The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Want to Make a Career Change? Expect to Do Some Heavy Lifting
There are no quick fixes, magic beans, or silver bullets to get the work out of your career pivot project. While everyone's journey is different, there's a common thread: you have to think, think deeply, be creative, be willing to explore, and ultimately, be ready to...
Want to Make a Career Change? Expect to Do Some Heavy Lifting
There are no quick fixes, magic beans, or silver bullets to get the work out of your career pivot project. While everyone’s journey is different, there’s a common thread: you have to think, think deeply, be creative, be willing to explore, and ultimately, be ready to experiment before identifying the right “next” in your career. In other words, you need to do the heavy lifting required for a successful career pivot.
Lend a Coaching Hand to Your First-Time Leaders
Your presence as a coach and a stakeholder in the development of the new leader will have a significant impact on the outcome for this emerging leader. And your positive example will be visible to all to learn from and emulate.
Leadership Caffeine™-Need Market Insight? Ride with a Sales Rep and Learn
I had just been hired on in a senior strategic marketing role in an industry new to me, and job one was acclimating to the market and industry dynamics and trying to understand what a customer looked like in this world. After the obligatory round of meetings with company executives, division heads and as many of their team members as I could convince to allocate some time, I recognized that the context, while appreciated, lacked the depth you can only gain from connecting with customers and industry players on their home turf. No rocket science here, just good common sense. Here are 5 valuable lessons I learned through the eyes and windshields of some top sales representatives.
Three Great Hiring Habits I Learned from a Remarkable Manager
One mis-hire can poison the workplace pond, tarnish your reputation and impact your team’s/firm’s ability to execute. Do this a few times and your mistakes will likely knock you out of the hiring game and potentially into the cozy confines of today’s crowded unemployment lines. Unfortunately, the average manager isn’t very good at assessing talent and making the right call. Here are three great hiring habits I learned from a remarkable sales manager:
Why It’s Time to Ditch Your Plans for the Summer Strategy Off-Site
From the symbolism of the annual off-site strategy event to the cost to the fact that strategic thinking time is reduced to a once or twice a year event, this approach is anachronistic in a world with markets and conditions changing daily. In twenty years of these things with some great people and great businesses, I’ve yet to see anything come out of these meetings that changed our businesses. I will offer that they did allow for another layer of vetting and idea absorption. Nonetheless, the heavy lifting took place with others outside of the cozy confines of a resort or hotel meeting room. It’s time to ditch the annual strategy off-site.
“I finished my MBA. What’s Next?” A Few Do’s and Don’ts for New MBAs
All over the U.S., there’s a fresh new crop of MBA graduates leaving behind their books and case studies, and in some cases, preparing to rediscover their families after several years of their noses buried in books and their fingers glued to their keyboards. A key question on their minds is, “What’s next?” Here are seven ideas for freshly minted MBA as they navigate the end of one career journey and the beginning of the next.
Millennial View-FWIW Keep LOL OMG & Other Texting Terms Out of the Workplace
Eric Rodriguez is the voice of The Millennial View here at Management Excellence. His latest post offers a reminder to those typically early career professionals who are accustomed to communicating in small bursts of acronym filled texts via their cellphones, to keep their unique language out of the workplace.
Hold It! Don’t Accept that Job Offer Until You Consider These 5 Points
A good friend brought me up to speed on her career challenges recently, and after listening and empathizing with the unfortunate events that led to the recent job loss, I asked her what she had learned in the process. Her response included some good nuggets of hard-earned wisdom that we can all benefit from. Here are 5 points to consider before jumping In to that cool new job:
Dispatches from Mayo: “It’s a Privilege to Work Here”
There’s no doubt one of the most significant challenges any service organization faces is how to sustain excellence in service delivery over long periods of time. After all, service organizations live or die based on the passion and commitment of the people providing the service. Once the passion goes, the service trends to the ordinary. Or worse.
Dispatches from Mayo: Are You Pushing Your Colleagues to Grow?
If you have the privilege of leading others, consider what Dr. Mayo’s 3rd condition for sustaining success means to you, your team and your organization.