Posts Tagged ‘coaching’
What Got You Here May Not Get You There

Photo By Dani
When met with what seems to be a familiar situation, humans behave based on habit. The brain is designed to operate based on patterns and filters, so it’s very quick to assess “Woah! something’s going on here” vs. “Oh, OK” and respond accordingly.
By the way, it’s also the same mechanism that makes Bob’s name easier to remember than Atmajyoti’s, if you’re not Indian.
Managewhich Question: Who the “mans” the Role of Policy Police?
“The rules make it fair for everyone,” a quote from one Managewhich who’s struggling with influencing and managing her peers.
The Managewhich was describing how other groups are rewarded for complaining (as opposed to problem-solving), how other managers were giving undocumented vacation days in exchange for excessive for overtime, and other “rule-breaking” perks. Her point of view is that the rules were put in place for a reason. She follows the rules, and it makes her look like the bad guy when she doesn’t break them and others do. She wants to influence her peers to follow the rules.
Small Business Owners and Solo-preneurs: Learn the Power of Partnering
While many of us who start our own businesses or who become solo professionals value our independence, we quickly find more value in having people at our side to give us extra strength, visibility and insight in the market. And so we get out there both in person and online to network and build relationships.
It’s great to meet new people and learn what they do, and it’s even more exciting when you can find a great deal of synergy between your goals and theirs. This is when you can start to explore referral partnerships or strategic alliances.
For the Managewhich and Business Owner: Who’s a Team Player?

Photo by Joseph Shemuel
Team Player is one of those phrases that we all assume we have the same definition for. It’s one of the performance management buzz-phrases that shows on reviews and on job descriptions. And, we all think we know what it means, but do we?
Manage Which? Up or Down (Part 3)
In the saga of Breeze and Hoover, so far Breeze has been able to minimize the number of times her team is derailed by Hoover’s ad hoc requests. We set up three circumstances for which she’ll will accept the mission.
First, she has to fully understand how the ad hoc report or spreadsheet will be used. This forces Hoover to be clear about what he wants, and it also allows Breeze some input into how it’s produced. This minimized rework when Hoover has asked for something that actually won’t give him what he wants, and sometimes Hoover realizes that he doesn’t need the work done at all.
Manage Which? Up Or Down?

Photo by Daniel R. Blume
One of the recurring dilemmas for the Managewich is the balance between managing up and down. Today we’re going to examine the phenomenon of having to produce worthless crap that adds no value simply because the boss says so.
Take my friend Breeze. Her boss, Hoover, continually asks for this spreadsheet or that report, all of which demands that Breeze and her team drop whatever [productive] work they are doing to deliver this new requirement ASAP.
The Customer Experience & The Managewich

Photo by Tamer Shabaneh
My hubby and I just got back from an awesome trip to Cancun. I bought the trip somewhat last minute from Sams Club of all places. It was a surprise for Russ’s birthday, so I wanted it below the radar. The trip was almost too good to be true price-wise, and even though I did my research, my biggest concern was that the hotel was going to be awful.
Today, I am Puzzled.
Jigzone.com is a great place to do some puzzles online
Today, I’m puzzled.
As I am out and about at various networking events here in the DFW metroplex, I meet a lot of struggling solopreneurs. It seems like many businesses just aren’t doing as well as they were a year or two years ago. Something about the economy? Anyway, the usual topic of conversation when we have facilitated group discussions is around needing more clients or customers.
Managewich on the Run
“Stuck Inside These Four Walls, Sent Inside Forever, Never Seeing No One Nice Again Like You…”
Oops, sorry. That’s “Band on the Run.” But it could describe the managewich’s office, yes?
Whenever I hear about the “Fight or Flight” Response, I wonder…. is it really either or?
Tips For the Managewich: Don’t Kick the Dog
Ever had that experience where your manager got reamed by a customer, peer or her manager and then turned around and took it out on you? It gets the expression “kicking the dog” because it’s basically taking out frustration on the defenseless.
Those of us who aren’t that resilient have known for a while that this is a derailer of productivity and a behavior that is predictive of mediocrity because we’ve sat in our little neutrally colored cubicles and stewed about the unfairness of it and wasted time reviewing what we should have said or done differently.





