Welcome George Lucas, co-author of The One Minute Negotiator to the show.

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams September  24

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it   on September 26 and 29

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Get the schedule for the rest of 2010 by clicking here.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the 251st edition of the show. Today we talk negotiating, which means that our show is dedicated to James Monroe and Robert Livingston, who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. Trust me, your project team probably doesn’t have nearly as many hidden agendas or egos involved and they pulled it off, so you can too.

2:50 The quote of the week is from Adam Smith, who said that man is basically a bargaining animal. You don’t see dogs swapping bones do ya?

3:30 Welcome George Lucas, co-author of The One Minute Negotiator. We will define it as “the process through which two parties whose initial positions don’t match, work in an effort to reach an agreement. If you’ve ever tried to get extra time from your boss, you’re negotiating.

5:10 Many of us (okay, me) suffer from “Negotiaphobia”…we are terrified to engage in negotiation or just avoid it altogether. There is no one right way to do it. There are 4 styles of negotiation and you need to know how to use each properly:  accommodation, avoidance, competition and collaboration.  And don’t confuse collaboration with accommodation because you can bleed to death. You can’t accommodate someone who’s competing with you or you’ll be a doormat.

10:00 One of the biggest challenges for negotiaphobes is the concept of power and over/underestimating the balance of power between the parties. I use my landlord as an example.

14:06 You can negotiate with your boss if you know what is non-negotiable and where there’s wiggle room. Listen very carefully to their word choices, and be careful with your own.

17:00 Why are North Americans such lame negotiators?  George blames the scanner at the super market. When in doubt, blame the technology I guess. I think this has a lot to do with power…and you can’t negotiate with someone who has no authority.

21:54 The acronym for the One Minute Negotiator is EASY  Engage, Assess, Strategize,  YOUR One Minute system.

22:55 Good tip: when someone says “of course there’s an extra fee…”. That’s a clue that it’s negotiable. They’re trying to run you over.

George’s Resources

The One Minute Negotiator.com

Greatwebmeetings.com

As many of you know, we offer two proven effective programs, delivered by webinar so you can access it anywhere in the world. Here are the programs and the schedule through the end of the year. Click the link to register and learn more.

Please Note: We are open to delivery at a time convenient for Asia Pacific with two or more attendees. Please contact us at Greatwebmeetings if you are interested in scheduling a different session, or want a discount for having 3 or more attendees from the same company.

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams

If you manage a remote project team, or just a group of employees and want to learn tips and techniques for creating highly functioning, connected and productive teams, this 90 minute webinar is for you. Click the links and learn more.

September 24, 2010

October 22, 2010

November 19, 2010

December 17, 2010

Web Presentation Basics

Training without practice is wasted money. If you want to learn the basics of effective web presenting and facilitating to lead meetings, deliver training or do sales demos, this 2-part program is for you. Part 1 is delivered to a whole group, part 2 is scheduled individually or in small groups  to meet your demands.

Web Presentation Basics September 27 and 30

Web Presentation Basics October 25th and 27th

Web Presentation Basics November 22nd and 24th

Web Presentation Basics December 20 and 22

See the whole catalog of Greatwebmeetings.com Course Offerings

This young punk is the “Get it Done Guy”, Stever Robbins. He’s the author of “Get-It-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More”.

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams September  24

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it   on September 26 and 29

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Don’t forget the Connected Manager Blog on BNET. 3 Posts a week on managing remote teams and staying connected.

Show notes

0:00 Welcome to our 250th episode. No splashy party, just another interesting conversation with someone way smarter than me. Since we’re talking about getting things done, we thought we’d introduce you to the term “eminence grise” and its namesake,  Francois Leclerc de Tremblay. My mother taught me early that power has nothing to do with the org chart.

3:40 The quote of the week is from Thomas Alva Edison who knew a thing or two about the difference between being busy and actually accomplishing anything.

4:15 Say hi to Stever Robbins, author of “9 Steps to Work Less and Do More”. He also has his own podcast  with quick and dirty productivity tips. Why do we struggle to get things done? The usual reason is we’re not sure what we’re supposed to get done. Task lists are a problem and have been since the cave man scribbled “hunt buffalo” on a cave wall. I never thought of “to do ” lists as impressing potential mates. Still doesn’t work that way.

