It Takes Work To Get Good At Things The other day I wrote about estimating on my other blog. Estimating is the kind of skill that really improves quickly based on the number of mistakes you make – which isn’t like many other things. Imagine being a trapeze artist – making mistakes won’t make you …
Just Because You Do It Well Doesn’t Mean You Have To Do It CONTINUE READING
If someone criticizes you at work and you get all wrapped up in it, letting it fester in your own head, it can cause you to make moves that aren’t smart. If you ignore every piece of feedback you get at work, you can move blindly in wrong directions and make moves that aren’t smart. …
Let’s face it, not all problems are alike. There are the kinds of problems that are always understood because you’ve seen them before. They may be ugly, large and painful to navigate – but if you’ve navigated it once, you know what’s in store the second or third time you do it. An example of …
The answer you’re looking for is, “I don’t know.” CONTINUE READING
Dan was a guy who worked at a power company. The company would put up power poles on construction sites so that the construction crew could plug in electrical equipment and get their work done. He did everything – sales, marketing, reporting, repair, installation, customer-on-boarding and more. In fact, every time the CEO needed someone …
One of the most challenging aspects of moving into leadership is the decision making required of leaders. And one of the hardest sets of decisions new leaders face is how to spend their time. Here is the bottom line: No one will manage your time for you. You’ll face tons of requests for meetings, which …
Yesterday I raised a question that’s been very powerful for me as a leader. Today I want to share with you another question. More importantly, I want to share with you a different question than the one we normally ask. In the software space, where I lead people, we’re often asked for estimates. “How long …
Changing the question we ask to a better one CONTINUE READING
One of the most important questions you can ask as you lead people is this: “how often does this happen?” The reason it’s so powerful is because our default reaction can often be to overreact to whatever gets our attention. We create policies. We create rules. We create directives. All to protect ourselves from something. …
I know Gary Vaynerchuk is not only awesome and inspirational, but he’s also a pretty smart guy. So it’s not often that I write a post that refutes his logic. I think most of us will regret things we’ve spent too much time on because we chose poorly.
Last month I flew to Salt Lake City, covered in snow, for a couple days of a conference. While it’s true I went to connect with some people, and to deliver a talk on diversity, those aren’t the reasons I chose to go to the conference in the first place. I chose to go to …
When I was sixteen I had my first job as a salesperson at a retail clothing store, Millers Outpost. In 1987, it was a great place to buy clothing for both teens and adults. Most of the time I sold clothes we carried. But every now and then I would make a different kind of …
You should be recommending your competition CONTINUE READING