I laughed out loud when I first heard the term “tattoo regret,” but I know from first-hand experience in the workplace that there can be a threshold moment when a manager realizes he’s got supervisor regret – the employee isn’t working out – and it’s not funny.
The problem can be about actual ability, or it [...]
One of my favorite examples illustrating the many benefits of “coaching” a line supervisor happened also because of the flexibility provided by a good Employee Assistance Program (EAP.)
A supervisor who had recently become the Office Manager of a very busy State bureau came to see me – supposedly – about a personal problem at home. Truth [...]
The thing I like best about coaching is how straightforward it is: either our sessions are useful in a tangible way, or they’re not. If they’re not, the sessions should stop.
Sometimes it’s crystal clear why the sessions are helping. The interactions are stimulating, validating, liberating, or something that feels right. Sometimes it’s less obvious, but [...]
When I read business articles, I often get the feeling that the work world I see isn‘t quite what those folks are thinking of when they write about the workplace.
The problems they focus on always somehow seem the same – either non-strategic thinking or poor communication, or both. As I read, in my minds eye I [...]
Every once in awhile I dream of coming up with some phrase that’s so memorable and evocative, I can copywrite it. Then it would get picked up out there somehow, create some “buzz,”, generate a ton ideas and comments – as well as a bestselling book. So far, no luck.
But I was leafing through some notes [...]
…it’s amazing how it all unravels so quickly when some sort of challenge, problem, or piece of negativity erupts – and now everyone is deciding first and foremost, whose side am I on, and who’s on mine?
I can see how managers can come to resent, or at least view negatively, an employee’s need to be reassured, reinforced, praised, validated, or “checked-in” with and communicated with, so constantly. Since managers are usually squeezed for time themselves, their ideal employee is a self-starter who takes initiative, works fast and efficiently, doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t need hand-holding and – above all – doesn’t take up managerial time.
I vividly recall the anguish as she told me her story. She’d happily followed her husband here to Maine for his exciting appointment as statewide director of a huge program. She’d vacated her position as Special Ed. Department Chair at a highly-regarded public high school, where she was well known in her region as well as the [...]
In hindsight, it was probably true that Serena wasn’t a ton of fun to be around, but still …
The small office she worked in was virtually all women – with the exception of one customer service guy and one of the two salesmen who came around three or four times a month at best.
It was [...]
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In many workplaces, the key quality that makes someone a manager is his or her willingness to step up and take responsibility for the satisfactory completion of the work product. Since these managers know that their own job performance is being closely monitored, there’s a huge motivation to be right on top of real and imagined problems – in fact, failure to anticipate and act on “preventable” situations is one of the main reasons managers lose their jobs.