8:16 The big problem with tasks is that we lose sight of the big picture. Stever also realized that people were getting things done before the computer. Don’t underestimate the power of the simple notebook.

11:07 What’s the problem with email? How did it turn from productivity tool to time sucker? Stever offers some great tips for managing the beast. The main thing is to treat it like a handwritten letter… is it really worth the effort? If so it’s worth taking your time and doing it right.

15:07 Are you aiming for “inbox zero?” Dream on. Stever has an unorthodox solution- delete them all, go in and save only the ones you can’t function without. Self-delusion is underrated as a tool.

21:00 Replying to email instinctively is a timekiller. Try actually thinking about what you want to accomplish and say about it.

23:45 Let’s assume you want to actually keep your job. Stever has great tips for working with your team- including modeling whatever behavior you want them to copy. Using actual messages as the subject line in your email is a great way to help them actually understand your message.

Stever’s Resources

The Lifehacker blog

43 Folders

The Quick and Dirty Tips podcast

Anything by Marshall Goldsmith including

Tommy Spaulding talks to us about making lifelong connections and how it’s NOT networking…well it kind of is. He’ll explain.

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams August 27th

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it   on August 23 and 26th

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Don’t forget the Connected Manager Blog on BNET. 3 Posts a week on managing remote teams and staying connected.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. I’m back from vacation but just as cranky as ever. Today we’re talking networking, or at least taking count of the people around you and what they mean to you…and vice versa. That got me thinking about censuses, and that got me thinking about Hesham Abdel Malek ben Marwan, who in 600 AD started taking stock of people around him.

3:00 The quote of the week is from Samuel Johnson. Is it better to seek people out or accept those who come to you? Tommy might have something to say about this quote….

4:00 Welcome Tommy Spaulding. He first came to my attention in Steve’s book “Greater Than Yourself”. (hear the full interview with Steve here). Tommy’s story is proof that connections and human relationships are more important than technical skills.

6:11 What’s wrong with what we normally think of as “networking”. Tommy thinks it’s a curse word, which might be a bit strong, but it’s primarily about helping ourselves. That’s a limited view of how to create true relationships. he prefers “netgiving” which is a bit of a semantic twist but I’ll go with it. Much like The Go-Giver by Bob Burg (and you can hear that interview here too). Of course if you’re looking for books, it’s really “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie that got him started on this path.

10:25 There are levels of relationships- “5 Floors” as Tommy calls them. Level one is purely transactional. Level 2 you might share a little personal information (NSW- News Sports Weather) conversations. Level 3 is exposing a bit of yourself to the person and Levels 4 and 5 are very open and candid. It’s a little counterintuitive but work with him.

14:00 As he does in the book, Tommy shares an example of building a level 4 or 5 relationship. It’s all about working with and for other people without thinking of yourself first that it all comes together. The term Tommy uses is “relationship captial” which i’m not comfortable with but this whole conversation kinds weirds me out so there you have it.

21:02 Tommy gives us some practical tips, one of which he calls, “Pardon me while I talk to your wife…” which is all about including the spouses and others when you’re working with someone. Ignore the people around your folks at your peril.

24:50 More tips: on the back of everyone’s business card that you get, write something that came up during the conversation so you have something about them that will help you connect.

27:15

Tommy’s Resources

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams August 27th

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it   on August 23 and 26th

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the Cranky Middle Manager. Today we are talking about the ABCs of Management, and thus we’re thinking about spelling and words and that brings us to today’s dedication. Robert Cawdrey not only invented the first English dictionary, but the credit then went to Samuel Johnson. Sounds about right. Also, he was worried that if we didn’t all define our terms we wouldn’t know what we were talking about…and he was right there too.

4:30 The quote of the week is from Mark Twain who knew a thing or two about choosing the right words…and when not to use them.

5:20 Welcome Bob Parkinson back to the show (you can hear his first interview here). Do we really need another book about becoming a manager? Apparently we do. The ABCs of management are: Attitude, Behavior and Culture.

7:20 Is becoming a manager any more difficult than it ever was? The biggest challenge is that the workplace may not be an actual place at all.  Working remotely has fundamentally changed the demands of the job.

