Everyone groans when they are told they need to do yearly performance reviews. Why? While I’m sure you can state lots of reasons, I believe its because they aren’t done correctly. The first problem is that it is a yearly performance review. If I’m giving feedback just once a year to my employees, I’m doing something wrong. Reviews are an opportunity to give people feedback on how well they are, or are not, doing their job. Giving feedback is key…
Once one of my peers and I were commiserating about how our calendars were overflowing with meetings. I mentioned I was cutting down on meetings that didn’t have agendas and specific objectives because I wanted to make sure I had time to meet with my staff one on one. He looked at me oddly and very condescendingly replied, “I don’t have time to meet with my staff one on one. They should know what they are doing.” His reply shocked me…
Someone once asked me what was the most important skill or quality for a manager to have. My answer: self-awareness. Many people would say self-awareness is not a skill or a quality – I think it is. Self-awareness: Conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.* Knowing myself, how I react to situations, what motivates me, what I want – all of these impact how I act as a manager. I learned this the hard way. One of…