Already Ripe

by shaun on Monday, April 5, 2010

I’m a strong believer in “prevention.”  Keeping bad things from happening rather than having to make “lesser evil” choices once things have broken wide open is always the way to go. So, as I look at my posts so far, I’m noticing that my commentary and examples are slightly skewed toward what I’ve come to [...]

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A Tough Place to Manage

by shaun on Monday, March 29, 2010

Diane knew, going in, that where she was going had never been voted anyone’s “50 Best Places to Work” – but she wasn’t quite prepared for the mess she found when she got there. Her experience doing training and implementation of network software for warehouse systems had given her this opportunity to earn “pretty big” [...]

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So Human

March 8, 2010

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So Human Hi- Click on the player for my brief audio intro to this blog. Thanks! Shaun

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Good Supervisor, Good Person – Employee Problem

November 13, 2009

Begin with a situation that happens all the time: for whatever reason, an employee has trouble managing his or her feelings, it spills out, and begins affecting customer service. You’re the supervisor. Like any supervisor, you were looking forward to teamwork, cooperation, creativity, mutual support, and you were hoping you’d hardly ever have an unpleasant [...]

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Employee Regret

March 4, 2009

  I laughed out loud when I first heard the term “tattoo regret,” but I know first-hand that, in a human workplace, there’s a threshold moment when a manager realizes he’s got employee regret.  An employee isn’t working out – but it’s not funny, and not easy to fix. The actual problem might be the employee’s [...]

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A Good Case

February 9, 2009

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. [...]

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Workplace Coaching? Affirmative

February 9, 2009

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, [...]

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Parallel Universes

February 9, 2009

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 [...]

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“We Can Do This” management

February 9, 2009

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 [...]

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The Monkeys on Hawthorne’s Back

November 19, 2008

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.

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