You Can’t Fire Everyone by Hank Gilman
Hank Gilman, the Deputy Managing Editor of Fortune has come out with a new book, You Can’t Fire Everyone, a career reminisce packed with solid advice for all those who are a promoted to management and then find they need to stay ahead of the curve they didn’t know existed. It’s not just aimed at those who have reached the tippy top of management. For journalism buffs, its also offers insights on the recent transformations in the industry. Read the rest of this entry »
Lessons in Shattering the Glass Ceiling
Attention recently turned to corporate boards in Europe again after a report commissioned by the British government said women should comprise at least a quarter of the boards of the largest British companies by 2015. The report stopped short of the mandate that’s existed in Norway since 2005. There 40% of corporate boards are required to be women by law. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Amalia Miller, corporate boards, female executives, Frank Matsa, glass ceiling, leadership, management, mentoring, networking, stock prices
Should You Turn Down a Promotion to Management?
Linda Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, and faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative , has just co-authored a new book with Kent Lineback called Being the Boss. It was Mr. Lineback who a decade ago wrote about entrepreneurship in the Silicon Valley with Randy Komisar in The Monk and the Riddle.
Mr. Lineback, spent 25 years as a manager and executive and has been candid about his shortcomings. The book he and Dr. Hill wrote may provide new insights for managers and leaders, in the post recession economy. It may even spare employees some grief as their new managers negotiate a learning curve. Dr.Hill says she frequently asks executives, “How many people have suffered as you tried to learn to do this job?”
Tags: leadership, management, mentoring
Working and Playing To Your Strengths
In December Right Management (a Manpower, Inc. subsidiary that handles outplacement) asked 900 workers, “Do you plan to pursue new job opportunities as the economy improves in 2010? More than half the workforce expected to have a foot out the door in the New Year. Fully 60% replied “yes, I intend to leave.” And nearly another quarter, 21% said “maybe, so I’m networking.” Which is better, leaving or staying? And if you do leave, will a new position play to your strength?
Marcus Buckingham has had a satisfying career advising managers and their employees about how to tap into their strengths. First Break All the Rules (1999), Now Discover Your Strengths ( 2001), One Thing You Need to Know (2005) and Go Put Your Strengths to Work (2007) encouraged individuals to build on strengths rather than work to improve weaknesses. This philosophy has earned him a well recognized place among management gurus. I first interviewed him a decade ago for a story about thoughtfulness in the workplace.
Now, though, he’s broadened his approach with the publication of Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently (Thomas Nelson 2008). Before you groan, as I did, about yet another book about women, this one is different. For openers, it shocks by describing that by all subjective measures of well being, women are less happy than men. And for women, who may be juggling a home, family, a job, and perhaps aging parents, happiness and fulfillment may seem like distant goals.
To minimize a tendency toward unhappiness Mr. Buckingham says we need to have a clear idea of what choices strengthen us and give short shrift to confusing and contradictory messages. And he offers a check list.
…How often do you feel an emotional high in your life?
…How often do you find yourself positively anticipating your day?
…How often do you become so involved in what you are doing that you lose track of time?
….How often do you feel invigorated at the end of a long, busy day?
…How often do you get to do the things you really like to do?
It’s important, he says, to recognize that most responsibilities involve many different types of activities and it sometimes takes a conscious, selfishness to choose the ones that nourish you. Where have we heard that before? And how can we better do that?
It turns out that some of our unhappiness may be because we haven’t thought seriously about what invigorates us and we haven’t taken a stand for ourselves without bragging.
The book directs you to take the Strong Life Test. Some might consider it a gimmick, but it was surprisingly accurate, at least for this reporter. You only need to take ti once. I tried twice and got a different answer both times. “It’s best read the first time,” said Mr. Buckingham because on subsequent testing you’ve prepared and have time to weigh considerations.
And he says we get stronger as we get older because aging brings an acceptance of what sustains us. His name for this phenomenon is, “The Popeye Syndrome” because, he says, like Popeye, those who are reaching maturity, regardless of age acknowledge, “I am what I am.”
Mr. Buckingham offers tips to start off in the direction of what he calls a strong life…
Consider outsourcing activities that you find frustrating.
Better yet, look at the activity through the eyes of a strength. An example, at social gatherings or parties, try turning the festivity into a series of long individual conversations rather than brief cocktail party talk in a large group.
It’s more important to listen to your own voice, than social norms.
Tags: management, mentoring, satisfying work
On the Anniversary of a Lay Off
Commemorating an anniversary seems an appropriate way to inaugurate a new blog. July 29 is the day I was laid off from one of the nation’s leading department stores.
As anyone who has been laid off knows, it is a painful experience. In my case I had helped train the personnel manager who fired me when several years earlier, recently divorced, she arrived at the store to begin her retailing career on the selling floor.
Although mentoring someone 17 years older was a stretch, as an entry level operations manager I persevered, even as she jumped the promotion line ahead of the rest of us 20 somethings into middle management. Clearly we were never on the same track.
Just as I had discharged my obligation to train her, she discharged hers in dismissing me. Her parting was a direct, “You’re just not……(fill in the name of the store here.) And perhaps it was true, from her perspective. As the freelance journalist that I later became, I learned there are many sides to a story.
It took some time to find my footing first. Unemployment and its partner, battered self-esteem, seemed like near constant companions along with a newly found passion in personal finance to preserve a small nest egg and stretch unemployment insurance benefits.
The period of unemployment set in motion an abiding interest in careers and management and one of the mainstays of my journalistic portfolio—personality profiles of senior management. I continue to grapple with the idea that a dismissal was “strictly business.” In all business transactions there is always a personal relationship, chemistry or the lack of it, that greases our interactions.
In the coming months, as companies stop shedding jobs and the nation regains its collective footing, this blog will answer questions about careers in the post Great Recession economy. Feel free to add your thoughts to the conversation. We’ll offer tips and suggestions, reporting and insights so you can better understand your career and the individuals—your colleagues, your managers, your subordinates, your customers—who influence and in some instances hold sway over it.
Today’s question—How did you negotiate a company leave taking? What would you do differently now if you had the chance?
Tags: Careers, layoff, mentoring, unemployment
