The Cancer of Corporate America…Do you have it?

Wherever there are people, the disease lurks; waiting to ‘eat at’ it’s next victim.

…I can’t believe that THEY were promoted, everyone knows that THEY are incompetent…

…It’s clear now what is needed to advance in this organization, certainly not drive, dependability, and producing results…

…those were my ideas and presentations that got THEM promoted. It should have been ME…

…of all the Leadership styles to reward, I would have never picked THAT one, Not only do THEY lack Leadership, THEY are a terrible Manager…

I can’t remember where I heard these quotes, but it certainly wasn’t from my experience…

So when this happens to you; what are you feeling?

• Jealousy typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival. This rival may or may not know that he or she is perceived as a threat.
• Envy is a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.
• or BOTH

Knowing what your feeling, is the first step in protecting yourself from the Corporate Cancer that can destroy even the best leaders.

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Anyone CAN do it, but everyone DOESN’T

Look at most successful people and you may find yourself saying,

‘that’s not so special, I could have done that…’.

The truth is your probably right. However, the difference is that THEY actually DID something about it.

So now that you have set some GOALS; what have you put in place to make sure you’re working to achieve those goals?

Remember, Anyone CAN do it, but everyone DOESN’T or WON’T invest the effort needed to be successful.

I manage my goals in a similar way as I Manage My Time .

It’s really quite simple, ANYONE CAN DO IT! Here’s what works for me…

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Driving in the Fast Lane…or taking the Exit Ramp?

Do you ever ask yourself what you are doing and where are you going? Or have you been asked by others:

• What do you want to do when you grow up?
• What do you see yourself doing in 5 years?
• How do you plan to get there?

The list can go on and on… I know I have heard these all my life. For me it’s difficult to answer because I have always enjoyed where I was at the time. Maybe because I look to be content no matter where I am, or to look at life as a journey, not a destination.

If you’re like me, you’re handling your career like Driving in the Fast Lane. I’m going no where special, but I’m getting there fast… But ask any expert and you’ll see they all agree on one thing…

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Interview with Penelope Trunk

The Brazen Careerist herself, Penelope Trunk, was nice enough to take some time out of her day to do a quick interview with us.

Through her blog and her new book - Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, Penelope doles out tips to navigate through the beast that is corporate life for a new generation of workers.

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March 05, 2007 Speedlinking

• Not that many people have trouble determining this on their own, but Guy Kawasaki gives some hard fast rules for determining if Your Boss is an Asshole.
• Maybe all the reason why you should Be a mentor, starting now - Learn now how to give back the knowledge you have to your peers and keep doing it throughout your career.
• Morning Edition’s workplace consultant, Ben Dattner, talks about Workplace Woes: The Team-Building Retreat. He points out that many offsite team-building exercises actually are promoting competitive, individual wins instead of collaboration and team building (Although paint-ball does sound like fun…)
• And CNN talks with Eric Schmidt and gets more detail about Google’s 10% time and what “Don’t Be Evil” really helps to accomplish

U.S. Anti-Terrorism efforts are run by Managers

Movie Plot Threats

The current U.S. efforts to fight terrorism are an unwinnable battle. The majority of effort, money, and planning is spent trying to protect against “Movie Plot Threats.” The problem with this mindset though, is that there will always be a different easier method to attack, a different avenue, or a loophole.

For example - Liquids are banned because they are dangerous, but thrown into a big container directly next to where the line queues. Even odder is that small containers of liquids are safe as long as they are in a zip lock bag. These efforts are pure security theater, no one is one bit safer because of these solutions.

Many organizations have these same issues and there are many parallels between these policies and how groups are managed.

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When do you stop being Told what to DO?

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. –Peter Drucker

Who tells your boss what to do?

It has always amazed me that in every position I have worked in my past, employees always have the same response to that question - Who tells your boss what to do? Their boss!

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Leadership, Passion, and Starbucks

NPR’s Marketplace has a great interview with Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks up on their site.

What stuck me most about the interview was his passion about what he was doing. How fully he believed in his goal.

It’s worth taking a step back and thinking about it during your day. What are you doing right now that you feel that passion for? As a leader, who around you are you helping to build that passion in?

It’s so easy to fall into the day to day activities of “work” that without using your leadership skills, you can forget who is in control of your life.

If you don’t have that passion yet, what a great day today is to start.

Supervisors are HISTORY; Are Managers next on the extinction list?

Remember Supervisors? People tasked to “watch” others work… They have almost completely faded away or at least for most industries have… and for good reason. How unproductive!

Just as Supervisors have been replaced in the last decade by either Managers or empowering Employees, I believe Managers are next to go…

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January 12, 2007 Speedlinking

The first two from this weeks links are all about “tricking” yourself into doing what you really want. Some great techniques on how to accomplish what you set out to do from these great blogs -

• Steve Pavlina gives some great ways to achieve your goals by improving your character. The simple technique he writes about can really help to get past problems. What would a person with more X do in my situation?
• Small things matter more than you think. Carmine from Slow Leadership shows how lots of little decisions are “often the key to acting on the bigger choices you want to make about your life.”
• A particular favorite of mine, because so many in the tech world fall into this trap and avoiding it is a great way to stand out by avoiding it - In Oh why won’t they ever learn? Mike Schaffner talks about the trap of becoming annoyed at users because they fail to learn the “obvious.” (Love the new name of your blog!)
• And Business Week wraps it up with some more great ideas about running effective meetings. I love the idea of projecting the meeting notes on a wall during the meeting. But, as Penelope Trunk pointed out in our effective meeting ideas, the trick isn’t how to run a great meeting - it’s getting people to use the “great meeting” techniques in the meetings!