While an incredible number of people move every year, and everyone knows what a miserable project it is, there are a surprising number of leadership lessons in these situations. Here are a few I gleaned from our recent move efforts.
I’m on record describing one-on-ones as some of the most valuable real estate on a manager’s calendar. These sessions are opportunities to engage, share ideas, identify plans to eliminate obstacles and frankly, in this stressful world, just connect. Unfortunately, from my workshop and client surveys, the manager and employee one-on-ones are some of the most frequently canceled meetings. Here's an easy to remember formula to help you design one-on-ones that work for everyone:
The best managers are devoted students of the art of character study—not out of some desire to play armchair psychologist, but rather out of the desire to help.
There's little doubt creativity is vital in the workplace, and that idea generation is the enabler of creative problem solving and innovation. The better our teams and colleagues are at generating ideas, the better the odds of surviving and thriving in our topsy-turvy world. Yet, idea generation and problem-solving practices are stale and decidedly lacking in creativity in too many organizations.
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.
Last week I wrapped up two different cohorts of my Experienced Manager Program. In twelve hours of program time spread over multiple sessions, the ideas and insights flowed, and I left impressed with the passion so many have for their work leading and managing. Here are some of my favorite insights from the program:
Our March Leadership Caffeine Jam Session was all about finding the magic with teams. As usual, the chat stream commentary from our attendees was fabulous. I’m sharing some insights from this 50-minute session.
If you are interested in taking that next step as a leader, it pays to silence the outside voices and spend some time mining your experiences, influences, and aspirations.
Be very afraid of the conversations on the tough topics of performance, improvement, and innovation that aren’t taking place on your team or in your organization.
There are two issues every person in a leadership role must constantly focus on and work on: (1) who they aspire to be as leaders and (2) how hard they are working at developing their skills as strategists. Anything less than daily work on these issues is a problem.
