Archive for decision-making
Just Say “No”
Posted by: | CommentsPost by Jane K. Stimmler, contributing Women on Business writer
For those of us out here in the business world, the name of the game is seeking opportunities to get new clients and new assignments. We give and receive tips on how to build relationships, promote our accomplishments and communicate effectively – all with the end game of getting more and better work. For entrepreneurs, this translates into customers with new business. For corporate folks, it can mean broadening the scope of responsibility through a promotion or a new job.
But what if the prospective new client or assignment doesn’t feel right? Maybe you’re uncomfortable about it, but aren’t sure why. Is it ever appropriate to turn down work or a promotion? I believe, in the right circumstances, the answer is an emphatic “yes.” Don’t get me wrong – if you’re feeling a bit uneasy because you’re presented with a “stretch” assignment and your confidence is lacking, it is likely you’ll want to buck up and go for it. But there are times when saying “no” is not only the right thing to do, but also is positively empowering! In fact, as an entrepreneur, I’ve come to the view that while it’s flattering (not to mention potentially lucrative) when people want to do business with my firm – if it isn’t right for us – it’s usually a mistake to take it on.
Leadership and Emotional Pollution
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Did you ever throw a paper cup on the ground and walk away? The women who read this blog would not think to do that. The cup would find a home in a trash can.
And, if you look down and there is a candy wrapper lying on the pavement, do you pick it up and throw it in a waste basket? Most likely you would take the moment to help clean up the area.
So, why do we walk past unpleasant situations, unpleasant people and just keep going? And, sadly, there are also times we add to the difficulties with our comments and critiques and more “junk” is left in the room.
It’s time to look emotional pollution in the eye and start a campaign against toxic patterned behavior spills.
Saying “no” to divisiveness, to gossip, to office politics is an important step to cleaning up this invisible environment that pollutes as much as leaving trash on the floor.
Think about it for a moment. When someone tells you a “juicy tidbit” about a colleague how do you respond? Do you simply say “uh huh” and walk on? Do you ask for details and add “I knew she couldn’t be trusted?” Do you go to another colleague and say “Wait till you here this?”
5 Lessons I’ve Learned about Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsThe economic waves have settled a bit and my company is getting ready to hire several new employees. As the resumes have rolled in, more than I can ever remember, I thought back to my very first professional job and the anticipation of the world that was unfolding before me.
When you started your career what was front and center on your work agenda? I was armed with a master’s degree in psychology and I was going to make the world a happier place.
There was no idea of owning a business, no idea of leading others, no idea of public speaking, and no idea of writing a book. I was focused on learning the ins and outs of being a therapist, working with the invisible forces that make us do what we do.
Interestingly, forty years later the core of my career is the same. I still love to dig down into the hidden world of behavior patterns and how they impact us at home and at work. I also am amazed that instead of a small office with just the right therapeutic setting of chairs, tables and a couch I run a 450 acre retreat center that can sleep 60 people, with an organic vegetable garden, labyrinth, pond large enough for a paddle boat and outdoor dining pavilion.
Are Your Rules Made To Be Broken?
Posted by: | CommentsBlog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing
Sometimes the rules and regulations that are created are so ridiculous that it seems that they can’t possibly have been designed to follow. It makes you wonder if some rules really were just meant to be broken, even in our own businesses. Last week I was on a flight from Detroit to Chicago. There was a line of thunderstorms moving through Chicago so we boarded our plane in Detroit and then waited on the tarmac for a clearing in the weather before taking off. Then, after about 2 hours of waiting for a break in the weather we got the good news. The storms were passing and in 1 hour (that’s good news, really) we were slotted for takeoff. With 15 minutes left before our takeoff time, however, we headed back to the gate. What!?! Passengers were furious. Many were going to miss connections in Chicago if we didn’t take off soon.
Women Leadership Lessons and Tackling Tension
Posted by: | CommentsLong plane rides often bring me fresh ideas, or at least give me time to think in fresh, new ways. Flying from Newark to San Francisco is perfect. Just about six hours with little distraction from my writing and musings. Sometimes!
On this particular plane were a brother and a sister, two or so years apart, I guessed. They were attractive, well behaved children whose parents were also attractive and well behaved; all on the row behind me near the very front, two behind me, two across.
I began to read, ready to finish my newest addition, a workbook for newly minted female supervisors. Lately, so many I had mentored had gotten promotions as the ghastly economic times of the past few years seem to be moving into greener territory. They have been requesting a small book, a reference they could turn to when the annoyances of being a leader made them loose their sure footing.
The young ones in back of me were busy with the electronic gear for just about half the ride. Then the bickering started. I remember the noise of my two when they were preteens. Initially the parents ignored the “Give me that” “No, it’s mine” that became “You are a jerk” and on and on.
