Who Does What

People have questions. New people to your organizations and even existing staff have questions. Some are complex and some are very basic. Often times the people who know the answers aren’t available. Struggling and not knowing causes stress and frustration. Consider creating a simple tool, a “Who Does What” tool.

Your Success Depends on People

My Dale Carnegie instructor once chided me for using “Never” and “Always” too much; however, I think even he might appreciate how I have used them in this post.

Take five minutes and read this. You won’t miss the time, and content may change the way you approach the people around you. Like the other posts on my blog this one is full of “Tools You Can Use Today.”

Project Management Tips

Few teams in high school, college/university, and even in the work environment currently apply project management skills to everyday assignments and projects.

These skills can make a difference, eliminate frustration, and help transform groups of individuals into high-performance teams. These skills work on large construction projects, software design projects, and on any academic and work projects whether they are large or small.

August might seem like a funny time to look for a summer job, but …

August/September is a good time to look for a summer job. Any time is a good time to remember the skills, attitudes, and behaviors that make any job good for workers and employers. Hiring students is good for businesses and for charities and non-profit organizations.

The First Two Weeks … and the Last Two Weeks

New people are excited and want to do a good job. Successful organizations combine good onboarding plans with detailed development plans to give their people the skills, attitudes, and behaviors necessary to achieve the goals of the organization and their team members.

A person’s final weeks are equally important. As we have mentioned successful organizations manage hiring, onboarding, and the first weeks and months to give their new hires all of the tools they need to succeed. Successful organizations set themselves apart from their competition equally as much, by the ways they plan and manage the time when a person is preparing to leave their organization.

Anyone can be caught by their ego and silos

Working effectively with people is fundamental to any success you will achieve. You are learning to recognize and give people around you permission to reign in your ego. Be constantly vigilant to prevent walls and silos from being built around you. Finally, appreciate that you will succeed faster and longer by realizing that you make mistakes.

Some stress is good, too much is never good …

Is your daily focus simply on “surviving” each day? What follows are some simple ideas that can help you have your life again, achieve a better work/life balance, and “grow” your business or organization.

These are not my ideas, these are lessons learned from some of the best leaders and entrepreneurs I have met in more than thirty years in the “for-profit” and “charitable” sectors.

A Good Place to Start

Becoming a good leader means embarking on a path that never ends. People, organizations, and the leader themselves will evolve, change, and adapt in response to their changing world.

I have learned while being mentored by some incredible people. Three of those lessons helped to shape my entire philosophy of leadership, “Humility, Consideration, and Determination.”

Quitting over a flashlight …

We had thought we were inclusive, but we realized we needed to do even more. We discovered the real driving force for our continued success was because we learned to appreciate, acknowledge, and respond to the blind spots that we didn’t even know were there.

Start small, but start now.

Every organization has drama … what you do about it makes all the difference.

Every organization has drama.

Drama is virtually impossible to avoid because organizations consist of people and when you have two or more people together, the potential for drama exists.

That’s not cynical, in my experience, that’s just how things work. Whether it’s good or bad depends on how the organization reacts to and anticipates drama.