November 29, 2006 Speedlinking

• Be Excellent gives us the Gallup 12 Elements of Great Managing
• Soichiro Honda on Enjoyment and Innovation on metacool. From the article - “Many business thinkers write about managing innovation, as if innovation were a thing. But innovation is ultimately the expression of a set of behaviors originating in the individual.”
• Management Skills points out an interesting way to keep your Meetings from Bombing. Just like Soichiro Honda’s premise above, the key is to not try to create a fake experience.
• 10 Ways to Keep Your Most Talented People, an open letter to CEOs, COOs, CIOs and CFOs across the corporate world from Escape from Cubicle Nation

What’s a Leader to do when THEY have the BLAHs?

Aren’t Leaders supposed to always be positive, cheerful, never frustrated?

How can they successfully Lead the Team if they are down or discouraged?

The answers are simple. Yes. and they can’t.

So what do you do when your the Leader and you have the BLAHs?

…my wife says… try an anti-deppressant…. but the real answer is Check your Balance!!!

Depending on how ‘out of balance’ you are, will determine the extent of your remedy.

Rate yourself, or better yet listen to others around you.

My wife often tells me I work too much, I guess I always have. But when you start hearing that from your employees or your team members want to know why your so down… You better do something quick to CHANGE…

Continue reading ‘What’s a Leader to do when THEY have the BLAHs?…’

November 20, 2006 Speedlinking

• Do you give your employees answers, or do you lead them to the answer through questions? Rick Garlikov demonstrates the power of the Socratic Method by teaching third grade students binary arithmetic.
• Roger von Oech asks you to remember to Think Like a Kid when approaching your problem. One question that I would add to his list is the simple “Why?”
• Paul Kedrosk has Yahoo’s “Peanut Butter” Memo in it’s entirety if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s a great insight into how an innovative company can become mired by silos, duplicate work, and managing instead of leadership.
• Lifehack breaks down what they believe it takes to become a great leader. It’s a great list of simple, key points that all leaders should be using.
• CNN tells the story of Sergio Zyman, the man behind “New Coke.” Can you have innovation and at the same time punish failure? Are you punishing failure?

November 13, 2006 Speedlinking

1. Ten Leadership Things to Learn from Guy Kawasaki
2. Is the action in a pit stop a Democracy or Dictatorship? - Management skills blog has former CEO of Porche Peter Schultz’s take on it.
3. A few leadership tips from Christine.net gathered from Startup Camp - Plan for mistakes, focus on your team, and set expectations
4. Businessweek shows us How to “Wow ‘Em Like Steve Jobs” in our presentations

Leadership 101 - Seek First to UNDERSTAND…

I always used to think that my Management Skills and Experience were nothing special. After all leadership skills and techniques seem like just old fashion common sense. I actually still believe that to be true. There are no great secrets here, but for some reason many people lack basic leadership skills or what I would refer to as Leadership 101.

Everyday I find that people in Authority, aren’t always effective leaders. Leadership is an Action not a position.

If you have recently been put into a position of authority, here are some things you should note as you get started.

Continue reading ‘Leadership 101 - Seek First to UNDERSTAND……’

November 6, 2006 Speedlinking

I love reading about ways to manage up. It’s like knowing the secret behind a magic trick or how to solve a Rubik’s cube. To someone who doesn’t know how, it’s simply amazing to see. But, once you know the trick you can do it yourself over and over with ease.

• Black Belt Productivity has some great leadership tips about managing up, and about being willing to do what others won’t
• One from the archives of Joel Spolsky about Getting things done when you are only a grunt. While he is talking about IT and programming, it’s easy to see how his tips could help in any job.
• Brazen Careerist gives us 7 ways to manage up. She really drives home the need to communicate with your boss.
• Guy Kawasaki reviews “The No Asshole Rule” by Robert Sutton and gives a great list of ways to avoid being one and how to deal with them

Do You Make Work Harder by not Managing Your Boss?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get your work done and have your boss support and encourage you?

There’s an interesting thread going on over at the Blogging Boss about managing your boss.

In the first post, More about Managing Up Eric quoted some of my thoughts about managing up -

Continue reading ‘Do You Make Work Harder by not Managing Your Boss?…’