10:45 How does a manager listen and pay attention to people he or she never sees. A big part of your job is NOT doing things, it’s helping them get it done.

15:13 How do you empower employees? They need 5 things to know exactly what’s expected:

• What needs to be done?
• When does it need to be done?
• Who is responsible for getting it done?
• Why does it need to be done?
• How will success be measured?

17:13 For this to work you have verification. The employee has to be able to show that they’ve done what they’ve been asked to do. The manager has to verify that he or she was heard correctly in the first place. Just because you said it, doesn’t mean they understood it. Make sure they can verbalize what the heck you wanted.

20:30 What’s the difference between getting to root cause and finding out what happened and putting people on the spot? For the record, Bob calls the question profound. This has never happened. Ever.

23:40 What is the one communication tool or skill managers would magically develop if Bob had his choice? They have to realize they are dealing with people first, employees second.  The gift of respect is often lacking.

Bob’s Resources

As of this morning, you can read The Connected Manager blog 3 times a week. You’ll find tips on managing remote teams, presenting over the web and leading across the ether. Don’t worry, we’ll still be cranking out Cranky shows (we’re not going anywhere) but this is yet another way to get the information, tips and support you need to get the job done every day.

Please check out the blog post for today and subscribe so you don’t miss a single post. Or you can just follow me on Twitter, where you’ll find out everything that’s going on at BNET, Management-Issues and the Cranky Middle Manager.

Thanks for all your support, and as I used to say when I was single, “don’t tell me, tell your friends”.

Don’t let the weasels get you down.

zinger

David Zinger joins us to talk about employee engagement, the EE network and making art with honeybees.

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams July 3oth and August 27th

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it. July 26th and 29th  and again on August 23 and 26th

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Show Notes

0:00 Today we welcome David Zinger back to the show to talk about employee engagement and a free e-book written by some very smart people (myself included…in the writing, not the smart people part). We dedicate the show to Edward R Murrow who led Murrow’s Boys and say farewell to Daniel Schorr. Makes you wonder if a pizza party will do as much for team cohesion as falling V2 rockets…..

4:31 The quote of the week is from Samuel Goldwyn, renowned for saying what he meant even when he had no idea what he was saying…….

5:10 Welcome David Zinger back to the show (you can hear his first interview here). David is also the head of the Employee Engagement Network on Ning. check it out for a great network of people who care… After several years of people talking about employee engagement is anything getting better out there? Not so much.

7:18 A couple of cynical questions from Wayne… hasn’t worked always sucked? Isn’t it by nature a transaction?  If we spend 20-30% of our time at work shouldn’t we get something from it besides a paycheck? Oh and isn’t misery optional? What is the employee’s role in engagement?

11:00 David goes off on the whole idea of “confidential ” 360.  Apparently he’s not a fan…if you can’t be truthful about feedback you’re not sufficiently engaged and it’s time to start the conversation.

13:13 If you havne’t checked out The Employee Engagement Network, you probably should do so. Not only great people and thought leaders, but also just plain folks who are passionate about the topic. With that many people that passionate, what are the trends? One big area is managers not feeling engaged with Senior Leadership and if we’re not engaged, how can we offer energy and happy YouTube dances for our employees? David also uses a term I’ve been using for years…checking in without checking up.

19:07 How do we have these conversations with our own managers? You have to work up to them… don’t just parrot what you learn in class. Did you know the average person in north America complains about their boss or their company over 10 hours a month?

21:14 What does David recommend for keeping people engaged? Video, pictures of teammates,even (gasp) show up in person. Don’t underestimate taking time off the top of meetings to check in with each other. David studies honeybees and is doing artwork with the bees. David needs some time off methinks…. He also tells a chilling story of what happens when the bees want a new queen.  We’ve seen it happen in our workplace too. Are you getting cooked by your staff?

25:15 The Employee Engagement has created an E-book called “The Engagement Top Ten”, which is  a series of lists of 10 things managers can do to keep their people engaged. Participants include myself, David, Michael Lee Stallard, Ian Buckingham and many more. Click here to download for free

Chuck Martin, one of the co-authors of Work Your Strengths. This is a good one, folks.

