One thing people have shared with me is that they like to post the Lessons Learned list on their work wall, as a reminder. I’ve included an easy to print version for those of you who’d like to do the same. Go to “My Lessons Learned List” under Pages on the top right hand corner to find it.
Enjoy!
You can learn a lot through reading, school, on the job classes. But unless you couple it with experience, it’s like a free floating fact in your brain…interesting, but what do you do with it?
If you haven’t had the experiences yet, listen to your instincts.
A good friend who astonishes me in his ability to size people based on very little information explains his prowess this way:
“I grew up in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn. So when a guy’s walking down the street towards you, you need to be able to size up pretty quickly whether or not he’s going to shake your hand, or knock you out. Are they a friend, or a hustler?”
Our ability to rationalize and over-think things often gets in the way of our instincts. When your instinct kicks in, listen.
At some point in your career, you might be asked to organize a planning session, 2 day offsite, something that a group of people will attend. You will be in charge of what they do for those 2 days. Having planned many, and attended many, here are my top 5 lessons learned.
1. Schedule the subjects and speakers in an order that makes sense. Think of it like organizing chapters in a book. If you’re going to have a discussion about strategy, make sure the key subjects are teed up ahead of time.
2. Schedule 30 minute breaks. 15 minutes turn into 30 minutes anyway. People need to return calls, read blackberry. If you don’t give them sufficient breaks, they’ll do it during the meeting. I always schedule a mid-morning, and a mid afternoon break and order snacks, coffee, water to keep the energy up. Sometimes it’s a working lunch, but they always get the breaks.
3. Be available to review decks and provide feedback, but don’t get too hung up on form over substance. Now some meetings, you won’t have a choice and will need to follow clear guidelines. But I like to let people reuse materials they may have already created. Be clear about deadlines, and let folks know: miss the deadline, you’re walking in with copies for everyone. Most people want to avoid showing folks that they were late. Don’t cut production time too close.
4. Make sure someone is keeping track of key questions, subjects, and follow ups. I keep notes during the session, and will type them up at the end of the day, and distribute them the next morning for comments from the team. It keeps the material fresh, the group focused, and makes it a lot easier to remember the takeaways post meeting.
5. Leave room for the unexpected. If it’s a large group, and a controversial topic, I’ll give the speakers 30 minutes, but I’ll schedule an extra 30 minutes for “buffer time” in the agenda. Nothing’s worse than having to cut off a great conversation because of time. I’ll also schedule a few “free-floating” topics which can be moved around if we go over.
The point of the offsite is to bring the group together to be updated and informed, but also to enable the group to make decisions in a short period of time. The best ones accomplish both.
Another powerful word. What is enough for you?
A story: two writers, Joe Heller and Kurt Vonnegut meet at a party. Kurt tells Joe “Our host made a billion dollars. More money than you made on your best seller.” Joe responds “Yes, but I have something he’ll never have.” “What’s that?” Kurt asks. “Enough.”
Think about what enough looks like for you. Does it mean vacations twice a year? Not worrying about retirement? Paying for your kid’s tuition? Being able to sleep at night without worrying about bills?
Define it for yourself and put a plan in place. No matter what, you’re going to want enough.
You’ll notice I added a “register here” section to the site so that you get an email alert when I post (along with the hundreds of emails you get already!)
Also, a reader asked me why I didn’t enable “comments” to the site. While I try to assume positive intent, people can say things which are hurtful to each other (have even seen this on breast cancer blogs!), so I don’t allow comments. Maybe someday.
Thanks for the feedback…..
So how many of you were rooting for Julianne Moore to win the Oscar?
She’s been nominated a number of times, but never won. In 2002, she was nominated for two Academy awards in the same year (Far from Heaven, and the Hours). Her choices are so varied, and so brave. But the two films I love her the most in are “Trust the Man”, directed by her husband Bart Freundlich – a funny, sad, and entertaining movie with her character married to David Duchovny, who’s having an affair, and Maggie Gyllenhaal with Billy Crudup, as the perpetual child who won’t commit. The dinner scene where he meets Maggie’s new German boyfriend is hilarious.
But the movie I like her best in is “What Maisie Knew” – a beautiful independent film with Julianne Moore as a rock n roll singer, devoted to her child, going through a break up and custody battle with her partner (Steve Coogan). Maisie is a perceptive little girl who relies on her nanny and her mother’s new husband to gain stability in her life, while still loving her flawed parents. Julianne’s scene as the mother who realizes what’s best for her child is amazing. Click here for the trailer…available on Netflix!
