NonsenseAtWork

Do you want ongoing success at work? Then stop your so-called best practices.

You're the boss. You get to delegate tasks and projects. But what do you do when they, on the receiving end of your power, ask you for help with the task or the project?

There is a risk in listening to employees. But the risk lies in ignoring them *after* we allow them to speak up and make suggestions.

We humans, since the planting of that first garden, have managed to get so much stuff done. Almost all of it trivial.

The further into the future you can think and operating, the higher up you will climb on the corporate ladder.

If you are a manager, you must know how to make decisions and how to take decisions. Actually, these skills apply to all of us, so pay attention.

You can start your day the way a specific Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, did. Or said he did.

Pride is just a way of rationalizing their predicament. In one case, awful conditions. In the other, inflated importance.

Doesn't it just get to you when you make a poor decision only to find out that other people had information that would have changed your mind?

Many corporate climbers forget that the higher you climb, the more visible you become to those you stand on. Sorry, I mean those below you. I mean those you manage and lead. Actually, you don’t become more visible. Your ego does.

Your job as a manager, and in life, is to judge which failures to stomp and which ones to spin. Spin? Yes, spin. Because you cannot go from failure to success without tweaking what went wrong until it goes more right than wrong.

Let me explain the mistake soccer/football teams make. It's the same mistake many executive teams make when engaged in formal strategic planning. They, players and executives, confuse goals with objectives.

Invariably your role at work morphs into something not quite what you originally applied or and interviewed for. Your job, like you, changes over time.

Wanting to be nice is only one reason we over promise. The other reason is common in the workplace, where it frustrates teamwork and undermines careers. It stems from a lack of forethought.

Here's what I have learned while walking my many paths, getting stuck and unstuck over and over in the process: Your path matters less than what you see on your path. That's right. It's not the path. It's the walking.

You can influence and change someone's behavior merely through how you expect them to behave. That's because the word ‘expectation’ has two meanings: likely to happen and ought to happen. And these two meanings are critical to performance feedback.

Yes, deadlines can be effective in pepping your performance. But dead time! Well, that's another level of pep all together.

Without purpose and intent, you can point for all you are worth, but your lead will still be pointless.

Of all the places where you could work, of all the people you could work with, this is the business, and this is the bunch you chose.

Don't give power to your opponents by arguing with them, or by defending yourself, unless you absolutely must engage with them. Using power this way weakens you.

Tell me, do you think it's rude or polite to walk away if a colleague is talking to you? And the right answer is.... it depends.

We don't realize we create problems when we tackle current events with an ocean mentality. Or if we tackle ebb and flow events with a river mentality.

We cheerfully scorn the comfort zone by ignoring the misery of the discomfort zone.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking it is more efficient to take on employees' problems, just because you can do it faster and better. If you do, then you are not guiding them to solve problems and manage on their own.

Taking notes matters in all meetings, in-person, by phone or by video. A meeting is a meeting. There is no difference.