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams July 3oth and August 27th

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it. July 26th and 29th  and again on August 23 and 26th

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show, gang. Today we are talking playing to your strengths and what can happen when you don’t. As exhibit A we give you Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, great general, lousy human being who fought in the First Crusade. Always wanted the one job he was completely unqualified to have and it didn’t go so swell for him.

4:10 Our quote of the week is from the Tao te Ching and it basically says, knowing yourself is the first step to real wisdom.  Obvious, maybe but are you making wise career choices?

4:50 Welcome Chuck Martin, co-author of “Work Your Strengths”. Lots more brain science today gang. Basically we’re born with certain cognitive functions (Executive Skills to be precise, even though many executives lack them).  These are things like Time Management, Response inhibition (guilty) Task Initiation, Flexibility and more.

10:15 Does the fact you’re weak in an area mean you can never learn to do that job? No, but it ain’t going to be easy. Successful people find out how to supplement their weaknesses by finding people who can fill in the gaps. That’s what assistants are for- if you’re lucky enough to have one.

12:15 Why don’t we naturally hire people different from us if it’s so smart?  It’s because we value our strengths over others. If you hire all big idea people and no execution skills you know what you’ll get…..

14:45 What’s the difference between a strength and a skill. You can take a course in PC assembly, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be natural or easy for you. This , of course, leads to the big question: why bother training people?

19:48 What do sales managers have that good sales people don’t?  Why do good sales people not always make good managers and vice versa?

25:00 At what point does diagnosis become destiny? Can you screen people out of certain careers too early? This makes me very nervous.

28:47 Every team needs someone who is good at Jeopardy (the strength is working memory). I also reveal I was once a contestant on Jeopardy, even though I got stomped on the show. Men and women also have different strengths and executive skills. Men do tend to be higher in Metacognition, women tend to be stronger in Organization.

Chuck’s Resources

Chuck reads my BNET blog, believe it or not

Media Post

Guy Harris talks to us about moving from peer to leader. If you’re interested in his workshop, “Bud to Boss”, held July 26 and 27 in Chicago, click here to learn more.

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams July 3oth

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it. July 26th and 29th

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Many of us got into management because we were complaining and basically got told to put up or shut up. Learn an object lesson from today’s dedicatee: the Greek God Momus. Complain too much and you’ll find yourself out of a pretty cushy gig. Of course as managers we need to deal with those situations. Good thing Mt Olympus didn’t have an HR department….

3:30 The quote of the week is from Ralph Waldo Emerson….. If you feel out of your depth and uncomfortable, well that’s a good thing. Really. Prepares you for management.

4:08 Okay, no one ever tells you that one of the biggest changes you’ll face in moving into leadership is managing people you used to work with and were your friends. That’s what Guy Harris is here to talk about. He’s partnered with Kevin Eikenberry well known to Cranky listeners (listen to Kevin’s last Cranky  interview here). In your new job, you not just change role, but also relationships and it’s the relationships that give people fits. Here’s a rule: don’t assume people will be mature and grownup about the whole process.

6:40 What does the conversation look like when you become the boss? These people know you so you can’t kid them. Approach it with humility and confidence. After some badgering he gives us some very specific language to use.

10:22 Often the biggest problem with this transition is the drama going on in our own heads- we assume problems that may or may not even exist.

12:20 Any time you take a new position, you need to create a transition plan. You have to analyze both the Role (the tasks of the new job) and the Relationships (who am I going to work with now?).

15:25 Planning is a good start but you can’t rely on it. One of the big changes is giving feedback. You have to remember that the power in the relationship has changed a great deal. Be careful of trying to be friends with the people you lead. But what if you’re already friends?

18:14 Relationships change when you’re the boss. Deal with it. There’s a reason the military has a “no fraternization” rule. You have a new “first team”- your leadership team is now the people you need to work best with and rely on.

24:21 the biggest concerns people have when they move into their first job involve communication and conflict resolution. As the manager you can’t just jump in and solve the problem. And no matter what you do you can’t solve the “thermostat in the office” argument by yourself.

Guy’s Resources

Tony Schwartz is today’s guest. You can also read my Management Issues column on this topic as well as my BNET blog.

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams July 3oth

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it. July 26th and 29th

If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.