TV shows always depict the workplace to be a place of general hilarity and fun.
So not true. A workplace is where you do work, it’s not where you play.
In my career, I’ve seen people play pranks, send emails, make a joke in the spirit of “being funny.” So here’s the biggest difference between work and personal: in your personal life, if someone thinks it’s not funny, they’ll just ignore you. When someone at work thinks it’s not funny, they can make a complaint or worse, or you can set off a chain of events which you did not intend. (BTW, I have never seen this end well, no matter how innocent the act was.)
Once there is a complaint, it will need to be investigated. And your intent will not matter: what will matter was whether or not the injured party was justified feeling the way they did. They will look at emails. They will look at text messages. They will interview other employees.
If it crosses your mind that “this might not be a good idea”, listen to your instincts and suppress the urge. Want to be funny? Poke fun at yourself.
Being the child of immigrant parents, I definitely grew up with a sense of not wasting (food, electricity, anything). And as I started working, I struggled to get some balance between my spending and earning. Do I buy because I want it? Because I can afford it? So, for me, my peace of mind is based on being frugal, because I spend less on stuff I don’t need. It’s that simple. I don’t buy because I can, I buy because I really want to. There’s a great saying from World War II that has resonated with me.
“Use it up.” – Are you one of those people with lots of half empty bottles? This one is for you. Try and wait till you’re really need the next bottle.
“Wear it out.” – We never wear things out anymore. We buy because we want variety. There are two lessons learned, especially as it relates to your wardrobe: 1) you only wear about 10% of your wardrobe consistently, and 2) once you figure out what looks good on you, you tend to buy it over and over, but you upgrade the quality.
“Make do.” – You don’t need every gadget. You probably have something can do the job just as well already.
“Do without.” – You just don’t buy it. You keep walking.
Recite this once when you’re tempted to buy something you know you don’t need. Here’s an interesting article about living with a lot less.
This is something I once read that really struck me because we usually do this reversed. We hire fast, and fire slow.
Firing is very hard. It feels terrible. You try and try to make it work…and while there are small signs of improvement, you end up sliding back into the “this isn’t working” place. And you can’t honestly recommend this person to anyone else in your organization. Here’s the problem with firing slow.
Once you’ve come to the conclusion that you need to fire someone, chances are you’re already overdue. You’ve taken on the burden of their work, or their colleagues have. You’ve gotten the complaints from others about the person. Your group meetings are tense because people resent the individual. Mistakes are being made, projects are falling behind schedule. You’re spending the majority of your time on this person. Human resources has heard about the person.
Firing someone is not saying they are bad, or a failure. It’s usually about wrong job in the wrong company, and maybe the wrong industry. BTW, they are probably miserable also: it’s not fun to be unsuccessful in a job day in and day out. Needless to say, human resources are the experts in these cases. The minute you sense that this might be the outcome, you need to get them involved.
Hiring is the exact opposite. You’re both on your best behavior during the interview process: anyone can be charming/smart/fun for an hour. But you need to really assess whether or not the person can be successful in the role you’re interviewing them for.
Some interview questions I like: (everyone knows the strengths and weaknesses question, and they always pick a weakness that sounds like a strength: e.g. “I’ve been told that I drive hard and sometimes need to slow down.”)
1. “What would the people at work who like you say about you? What would your detractors say?” (It’s like the strengths and weaknesses question, but forces them to look at it from another person’s point of view, not their own. It’s also hard to lie. When they have nothing to say, it tells me they might not be very self-aware).
2. “Why do you want to work here?” (It’s amazing, but a lot comes out: both good and bad. I’ve heard everything from “I need a job” to “I have some good friends who work here and they seem really happy”).
3. “Tell me about yourself”..again, another open question (also amazing what people will tell you).
You can’t always get it right when you hire someone. But chances are, your gut instincts are going to be pretty good. I can usually tell in the first 5 minutes of an interview. When someone will be leaving a job, I am even more careful: you want to make sure this is the right thing for them.
Don’t get swayed by the perfect “on paper” resume, and don’t discount the unusual candidate. A CEO once told me that his mantra was “Look for a great athlete, and worry about what position they’ll play later”.