Author: k

There is a guy in our group.
He’s intelligent, nice,
yet no one wants to work with him. 

Why? 
Because he doesn’t listen. 
He multi-tasks while others are talking.  
He doesn’t read emails sent to the group. 
Then he asks questions that
have already been answered. 
It wastes time and
makes his team members feel unappreciated. 

Leadership Turn has a great post on
5 Simple Tips To Become A Better Listener
including Paying Attention
(that means shutting off the Blackberry). 

Like it or not, our offices say a lot about us. 

I once worked for a company
with a clean desk policy. 
At the end of the day, everyone’s desk
(from the mailroom guy’s to the CEO’s)
had to be clean. 
A clean desk, an organized mind, I was told. 

Is that a goal to aspire to? 
It depends. 

As associate professor of psychology
Sam Gosling says
“You may want your lawyer
to be very organized
and have a clean desk,
but if you are meeting with someone,
perhaps from advertising,
you would want their desk
to be covered in papers and ideas
that represent his ability to be creative.”

Managers talk about “tricks” to retaining staff. 
Give employees new challenges. 
Offer a bonus six months after the year end. 
Have stock options vest over ten years. 

Often it is not that simple. 

The position I’m currently filling has
never had a employee in it for more than a year. 
When it was advertised internally,
not only were there no internal candidates but
no employees forwarded external candidates. 
I’ve been there 3 months and
I’m ready to leave (daily). 

The problem?  
The very emotional manager.
And this burning your bridges complaint
won’t show up on any exit interview
or by “asking the temp.”  

Assume it is you
before looking to outside fixes.      

One of my favorite business bloggers,
Troy White,
has a post on
his big lessons from 2007.

One of them was
to surround yourself with successful people. 
He reco’s that from the mentoring point of view
but there is another reason. 

Successful people inspire. 

I’ve been struggling with a project lately. 
I was feeling a bit beat up. 
Then I hear that a friend accomplished an “impossible” dream,
something that she struggled with only weeks ago. 

Darn it, I told myself,
if she can do that,
then surely I can do this less challenging task. 
And I worked on it all yesterday with renewed determination.

Success breeds success
whether it is your success or someone else’s.