Show Notes:

0:00 Is the way we’re expected to work today work for you? Me either but what can we do about it? Well we dedicate this show to someone who tried to change the way people worked and lived too…Moses.

4:34 The quote of the week is from Kurt Vonnegut who shares a similar attitude to yours truly but you can only laugh things off for so long. Are we there yet?

5:15 Welcome Tony Schwartz to the show. He’s the brains behind Take Back Your Lunch Day among other things. I urge you to join the movement… I have. What does he mean when he says the way we’re working doesn’t work? This is not hyperbole, it’s physically unsustainable. We aren’t made to stay connected 24/7.

7:55 Well we have 4 needs we need to create energy. They generally aren’t getting met: Physical, Emotional,Mental and Spiritual

9:13 At the top of the Physical Needs list is sleep, and most of us aren’t getting nearly enough. You need 7-8 hours a night on average. Most of us get less than 6. Is it the first thing you sacrifice? How’s that working for you? Research shows that great performers get lots of sleep, and often in 90 minutes cycles.

14:31 Sticking with something for long periods of times doesn’t always get you great results. After 90 minutes you get less return per minute. I can attest to the effectiveness of this while writing my new book.

17:55 The second set of needs is Emotional. If you’re not emotionally energetic and positive, it’s contagious. If you’re not, that is too. You can’t function when you’re miserable. Duh but what can you do about it? Adrenaline and Cortisol are not meant to be your steady diet.

21:04 Mental needs are about focus. Multitasking is largely a myth and we can only stay connected and functional for so long. When you substitute breadth for depth, you lose quality in your work.

22:58 What’s the manager’s role in keeping their people whole and functioning? Tony gives an example from Ernst and Young, which is a pretty high-profile, high pressure workplace.

24:20 Finally, we look at Spirituality, which is really about significance. Are you doing work that matters to you? Does it reflect your values? Managers undervalue the power of helping people discover what makes them tick?

27:00 I’m a big proponent of Take Back Your Lunch Day (here’s the BNET post on it). Join the movement!

Tony’s Resources

Check out Seth Godin’s Blog

Find us on Twitter

Sally Helgesen, author of The Female Vision

2 new webinar workshops this month!

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams July 3oth

Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it. July 26th and 29th

Show notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we have a very wide-ranging discussion about how men and women see the world differently, and why more female managers would be a good thing for the most part. Not that women are more perfect than men, they just see the world differently. We dedicate the show to Portia, the heroine of The Merchant of Venice and like most  managers I’ve had in my life, both male and female, a mix of talent and less desirable characteristics but possessing a world view different than most males.

3:20 The quote of the week is from Joseph Joubert and it sums up the philosophy of this show: debate and discussion are way better than not discussing something. Unless it involves video replay of World Cup goals and then there’s no reason for discussion.

4:20 Welcome Sally Helgesen to the show. With fans like Marshall Goldsmith and Frances Hesselbein she’s probably someone we should talk to. While tiptoeing between stereotype and observation, we plunge into The Female Vision and we start with the brain science.

7:20 I challenge the first stereotype by admitting I don’t rule the remote control in my house. This either makes me enlightened or henpecked depending on your point of view.  This issue aside, what are the objective, scientific differences between the male and female brain? There are basically 2- women’s brains tend to fire at multiple points (they multitask better than men do) and they have better peripheral vision, (they notice more stuff around them).

11:00 Women often find their ability to notice little environmental things is discounted by male leaders as “off topic” but those things matter. Does your organization reward laser-like focus? What’s the business impact of that kind of thinking and how is it different than Attention Deficit Disorder?

15:50 There are three things that separate how most women work – What women notice, what they value and how they put things together.  Here’s a big difference: more men are willing to put up with a dissatifactory work place than women are. Is that necessarily or a virtue or are things only improved by those willing to change them? Men also tend to be more focused on future outcomes (eyes on the prize) than women are.

20:57 We compare these gender differences with generational differences. Why don’t we think about ways to create a work experience that isn’t miserable short term as well as long term? Surely there’s a business issue here.

23:50 Do these findings reflect what’s going on in the younger generation? Women are outperforming men in academics, are outnumbering us in college and getting hired at a faster rate. How is this impacting younger generations of men and women?

