 Huge topic. Let’s start with a situation: An employee who doesn’t report to you asks that you keep the following in confidence. Their performance review is overdue by 4 months. The employee anticipates a pay raise which is needed due to their spouse’s working hours reduced due to forced furloughs. They also want to know if they are doing Ok or not. If not, what to improve. They think they are performing well, but without feedback, doubt is being to creep in. A pending lawsuit has resurfaced with newspaper visibility puling leader, their manager, into many meetings with different constituents; the organization’s board chair recently resigned; lack of funds may close organization within 6 months. The employee asked for the review 2 months ago and now does not how to approach manager. The employee does not want to show up as greedy, self-serving or add stress to manager; they love their job and how they are managed.
Your move. Will you advise them to have a transactional or the transformational conversation? The transactional track is easy, here’s what you say to the employee: Email boss with dates, facts and say you will forward this email to HR if review doesn’t happen within 5 days. Steve Roesler gives us these distinctions: Transactional conversations keep things as they are. Transformational conversations Continue reading » »
 Whether CEO, CFO, employee, spouse, spouse-ette, baker man, thief – we all want to know: How can I make him/her/them behave differently, the way I want them behave? The answer: You can’t, they must. OK, you saw that coming.
So, let’s rephrase the FAQ: How do you influence someone to change their behavior?
Answer: Obey the First Law of Performance, articulated by my past colleague Steve and Dave. Continue reading » »
Do you need to re-ignite yourself in these days of 100 inputs to produce 2 outputs? Turn up the volume!
If you consider yourself curious, creative and innovative (or want to demonstrate more of those qualities), listen not just to the music, but to the musician – the leader generating the sounds that move you.
Let’s start with less is more – as in Les Paul is more than a legendary guitarist. Considered a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible and credited with recording innovations, including overdubbing, tape delay, phasing effects, and multi-track recording, Les lead himself first as he describes playing with arthritic fingers, “learn(ing) in a hurry to live with and overcome obstacles”. Continue reading » »
 What do you say? Yes? No? This statement screamed from an ad in the September issue of Fast Company (www.fastcompany.com). I ripped it out (love ripping and tearing) and marked it with a “B” (code for a blog topic). (The pages of my books are peppered with these breadcrumbs as I follow my interests in “V” for values, “L” for leadership, “R” for relationship, “M” for measures, etc. Got codes?)
The company asking “Is not saying something a lie?” is a bank, the Ally Bank. I am not plugging them. I am plugging the question they ask. Great questions lead to great thinking. Answers often limit it.
Want to see TV’s answer? Go to http://www.fox.com/lietome. Want mine? Continue reading » »
 I take it all back. Well, some of it, anyway. In my last blog (“Millennials are Not Younger Boomers”), I made the case that what Millennials value, think important and can’t do without, is different from what Boomers cherish. Next day, I receive another intelligence report from HBR (http://harvardbusiness.org; July-Aug 09), How Gen Y & Boomers Will Reshape Your Agenda, with the tag line: Your oldest and youngest talent cohorts demand many of the same things in a workplace.
What? We like the same things? Shut-Up! (OK, this expression of surprise still sounds odd to me.) Sure, I felt younger by the minute as I read about how much I had in common with the younger-something’s. I felt older by the word as I, once again (and not for the last time), had to rethink yesterday’s well-reasoned view. [Sidebar: Rethinking is the new pink in 2009, replacing the know-it-all orange of 2008. The Good News Tip for 2010 and beyond: Thinking will not go out of style, like color. More about rethinking in future blogs, for now, it’s back to the shared bed.]
As it turns out, both the Millennials and I like flexible work arrangements and the opportunity to give …
Continue reading » »
|
|
