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Posts Tagged ‘Inimitable Leadership’

Tips for the Managewhich: Is What I’m Doing Resume-Worthy?

Photo by Thana Thaweeskulchai

Photo by Thana Thaweeskulchai

Career Management groups are filled with people who haven’t progressed in their careers, and those are the folks who are having the toughest time landing new positions.   Many of those fall into the category of being happy that they had a job, and so they did whatever was necessary to keep it.   This is fear-based decision-making at it’s finest, and I say at it’s finest because the decision probably wasn’t that conscious for most of them.

Managewhich? What to do With Complete and Utter Incompetence

Photo by Ryan Schultz

Photo by Ryan Schultz

Her name is Oblivia.  She’s nice.  People like her.  And, she can’t get anything done.

Have you ever worked with someone who is Unconsciously Incompetent?  That is to say, that they are so incompetent that they don’t even know that they are incompetent?

It’s rare.  Most of us know when we really, truly suck at something.  However, there are times…

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 (Part 2)

Photo By Brian

Photo By Brian

Where we left off last post is that our Managewich, Breeze, gets urgent requests from her manager, Hoover, and Breeze habitually has managed down, meaning that she’s generally accepted the work and the consequences of doing it for herself and her team and has muddled through by either directing her team to do the work or doing it herself.  I made a request of Breeze that she not accept work until one of three things has happened, the first being that she understands fully and completely how these reports and spreadsheets are going to be used and how they add value.  So far, this has resulted in some relationship building with Hoover, and it’s reduced some of the distracting work.  And, we’re not done yet.

Manage Which? Up Or Down?

Photo by Daniel R. Blume

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.

Woo Hoo Woo Hoo, Making My Radio Debut

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m very excited to have been invited as a guest on the “Business Networking Brunch” this Sunday.  We’re going to be on the air from 9am – 11am Central time on 1360 am in Dallas.

Managewiches, I am there to beat the drum for the cause.   Some of the topics I plan to hit:

  • Why middle managers are integral to execution
  • Why leadership is important in all levels of the organization

Managewich Tip: Negativity Doesn’t Work, So Quit Getting Sucked In

Photo by elain

Photo by elain

I had a great weekend.  As most of you know, Grow Your Business Grow Your Life LIVE! was in Dallas this past Friday and Saturday, and I was blessed with the opportunity to be a part of the behind the scenes planning and execution.  I say blessed because I got to spend time with bright, generous, kind people, and frankly it was uplifting.

Today, I am Puzzled.

Jigzone.com is a great place to do some puzzles online

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.

The Omniscient Managewich

I have a question for the sandwich generation of managers, middle managers or owner managers, stuck in the middle of competing priorities and agendas:

Why is it so hard to know what someone else really wants or believes, and yet, how is it that we know others’ intentions just by looking at their body language or actions?

Paradoxical, yes?

Managewich Tips: Tired of Participating in the 80% of Change Initiatives That Fail?

Change is hard… or is it?

Think about a time when change was easy.  What made it easy?

For me, a good example to illustrate how change does and doesn’t work is recycling.

At first, to recycle, we had to separate cans, glass and paper,  and we had to sort through the plastics for the ones that could be recycled.  There was a special, thinner, less sturdy bag that we had to use.  We had to take it to the recycling center ourselves.  I quit somewhere in the middle of the first bag of cans.

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