. What do you do when you face any of these situations: A major product launch fails The year ends way below your sales goals A recession hits the economy, freezing many of your customer’s budgets That next round […]
Question: What’s the biggest mistake managers make in their 1 on 1s? Answer: Filling them up with status and project updates. You can easily fill 30 to 60 minutes every week just talking about how your team member’s projects are going, and avoid all the important things that are best covered in a 1 on […]
“The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.” – Winston Churchill As Winston Churchill captures well, good communication is central to success as a leader. When your organization grows to have layers between you and other team members, the skip level meeting becomes one of your best tools for effective communication. We recently took […]
Throughout the country and around the world, an unfortunate side effect of quarantine is hitting companies hard: major drops in revenue are forcing the difficult decision of layoffs and furloughs. According to a survey conducted by business research group, The Conference Board, more than half of US executives plan layoffs and furloughs due to the […]
Ever had a great manager that invested time in helping you grow and develop? It felt great to have a coach at work, didn’t it? If not, chances are you taught yourself how to get better– whether that was your skills to be a great individual contributor or how to be a manager– through trial […]
