From the category archives:

Personal Effectiveness

Don’t Kill Productive Meetings by Dragging Them Out

January 20, 2012

My friend Sally works for a company that holds monthly small-group “open forum” type meetings for cross-sections of various company departments. The purpose of these meetings is to promote cross-departmental communication.  Each month, leaders from different functions in the company moderate the discussion. In general, Sally enjoys the meetings, except for one aspect: they are [...]

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Stack Your Phones at the Next Company Meeting

January 17, 2012

There’s a new game making the rounds these days called Phone Stack. Have you played it? The basic gist is this—when you dine out with friends, everyone puts their phones in the middle of the table and then embarks on a huge game of chicken— who  can resist the siren call of their phone for [...]

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Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries

January 11, 2012

Earlier this week I presented a session on Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries to the Western Michigan chapter of the Project Management Institute. The session was so well-received that many people asked for copies of the Power Point presentation. Well, you know how that goes—a Power Point without the corresponding speaker commentary is a bit flat. [...]

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6 Ways to Take the Dread Out of Writing Self-Appraisals

December 28, 2011

If your company conducts its performance appraisals on an annual calendar basis then the past month has likely had you knee-deep in the process. There’s an equally likely chance you are supposed to do a self-appraisal for your performance view as well. As a leader, do you dread this task because you’re so consumed with [...]

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Are You a Workplace Curator?

November 1, 2011

I recently attended a local art competition called ArtPrize.  The free event is billed as “radically open”, meaning any artist, venue and citizen can participate. The openness creates a pretty random experience: grab a map, walk around downtown and check out the art. One of my favorite venues featured 25 artists in the Women’s City [...]

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I’ve Never Had a Bad Boss

October 25, 2011

I’ve never had a bad boss. Seriously. During my two decades in corporate America, I have had 14 direct supervisors. Add to that the dozens of project leaders and various quasi-leaders I had during my tenures on several non-profit boards and it adds up to nearly 30 people to whom I have had to account [...]

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Planting Seeds, Growing Your Network

October 6, 2011

As a novice vegetable gardener, I often see parallels between gardening and networking. Below are some of the more common questions I get asked about networking, along with my answers, some of which use the gardening theme.     Q: How important a role do you think social networking sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) play in [...]

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Old Men Don’t Ride Kick Scooters

September 13, 2011

Last night after dinner my ten-year-old wiped out on his kick scooter after trying to do some new tricks. He has a nasty scrape and some serious bruises to show for his efforts, but is otherwise all in one piece. After inspecting our son’s injuries, Mr. People Equation informed me “That boy actually left some [...]

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Reflections on Mackinac Island

September 8, 2011

A place suspended in time offers lessons for today’s hectic life   In August, fellow blogger Becky Robinson enjoyed the same Pure Michigan family vacation destination (during the same week!) as did my family: a day trip to historic Mackinac Island. When we discovered this serendipitous circumstance we decided to write companion blog posts reflecting [...]

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The Mutuality Measuring Stick for Networking

August 12, 2011

Should you network with someone you don’t like? This question was put to me recently. My response was emphatic: “No, of course not!” Here’s why I say this with such conviction. My definition of networking is: The purpose of networking is to connect people who have a mutual interest in developing a professional relationship or assisting one [...]

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