My blog post Networking Inside the Company Walls, which was part of a blog series onPositive Office Politics, has been on of the most popular posts on The People Equation. As the name of the blog series implies, the focus was on the positive aspects of office politics. (Yes, there are positive aspects. Check out…
Workplace Issues
How to Deal with People Who Suck
People are programmed to help each other out. Social psychologists call this socialized behavior reciprocity and it’s evident in all human civilizations. In the United States, we have familiar phrases to describe this aspect of human behavior: “he gave as good as he got”, “one good turn deserves another”, and “you scratch my back, I’ll…
Developing Skills for Workplace Professionals
If you’re a regular reader of The People Equation, you know that I rarely make direct reference to my consulting practice, SkillSource. I figure you come here to read and talk about “people development stuff”— leadership, training and development, communication in the workplace and so on. That’s what I like to talk about too….
Are Your Workplace Traditions Like Grandma’s Roast?
Most likely, you’ve heard some variation of the following story: A young woman is getting ready to host her first big family gathering and wants to serve her grandmother’s “special recipe” roast. The woman calls her mother and asks for the recipe. The mother begins, “First you cut off both ends of the roast before…
The Urban Legend of Command and Control Management
An email arrived the other day; it was a request for assistance from a person who is gathering research for his Master’s study program. His thesis will explore, in part, a study of the demise of the command-and-control management style. I was happy to supply the information he sought. After sending the email, I found…