As a manager, I’ve had many people over the years ask me for raises. Some people are very comfortable asking for raises and others are very uncomfortable. The ones that are comfortable usually approach it the same way. After a successful project in which they were a key part, they ask me for feedback. My feedback is usually good, and so they then say they think they have really gone above and beyond what was required of them and they…
Many of my Vice President’s and Practice Area Leads tell me, “Your team is a high performing team.” Then they ask, “What do you do to make it happen?” They comment, “Your team members are smiling all the time with happy faces,” or “Your Key Performance Metrics are all green with an excellent CPI (Customer Performance Index). 9 on the scale of 1 to 10 with continuous extension of the customer contracts.” “How do you make this happen?” Having a…
If you’ve ever worked at a small startup or have been part of a management team, you’ve probably worked on defining the company values and goals. Many employees are often cynical about the company values. They think it’s a futile exercise because it often seems that once the values are identified and listed on a company webpage, they are promptly forgotten. Some values frequently selected include: Integrity Respect Diversity These are all good words. But how are those words implemented…
Leaning forward across the table, I explained how I was writing a blog about management and leadership. The man sitting across from me had an impatient look on his face as he shook his head and said, “So you’re writing blogging software?” I said no, I wasn’t writing software to create blogs, I was writing a blog about management and leadership. He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss this notion and said, “That is not a…
“But we’ve always done it this way,” he told me as I asked why we needed to continue to track metrics I didn’t think anyone was using. So I asked him, “How are these metrics being used and by whom?” He answered, “Well, I like to track all of these in case someone wants to start using them.” I then went to several directors to ask them how much time it was taking them to collect these monthly metrics. One…