Management skills via container gardens I really want a yard but we live in the Bay Area, which makes space really expensive. For now my family shares a tiny yard with our downstairs neighbors and because I was too shy to ask, I spent our first 4 summers here without any sort of garden. This…
This morning I responded to a prospective client who is weighing bringing me onsite to teach So Now You’re a Manager to their leadership team. She asked me to address how this training’s content addresses the biggest problems in the org, which are: Managers can’t get out of the weeds and are too busy with…
Every day I coach emerging leaders as they move into managerial roles and I hear the same themes in all of our conversations: – How do I know if I’m doing well? – I miss being in the weeds of the work. – Humans are exhausting me. – I hear about the problems but I…
“I’ve had to delete texts lately,” my client said. “I start typing but realize partway through that it isn’t cool to share what annoys me at work with her anymore.” Holy cow, the complexities of promotions in friendly workplaces. You used to be peers. You talked over lunch about your days, you rolled your eyes…
I’m training for a 5k. I told my 4-year-old a month ago that I was starting to practice running so I could run a race before the summer. “Are you going to win the race?” he asked. I told him no, that I wasn’t going to win and he looked sad. “Maybe you’ll win, mom!…
In my first job out of college, I worked for a non-profit school. As part of my role I had to produce a quarterly newsletter that would be mailed to all 500 families. This meant that once a quarter, I picked up boxes (upon boxes) of the newsletter at our printer, labeled big envelopes and…
I coach employed people all week. I also coach employers. And all those hours of human talking has led me to a fundamental belief about the nature of employment: individuals and companies are like two sides of a plastic Easter egg. Healthy companies use managers to pay attention to the way they CLICK. (Stay with…
“The leadership is flagging.” This is the most common sentence I write in audits. You know why? (Get ready, it’s a shocker…) Being a leader is REALLY EFFING TIRING. Management can be such thrilling work. You are empowering humans to succeed! But it’s challenging work, it never ends and opportunities for training are few and far between. What…