Recovering from a Work Setback – Dos and Donts

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I had an important meeting to lead yesterday. After six months of managing this project, I was hoping this meeting would be the final one needed to get there necessary agreement from all the key business stakeholders. Everything was looking good — we already went through 4 rounds of feedback, and addressed all the concerns voiced over emails or on previous calls. Some of the key stakeholders that I thought would have serious objections were now big supporters of our reject output. This last meeting was just going to be a formality to put the bow on the final product. ...  read more

Speaking Up in Meetings – Why and How to Do it

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speaking up

When I first worked at McKinsey after college, I was pretty scared of speaking up.   I distinctly remember sitting in the large conference room with another analyst, our manager, the senior manager, and the Partner on the project, to discuss our strategy for a consumer business client.

The Partner discussed a strategy that frankly didn’t make sense to me, but he had 10+ years of experience, so I didn’t say anything. I was convinced that I didn’t know any better — I was only an Electrical Engineer with little business experience. I had some thoughts and suggestions, but I wasn’t sure if they were sound. ...  read more

Dealing with Difficult Personalities – What Not to Do

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difficult-personalities

How should we deal with difficult personalities?  I have been thinking about how to write about this topic for three weeks now.  I realized it’s hard, because there are so many potential dimensions and scenarios to this question:

  1. Who is this person that you consider “difficult” – a senior executive, boss, peer, colleague, customer, vendor, or support staff?
  2. What is your definition of “difficult” – does this person appear elusive, rude, incompetent, belligerent, passive aggressive, unreliable, back-stabbing, etc..?
  3. What do you need to accomplish with this person, but it’s been “difficult” – are you trying to get information, delegate work, reach a common goal, get a buy-in, etc…?
  4. What could you accomplish if this person stopped being “difficult” – would you get more done, have less stress, feel happier at work, etc.?
  5. What are the risks to your job if this person continues to be “difficult” towards you – tense work environment, slow work progress, cannot work around them, etc?
  6. Does this person seem “difficult” to everyone, or just you?

I decided to use one of my past experiences with a “difficult personality” to illustrate how we can deal with these types of situations.  At my last job, I had to work well with a lot of cross functional colleagues in order to get information and achieve results.  I remember the first meeting I had with a new colleague (let’s call her Anna).  Anna is a data team lead who provided invaluable data analysis for my projects.  She had a great reputation for being smart and excellent at her job.  I also met her casually in the hallway, and thought she was quite nice. ...  read more

Most Common Mistake People Make at Work

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upward management

The most common mistake that people make at work is not obvious to most people. Some may not find out that they are doing this for many years. The most common mistake people make is failing to dedicate time to manage upwards. Upward management is never listed in any job description, but I can assure you that it makes all the difference to the speed of your career progression. No matter what your position is in the business world (business analyst, project manager, VP), upward management is essential to your success. ...  read more

Patience – Use it to Speed Up Results

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patience

I was driving my daughter, Isabel, today to her little gym class today.  It was morning rush hour, and the streets were crazy. Pedestrians were blatantly jaywalking in front of my car when I had the green light; cab drivers were swerving past me just to break hard again for a red light; a car was literally on my butt, trying to pass me on a one-land street — and I was driving above the speed limit! ...  read more

How to Become a Rock Star Manager – 7 Steps

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manager

Being a “Rock Star” Manager means

  • You achieve steller results through inspiring / leading your team
  • You are respected and appreciated by your superiors and your team
  • Ultimately, You will be on the fast track for promotion and senior management

Becoming a “Rock Star” manager doesn’t happen over night.  It takes time and practice, but it’s worth it.  Based on my experience, here are the seven steps you can take to become a “Rock Star” Manager .

  1. Prioritize people development and not just results – As a manager, you have a lot of pressure to deliver results.  It’s almost instinctive to resort to “The end justifies the means” mentality.  Resist!  You may be able to brute force yourself and your team through one project or two, but it will break down in the long run.  People work for companies for two reasons primarily – because they need the money and because they want to learn something.  If you manage with both the task at hand and their incentives in mind, you will create a more committed team member.
  2. Start caring about your team members as individuals ­– If you have a new team or team members, start with one-on-one coffees early.  This will give you a chance to understand their career / learning aspiration and concerns as well as get to know their personal circumstance if they are willing to share. Your goal is to create an open communication channel early with each of your team members, so each feels comfortable coming to you if there are issues.  If you care about their success, then they will also care about yours.
  3. Set direction and clear expectations up front ­– A team looks to its manager to provide direction and vision for how to accomplish something.  Even if you are insecure on the inside, you need to sound confident to your team.  So take the time to plan out how to accomplish a project.  Choose a direction when several seem plausible.  If you don’t, your team will be in limbo until you do.  Once you do, then communicate clearly what you expect each team members’ roles and responsibilities are. Leave room for them to question and clarify.  This way, you and your team can be on the same page working toward the same goals.
  4. Delegate issues not just tasks – Nothing like a sense of ownership will elevate a person’s commitment.  A team member is not motivated or feel ownership if they are only told to set up meetings or take notes.  These are tasks that implicitly say I don’t trust you to do more.  Try to break the larger issues you need to solve into smaller ones and delegate each of those to your team according to your assessment of their readiness.   This way, each can help you figure out how to solve the smaller issues and feel motivated that they are contributing to the solution.
  5. Micro-manage initially – this may sound counter-intuitive, but it works well when you are managing a new person who just joined your team.  I warn each person I manage that I plan to micro-manager them initially so they are not surprised.  I also communicate the reason I do it is I want to find out as quickly as possible what their capabilities are.  You can never really tell from resume, interviews, or other people’s referrals.  I use the first few weeks to gauge this with a new team member.  I will delegate them something, check in with them often, see if their progress is on track, and also see how they manage me.  The more someone proactively communicate to me before I ask, the sooner I will stop micro-managing them.
  6. Provide constructive feedback often – Giving feedback every 6 months is not enough and giving feedback every day is too much.  I recommend giving feedback every time there is something significant to share – either positive or negative.  If someone did a stellar job on something, tell them why you thought so. If someone seems to be struggling on something and you have more than one examples of it, then maybe it’s time to share it.  Be constructive – you are trying to help them improve not make them feel bad.  Given them the examples of what happened and what could have happened so they know how to improve.
  7. Give support and generous credit ­– sometimes, being a great manager is about stepping back and letting your team go on auto-pilot.  Once you can reach this mode, you are golden.  Then your job is to provide support when a team member brings up an issue and tell you what help they need from you to solve it.   Once the project is done, be generous and give the credit to your team.  You cannot do it without them.

Your comments:  What is your biggest challenge in being a manager?  Which of the above 7 steps is the hardest for you?  Add your comment below and let’s have a discussion ...  read more

Giving Feedback – When and How to Do it

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We all have worked with smart colleagues that have development areas we see.  As humans, we naturally have tendencies to want to help others.   It’s important to know when and how to give them feedback that can help them further succeed.

Question – How to Give Feedback to a Co-worker?

What is the best way to tell a valuable coworker that he/she is talking too much?  This person is smart, dedicated and responsible, but often goes into too much detail about stuff you don’t find important or interesting. He/she lacks skill to make distinction on what is really relevant to say and feels insecure or awkward when there is even a short silence. How to approach this person without hurting her feelings? ...  read more