28:50 How do women put information together in different ways than men? Women tend to look at a more complete picture in terms of impacts on people as well as on “business performance”. This means a big change in the focus and behavior of businesses. Is shareholder value the only guiding principle businesses should have?

Sally’s Resources

Zack Grossbart in what passes for the home office for many workers. You can read more in my BNET blog post

My obnoxious officemate, Byron de Prorok. He puts in an unexpected appearance.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. We dedicate this episode to Sir Francis Drake. He not only managed remote teams and people in cramped quarters, but he kept the stakeholders happy. Talk about ROI…

3:11 The quote of the week is from Francois de Rouchefoucauld. Does distance blow out your team’s candle or blow up their bonfire? No, that’s not a euphemism for anything.

4:20 We are talking about managing remote engineers today, and welcome to Zack Grossbart. As an engineer working remotely himself, he didn’t have a resource like this to work from. Who knew he’d have missed his coworkers so much. He probably just missed the cool software startup office with the pingpong table.

7:33 Many remote managers become micromanagers in order to avoid unpleasant surprises. One of the biggest mistakes managers make is figuring that people will know how to communicate effectively with each other.  The communication wall gets much bigger than it should be, and it’s not a technology problem.

10:30 People have to know how to get hold of you, and that includes both the obvious (phone, email, IM) and other tools like wikis and blogs that help span time zones. Also keep your statuses and messages up to date. Teammates need to trust and know each other, and those tools are great ways to do that. You can learn more in our “How to Create and Manage Remote Teams” workshops.

14:24 Written communication can make or break your remote team. It’s both the best way to communicate what you know to your teammates, but also a way to demonstrate what you have done. If you can’t write well, you won’t be trusted or understood and work takes a lot longer.

16:40 Just because we can communicate at the speed of light, does that mean we have to work that quickly?  How does a manager set expectations, or more to the point, help the team set norms and expectations. He’s a big fan of IRC which is a bit geeky but works nicely, especially for open source projects. Also, schedules are crucial- and stick to them.

21:49 Regular communication is an important factor in team communication. It can also save your sanity.

22:30 One of the biggest problems for remote workers is being able to turn things off and have some sort of life. You have to turn the computer and phone off. Yes, actually off. You can’t do your best work when your’e stressed. Try to make sure you eat lunch, for example. Really, when was the last time you really took lunch?

27:10 What are the signs of stress and strain in a team? How do you know when people are working too hard or not being effective? Use a 3-week plan to test and still get good grades.

Resources

The one minute commute blog in 15 chapters

WordPress Editorial Calendar project- an open source project

Aza Raskin’s blog

Bob Morison uses small words to explain Analytics to me without making my head explode.

June 28th’s workshop will be also be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

If you want a copy of our FREE white paper “3 Reasons Remote Teams Fail- And How to See It Coming” click here.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show, everyone. Today we are talking about analytics. Rumor has it you can actually make good decisions with this stuff called “data”. Crazy, right? Still, it’s an old idea and we dedicate this show to the father of English Demographics and actuarial tables John Graunt. Statistically, he should have seen the trouble he’d get into.

2:37 Our quote of the week is from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is why you know what most people will do in any situation, but individuals will make you crazy. Are you an” insoluble puzzle”?

4:34 Welcome Bob Morison back to the show ( he was here in the early days, you can hear that interview here). He’s a numbers geek, which I decidedly am not. Why is good data so important and how can we use it intelligently?

8:30 Bob is a smart guy, besides his use of the word “informate”. When is it useful and when is it just paperwork? Turns out you actually have to ask. You have to create a culture where people can challenge numbers without it getting personal. Turns out he’s not a born geek, he’s had it thrust upon him.

11:57 He gives us an example of good data like finding patterns. Oh, so THAT’S what analytics are good for

13:18 How do you get the team excited about getting the numbers and using it to bring them all together. This involves actual conversation and stuff. Managers need to facilitate these discussions and help the introverts demonstrate value.

16:40 How do managers make it okay to challenge and question data? Bob is a big believer of assigning gadflies or instituting the equivalent of Question Period).  You have to challenge your assumptions on a regular basis.

