Monthly Archives: April 2014

26. Say hello.

So basic, so simple. But it was (and still is) so hard for me to do.   I am shy, an introvert…INTJs unite!  I would get embarrassed saying hello to people I didn’t know. It just got easier to look at the ground and walk by.   Except it’s not polite. It’s not nice.  People interpret the absence of saying hi to mean something else: you’re not important, I don’t care about you, I have other things to do, I’m annoyed about something you did or didn’t do.  Nature abhors a vacuum.   So when you are at work, say hi. And smile.

31. Provide feedback quickly and frequently.

I’ve always disliked getting performance reviews. Not because they were necessarily bad…I just didn’t really get the point of them. They always seemed to be very carefully worded and somewhat arbitrary. They told me what I already knew, and seemed to hint at what I needed to work on….but lightly. Plus, it seemed like everything got stored up for the big reveal: first hint at midyear, then the big discussion at year end…when it seemed too late to really do anything.

As a manager, you need to give feedback quickly and frequently, good and bad. You want people to make mid-course corrections and to learn. Similar to advice on disciplining children, you should focus on the behavior, not the person. I think this applies as well here. Feedback should be about every day performance. And eventually, all that feedback helps someone answer the bigger questions such as promotion and potential. But first, the day to day. Continue reading →

20. Assume Positive Intent

Often, people misunderstand other people’s intentions….especially when the majority of our communications are non-verbal. Hastily sent emails on blackberry are not the best ways of conveying information, yet it’s the majority of what we do.

So when you get the email which strikes you as nasty, rude, abrupt, condescending, embarrassing, humiliating….(add adjective) and you start drafting an equally annoyed response….

Or when a peer tells you that they were talking to your boss, and your boss is “upset that you’re not pulling your weight”, “you’re not competent”, “unhappy with you”…

Or when someone is giving you feedback that strikes you as wrong….

Assume positive intent.  Assume that they are not trying to get you upset, angry, humiliated. Assume that they want the best for you, but the way they are communicating it is not making you feel that way.

Continue reading →

1. Be Maniacal About Doing the Right Thing

Obvious right? Of course you’d do the right thing. No one comes into work saying, “Today, I’m going to do the WRONG thing!”.  No one intends to the wrong thing. So why am I saying this? Why am I ranking it number 1?

Without this, all the other lessons on the list are not important. Because without this, it’s like building a tower on a bad foundation. You might not see the issues today, or tomorrow. But eventually, it will catch up with you. Because if you concede on certain issues now, you’ll keep conceding. You might not get found out, so you’ll think it’s ok to do. But at some point, you’ll have crossed the line without even realizing you did. So the key is to recognize when you’re getting too close to the line…. So here are the rationalizations I have heard when you get too close to the line.

Continue reading →

Does the world really need another blog?

So as you get more senior in an organization, you get asked to host different “get to know you sessions” for people to sign up and attend. I would hold these with the people who had signed up, but it was hard to get the conversation going and connect with people.

I had created a “Lessons Learned…and still learning” list for fun, and one day I decided to use it in these sessions. I handed out a copy to all the participants, gave them a few minutes to read it, and opened it up for questions. Anything was fair game. I did this at site visits, with different levels, across different businesses. The conversations were lively, people were curious, and I found that it made the session go by quickly.

What surprised me was how many people came up to me later and thanked me. They liked my stories, confessed to having the one pager on their cubicle wall, one person gave a copy to her boyfriend, asked when the next version of “Lessons Learned” was going to be published. I started thinking…”Maybe there’s something here.”

So I decided to start this blog with all my lessons learned. Things that stayed with me throughout a 25+ year career in financial services.  Things that might help you.

I don’t have all the answers, but at the very least, reading these will offer you a different point of view. At the end of the day, it’s ultimately your decision. But sometimes it’s good to hear about someone else’s experiences and know you’re not alone.

Enjoy!