There are many skills and concepts to master to be a good manager. Management is a career change, not just a promotion, after all. It takes years to master many of them. However, there is one skill, one approach, that is the best place to start: Self-awareness. To be a Good Manager, Always Start with […]
“Ugh…I should have never taken this job.” No one wants that feeling, but it happens all too often. You had high hopes when you interviewed and then accepted your job, but now it’s proving to be miserable. When you take a job, you’re unfortunately locked in. While the company can generally fire or lay you […]
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Zac Cramer is the CEO of IT Assurance, a Portland, Oregon based IT consultancy. His managers had a system for managing their teams performance and growth, but he lacked a way to measure the ongoing effectiveness of his managers. The Problem: Measuring the effectiveness of […]
“It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” – General Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army With Memorial Day this weekend in America, we honor those who have died serving in our military. The crucible of war and battle is a […]
“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 […]
What is the key to a successful performance management process? While that’s not the most exciting question someone may ask. It’s a important and expensive one. According to Gallup, “the cost of poor management and lost productivity from employees in the U.S. who are not engaged or actively disengaged [is] between $960 billion and $1.2 […]
Effective listeners know how important Epictetus’s quote is to being a great leader: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” There’s so much to be learned from others, and that only happens if you give them a chance to speak. If you’re an extrovert […]
How are my managers really doing? What’s really happening in my organization? What do my people really think? Am I missing anything important? Whether you’re a veteran leader, or brand new to having real hierarchy below you, these kinds of questions are likely to be on your mind quite often. The more removed from the […]
At the heart of Silicon Valley is the spirit of invention and innovation. Solving problems and inventing the future is what drives so many to move here and then start and build companies. Along with this inspiring innovation, there are a shocking number of bad managers here. Despite increasing attention, management and leadership continues to […]
“I apologize for the length of this letter; I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” – Mark Twain Mark Twain was right. It takes a lot of work to make a good point in just a few words. That’s part of the beauty of Twitter; the character limit forces those sharing thoughts to be […]
