The concept of the last mile doesn’t just apply to supply chains. We find ourselves in that last mile every day, especially as managers. An essential component of our job is to deliver: we give information and directives to our teams; updates and strategies to our leaders; reassurance and satisfaction to our clients. Good performance earns us breathing room to address the rest of our tasks. Bad performance can create havoc.
Read moreBe the Motivator—Save the World!
We’ve been talking a lot these past few months about motivation, including getting ourselves motivated. One of our roles as a colleague—whether we’re officially in a leadership role or not—is to help inspire the people around us. If we seem angry all the time, don’t listen, or don’t seem to care, our less-than-stellar behavior affects those around us.
Read moreDon’t Let Your Work Knock You Down: Getting Yourself Motivated
Recently, we wrote about motivation and how it’s rooted in activation, persistence, and intensity. When faced with a new task or project, sometimes we feel genuine excitement and can’t wait to get going on it. Too often, however, knowing we have to do something fills us with a Sisyphean dread that demoralizes us before we begin.
Read moreAchieving the Impossible Dream (by Getting Motivated)
In the business world, some people seem able to accomplish every task they set for themselves, while others struggle to meet basic requirements. We generally all fall somewhere along the motivation continuum, and we may have specific areas where we feel especially unmotivated—or those where we have boundless energy. This post can help you tap into your motivations.
Read moreCommunication—the Not-So-Soft Skill
At its heart, good communication is about getting the right people together at the right time to discuss the right topics. We found examples of this while helping a client potentially save billions of dollars. Read more to see what that experience taught us about communication.
Read moreCan I Teach Someone how to Be a Leader?
A colleague expressed it well: she knew how to teach technical tasks, like how to add a user account, but she doesn’t believe it’s possible to teach soft, squishy skills, like how to lead. As the creator and facilitator of our leadership development program, Gillespie Nimble, I’m going to shock you and say that I agree 100%.
And that’s why I’m a facilitator, not a teacher or instructor.
Read moreFour Ways to Combat Loneliness on Your Team
Loneliness is linked to poor mental and physical health, lack of sleep, and weak social skills. Together those mean higher incidents of absenteeism, lack of productivity, and decreased focus on the job. As a manager, what can you do to decrease loneliness?
Read moreHow to Survive Feedback
Sometimes feedback is hard to take. In this post, I share four tips I tell new managers in our coaching sessions:
- Remember that there’s a reason you were selected for this position.
- Be honest with yourself about how you’re feeling at the moment.
- Look at the feedback from a distance.
- Acknowledge what you need to acknowledge.
Chronic Body Odor and Communication
Talking costs nothing, doesn’t trigger sensitivities to fragrance, and could actually solve the problem, instead of coating it in floral scent. However, it’s a lot harder to raise a sensitive issue than it is to spray an air freshener. As a new or seasoned manager, you’re going to face lots of difficult conversations. So, how do you address sensitive and difficult conversations with your direct reports? Let’s look at the technique we explore in Gillespie Nimble.
Read moreBeyond the MBA: Three Interpersonal Skills Every Manager Should Master
“You are hired for your technical skills and fired for your lack of interpersonal skills.” Over the years, I’ve seen the truth of this play out time and again.
With that in mind, an article in Chief Learning Officer magazine[1] recently caught my eye. It posed the question: Are MBAs still a valuable development tool?
Read moreTriangles Belong in Geometry, Not in Teams
First-time managers face a range of challenges—complicated dynamics with their colleagues, managing friends, establishing credibility, and sometimes, managing older or more experienced peers. In Gillespie’s work with new managers, we see one challenge again and again: triangulation. Triangulation happens when a new manager is faced with an uncomfortable situation and complains about it to a friend or ally, rather than talking to the source of the problem. This issue is prevalent throughout organizations and damaging to teams.
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