The Cranky Middle Manager Show #138 Waking Up In Corporate America- Eric Pennington
Wayne Turmel talks to Eric Pennington about Waking Up in Corporate America and why corporate life gets so crazy and how to survive it if you must. Knowledge isn’t always power…sometimes it just lets you know how bad things really are. Oh, and we salute a brave gerbil named Humphrey.
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Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we are talking corporate survival strategies today with Eric Pennington. This show is all about realizing how insane things can be, but finding ways to cope. Therefore this episode is dedicated to someone who literally survived the rat race with his soul intact….Humphrey the Gerbil.
When you KNOW it’s a treadmill you can make peace with it…. if you don’t lose your mind.
4:16 The quote of the week is from Daniel Webster…. remember in corporate life it might be crazy, it might be benign, but it IS corporate life. Humphrey had it right, make peace with the wheel or don’t.
5:02 Welcome Eric, who is the author of Waking Up In Corporate America. We all know it’s crazy out there, but is there more to life than just whining about it? He talks about the inspiration for the book and some of the secrets to survival.
7:22 Being authentic while being part of the team is one of the biggest challenges. Where do you draw the line between shutting up just to move ahead and being part of the organization?
11:14 How do you create an environment where honesty is both encouraged and valued? The manager sets the tone… and once the decision is made you need to honor it. No whining afterwards. You need to be connected to your employees.
13:00 Leading a life of influence is another secret…. and it’s not just for those with Leader in their job descriptions.
17:15 What are the things that big companies do to suck the life from people? The biggest one is the manager not being as engaging and interested as they were during the interview. Engagement of course goes both ways and the employee has some responsibility here.
23:00 If we assume most people mean well, what is the biggest reason good, well meaning people turn into passive aggressive losers? Blame the stock market baby. Short-term metrics lead to short-term thinking.
26:31 Eric is host of the Epic Living Radio Show…. this sounds pretty cool and he’s promised I’ll be a guest one day. Some people will say anything to get on the Cranky Middle Manager Show!
Eric’s Resources
Kevin Kelly’s blog The Technium
Even Humphrey would be in trouble if he let the weasels get him down!
April 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
[…] By the way, a big shout out to those of you who emailed me to let me know you were having problems of one kind or another. It’s so cool that you care enough to reach out. I’ll hear from you any time….. meanwhile show139 will go up at the end of the week as scheduled. Check it manually if you have to but check it. And if you didn’t get the feed for show 138 with Eric Pennington, don’t miss it. […]
May 16th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Wayne,
Just to let you know this show is still not down loadable in ITUNES(Err 404).
Thanks again for the diversity you bring along. The UAE podcast was an eyeopener. (Even though we know a bit about Middle east through School lessons as well as getting to meet people coming here to India).
Keep up the great work Sir.
Regards
Karthik.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Karthik, thank you. I’m afraid that the server meltdown over the last month has played havoc with a number of episodes…i’ll try to fix the feed but I’m glad you found it.