Blog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing
Are you doing without planning or planning without doing?
My own first reaction is to take quick action without taking the time to plan – a “Let’s Do it Now” mentality. I constantly have to stop myself from acting without planning, and allow some time to think through the strategy first. Others spend so much time planning that when they are finally ready to take action, the time for action has come and gone.
Sometimes we are too close to things in our own business. For clients we work with at Red Zone Marketing, we always focus on strategic planning first and action second. It’s certainly easier to take a different perspective with someone else’s business.
Both quick action and over-planning are problems. In order to have the best-executed strategy that will lead you to your goal, planning and expedient action are both critical. Ask yourself, can I plan more, or should I do more? Somewhere in the middle is probably the right answer.
Work for a Jerk?
Posted by: | CommentsAt one point or another, we have all worked for a jerk. Trending analysis, client feedback and underground communication clearly indicate that mismanaged employees and boundary violations are on the rise. Managing through tough times and poor leaders is often time more difficult than the work itself. Poor leadership can range from an immediate supervisor to poor HR leadership. Noone is exempt.
Taking charge of your career and disengaging from negative forces, including a jerk of a boss is within your reach. As a Career Strategist with an organic and practiced track record of problem solving, I am focusing this weeks blog on the employee relations aspect of managing poor leadership, self preservation and maintaining your sanity.
5 Strategies to Activate NOW
#1 Document…Document…Document
Venting is short lived whereas documenting is soothing, has long range positive effects and will set you up for a chronicle of events if you need to take legal action.. Hand write your discontent in a strategy journal. This is a journal specifically dedicated to you, your work, your accomplishments and your discontent. Keep it is a safe place and use it daily. Date, time stamp and openly journal details of what is occurring. Always be sure to credit yourself for one or two accomplishments per writing. When leadership is lacking, you need to start truly leading yourself. This means crediting your daily accomplishments and cheering for yourself!
Women Leadership and Mad Men
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Some revolutions are bloody, and some are flash-in-the-pan moments.
The women’s movement began quietly with a book “The Feminine Mystique”, moved to bra burning, and gained traction with consciousness raising groups.
All of that seems like it was centuries ago.
We now head large organizations, are in key positions in government, and have a say in just about everything. Yet some of the pleaser and martyr behavior patterns that were handed from generation to generation are still dying a slow death.
Just watch “Mad Men” and remember how it was. You worked if you typed and delivered. No not ideas – merely the coffee to the men. While much has changed, there is more work to be done.
This is a year of both celebrating change and dialoguing about what still needs to change. CELEBRATION: in the next few months women will cross the threshold and become the majority workers in America. CELEBRATION: women professionals are in the majority in this country. CELEBRATION: women have become economically powerful in their own right.
What is the next phase of the revolution toward equality, and even beyond that, toward partnership?
Check-in To Harness the Power of the Start
Posted by: | CommentsIt seems that someone is always keeping score.
- Conversations about projects focus on outcomes, deliverables, and take-aways.
- We’re asked “can you beat yesterday’s numbers? Or last week’s time? Or last year’s results?”
- Incentive programs encourage us to do more, go faster, be better.
We say we’re tracking progress but we are really constantly measuring results.
Professionally and personally we’ve always got our eye on the size of the prize.
The need to measure the outcome can obscure a crucial element of performance — the importance of knowing the starting point.
No matter what the endeavor no two of us experience things in precisely the same way.
- Two new hires at a major corporation assigned to share the same office will experience their first 90 days on the job very differently.
- Each of three staff members assigned to the same assistant will feel they are getting a different level of support from that very same person.
- The top performers on a sales team may consist of the same small group of people each year but their relative rank will vary over time.
Leadership Lessons: I’d Rather Be a Whale
Posted by: | CommentsPart of leadership, especially women, is to be a voice for separating the wheat from the chaff. It is time for all of us as women leaders to put a halt to the binding messages we are bombarded with about image. No, I don’t mean we should all state that overweight is better, I mean we need to begin to question what is being fed to us (sorry for the pun) about what is the standard for the acceptable and attractive woman. It is a legacy issue that if addressed now will have a vast impact on our daughters (and they are all our daughters regardless of who birthed them) of the future.
Nancy Pennebaker, a senior consultant with our organization, Creative Energy Options, Inc. (CEO) sent this to me for both the humor and the depth of the message. Our company motto, “we are all connected and no one wins unless we all do”, is embedded in the following short article. It shows that this issue of image is one that is a world issue.
Notice that the sign in the window of an exercise studio and the answer are from France, where the image of gorgeous models in clothes by Yves St. Laurent, Chanel et a.l became the standard of beauty.
