Stupid? Annoying? You’re Fired.

Recently I was looking through the terms of a web service that I use, and I found this statement buried in there.

We can revoke your [company name] account at any time. Sounds harsh, right? We’re unlikely to ever do that, unless you do something truly annoying or stupid. We’re not going to list the annoying or stupid things you can do to make us mad, because that’s like a magnet for stupid and annoying people. Just don’t do stupid stuff with your account, and we’ll leave your account alone.

It reminded me of an at-will statement that I would probably put into our employee handbook (if we had one). Let’s translate it to “HR” speak: Continue reading →

Change-Friendly Leadership (Book Review)

Change Friendly Leadership by Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan

When I got my review copy of Change Friendly Leadership, I was transported back to my college days of studying change management. It was a great course and I had a phenomenal teacher, so my thirst for ideas related to managing change well started early. Good thing I found this book! I have two pages of notes and I’m not even finished going back and digging into all of the pages I’ve flagged for further review. There may be another review in the future or even some posts on subtopics to delve deeper, because this thing is full of solid advice for business leaders trying to work within the change process.

Okay, now that I’ve built it up, let’s peel back the layers and dig into a few of the key points of Change-Friendly Leadership.

What I liked

Training failure-The author quotes a study by ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) that says that despite record amounts being spent on training in the workplace, less than 30% of training is being implemented. Continue reading →

Management Mistake From Undercover Boss

This common management mistake affects all organizations

management mistake undercover boss I don’t have cable. I watch 1-2 shows online, but I’m otherwise not enslaved to the TV. Recently when visiting my wife’s parents’ home I caught a few minutes of an episode of Undercover Boss. It was an interesting show, but when it got to the end and the CEO started making decisions, I realized again how common this specific management mistake really is.

At one point during the episode, a truck driver had tried to train the CEO on how to drive the truck, and he failed miserably. At the conclusion of the show, the CEO promoted the truck driver to be a supervisor over the other drivers.

What’s the lesson here?

Technical experts shouldn’t automatically become managers of other technical people. Continue reading →

Wisdom Meets Passion (Book Review)

Wisdom Meets Passion by Dan Miller and Jared Angaza

I’ve been reading and listening to Dan Miller for over 5 years now. In short, this book is more greatness. I ended up taking very few notes for a few reasons. First, this book is full of things that I live every day, so I didn’t take great notes on those areas since I have a lot of experience with following passions, (trying to) learn from those with wisdom, etc. Secondly, it’s just engaging to read it. It’s not the typical business/career book with a lot of sound bytes. I’ve tried to pull a few together for your benefit below.

What I liked

10 steps to education and getting rich (not what you think!)-I’ve omitted the details here (get the book!), but you can find this list on page 66. These seem so innocuous, but imagine doing even a small handful of these actions every single year. Every. Year. In 10 years that’s over 100 books, 30 training events, 10 new skills, etc. It’s exponential growth! Crazy to imagine doing it all at once, but very doable when you look at reading just one book per month…
- Read 12 books this year
- Attend 3-4 seminar/training events this year
- Subscribe to 2 great magazines
- Listen to 3-4 podcasts and read 3-4 blogs per week Continue reading →

The Orange Revolution (Book Review)

The Orange Revolution by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

I reviewed a book previously by these authors (All In), and I might start a fan club. They’re darn good at what they do. I purchased The Orange Revolution a few months ago because I had a grand vision. When I read the subtitle (how one great team can transform an entire organization), I instantly started thinking about the team I was working in. Our Operations team touched on all areas of the corporate infrastructure. The Director of Operations was known to say that she would put our team up against any other due to the strong commitment and varied talents of our team. My challenge was filtering that down from the Operations group to the rest of the organization. So in true geek form, I bought a book.

What I liked

Breakthrough teams have members who: demonstrate personal competency, expand their competency with leadership traits of goal setting, communication, trust, accountability, and recognition, clearly visualize the cause, follow the rule of 3 (wow others, no surprises, and cheer for others) Continue reading →

A, B, or C Player? What Are You?

Talented Players-Part 2

The second half the title didn’t make it due to space, but it should read “A, B or C? What Are You? Do you, or should you, care?”

a player knocks out of park Quoting from Part 1 of this series as a refresher:

Think about your own team or company. Can you stick a label on each person to identify them as an A, B, or C? More importantly,Â shouldÂ you?

Do your people need to have a label of A, B, or C stuck on them from the moment they walk in the door? I could go either way with this, so I'm not saying you should or should not. I just want you to think about your own people and if it makes sense to do it for them…

But maybe it's not the best way to â€œboxâ€ your people in? Are you tacking on a label based on their current performance/situation when it will change over time? Continue reading →

Shirts and Other New Hire Goodies

shirts new hires Time and time again I am surprised by what pleases our new hires. We do a lot of communicating with our new people before they start, but I still never really get around to telling them about the things like free breakfast Thursdays, free drinks in the fridge, etc. I figure it’s a nice thing to find out on their first day that solidifies their decision that we truly care about our people. But one thing that almost always gets a positive response is our gift card to get a shirt with our company logo.