Wake-Up Calls for Managers
For the hard parts no one prepares you for
When the path isn’t clear, the stakes are high, and the answers aren’t obvious—this is where managers struggle most.
Wake-Up Calls for Managers delivers practical, real-world guidance for navigating:
- Tough conversations
- Leading through uncertainty
- Building influence without authority
- Driving results through others
The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Why Gutting Management Layers Is the Wrong Response to AI
Time to 'delayer' is code for first, let's take out all the managers It's an interesting time to publish a book for managers. My new book, Wake Up Calls for Managers — Insights to Sharpen Focus and Elevate Results, will be published this summer at a time when large...
Why Gutting Management Layers Is the Wrong Response to AI
We’ve seen this movie before. A shock hits the broader system and organizations decide to ‘delayer’ focusing the brunt of their efforts on middle management. This time AI is the excuse. Yet the real opportunity and need here is to redefine the role of manager, not eliminate it.
It’s Time to Get Rid of S.M.A.R.T. Goals. Here’s Why & How
Goals are critically important in our personal and professional growth. They push us to learn, grow, and strive. We change our lives by aspiring for big goals. We motivate ourselves and our team members with properly developed, challenging goals. And we change the vector and fate of organizations through the proper use of goals. The operative phrase is “the proper use of goals.”
Where Too Many Managers Hit the Wall on Their Level-Up Journeys
Developing as a manager is a perpetual exercise in leveling up. Just when you think you’ve developed some competence at the role and are asked to take on more responsibilities, WHAM, you hit the wall of new, ambiguous challenges. Here are the six big level up challenges I see for rising managers:
My Summer 2023 Professional Reading List
Here are my top choices for my personal Summer 2023 Professional Reading list.
How to Get Unstuck with Your Career Pivot
I talk with many good people motivated to change their career vectors but unsure of what to do or even how to get started. As a result, they do nothing. They’re stuck. Maybe you’re stuck as well. Here are some tips to help you get beyond this uncomfortable state and into action:
Heartfelt Encouragement for the M.B.A. Graduates of 2023
Here’s some hard-won and heartfelt guidance for MBA graduates as I strive not to sound like every other commencement address out there. Use the ideas in great life and career health.
The Death of The Manager Role: What’s Really Needed
As Layoffs Climb and AI Emerges, the Predictions are Flowing Like clockwork, bad news in the economy coupled with some scary new technology brings out the pundits offering exaggerated predictions for something or another. This time, the mass layoffs in techdom and a...
How to Create a Quality Feedback Culture that Supports Learning and Growth
While many managers work hard to construct and deliver timely behavioral feedback, few spend time working on their feedback culture. As a result, performance feedback is transactional—given on a one-off basis, but it doesn’t propel growth and learning across the entire group. Here are some tips to strengthen your team’s feedback culture.
Career Focus—When You Change, But Your View of You Doesn’t
One of the significant career mistakes I see otherwise talented professionals make is identifying with and lingering in the wrong role or vocation long after the expiration date. Here’s a list of questions to help you run a career self-check.
A Unique (free) Manager Development Event—Friday, May 12 at Noon Central
Join me and a cast of your peers from across industries and organizations on Friday, 5/12, at noon central for the latest Leadership Caffeine Jam Session, when we come together for an hour to identify and develop solutions for some of the most vexing challenges all managers face