21:30 According to research, analysts and geeks are happier with their work than the rest of us. Why? Turns out because they’re allowed to do the part of the job they really care about. Crazy notion. Also, if you just have them doing reports and not tackling the problems they’ll go running for the hills. They’re a lot like engineers , which makes sense, but they also want to work on the challenges that matter and that they’re appreciated. Oh good, that’s our challenge again.

25:00 Social networking is vital to these people, but a lot of companies try to lock them up because the data is proprietary. Companies need to figure that out. Connecting and sharing is vital. What are you keeping close to the vest that is worth more when you share it?

Bob’s Resources

Charlie Pellerin is the brains behind 4-D Systems and proof that sometimes, leadership really is Rocket Science.

June 28th’s workshop will be also be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!S

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Now you can get 3 of the best Cranky interviews on project management on one CD for $15 plus postage

• Green PM
• Lazy Project Management
• Managing Projects Across Distance

Click here to learn more and to purchase this CD. Contains a discount coupon for all Greatwebmeetings.com webinar workshops.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome everyone. Today we are talking leadership on the biggest of projects so it seems right to dedicate this show to Odysseus, who understood how hard it was to get a project adopted (really, a big wooden horse?) and that it’s not over til it’s over.

4:20 Today’s quote of the week is from Igor Stravinsky. Do you learn from founts of wisdom and knowledge or from your mistakes…and can’t it be both?

5:00 Okay, Charlie Hellerin was the head of Astrophysics at NASA when the Hubble Telescope launched. Here he tells us how things went wrong, and how this led to his research on leadership and teams. It gets a bit geeky but it’s worth the ride.

11:20 Give thanks to whatever gods you believe in that this was him and not you. The real issue was the culture at NASA. Who knew that beating the snot out of contractors wasn’t going to get good results?

13:41 No big surprise, but the biggest challenge in organizations like NASA was “context”. That’s the working environment. How do you do things where you work and how does that impact leadership? Charlie tells us how he developed his “4-D” system by using Cartesian physics, Carl Jung and a Dilbert cartoon. Yeah, it makes my head hurt but it’s really cool. It’s all based on how we make decisions (emotions and logic) and where we get information from (intuition and observation).

15:58 The 4 dimensions of leadership are:

1. Cultivation- do you care about growing people
2. Inclusion- do you include people and give them a sense of belonging
3. Visioning- innovation and big picture
4. Direction- processes and getting things done

17:45 Why don’t business books work? Change comes from behavior change, not recognizing the problem. Charlie walks us through how this works in the real world.

22:09 I ask him to speak slowly with small words. When you’re doing an assessment it’s amazing how just the act of being assessed can improve performance. As long as the assessment is followed up on and taken seriously it actually works. People will spend time on what gets measured. It’s pretty simple.

27:14 As managers, we spend a lot of time influencing and trying to persuade other people to do stuff. The term Charlie uses is “story lines”. Is your story line arguable or is it factual? He explains it better than I do but can you identify your story line and tell whether it’s arbitrary or factual.

30:00 The story line at NASA was about beating vendors til they scream, well why would they come forward with problems?

31:29 NASA is an engineering culture. Soft skills are often looked at skeptically, but the problems were largely with that culture.

Charlie’s Resources

Chris Martenson’s Crash Course Blog (not for the paranoid)

Jeff Rubin’s blog

All kinds of good stuff including free downloads and assessments from Charlie’s site

Sylvia Lafair will tell us how family dynamics impact how we work. A little therapy for your workday.

June 28th’s workshop will be also be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!S

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Now you can get 3 of the best Cranky interviews on project management on one CD for $15 plus postage

• Green PM
• Lazy Project Management
• Managing Projects Across Distance

Click here to learn more and to purchase this CD. Contains a discount coupon for all Greatwebmeetings.com webinar workshops.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we are talking family dynamics and how the way you work with your family is probably also your MO at work. As exhibit A we present Peter the Great who treated pretty much everyone like his dimwitted half-brother.

2:37 The quote of the week is from Helen Keller. Nothing like being deaf dumb and mute to make you appreciate your family. I find keeping them in another country works too.

4:07 Welcome Sylvia Lafair to discuss how family dynamics mirror work dynamics and vice versa. I wrote on her blog recently and it’s good to talk to her. It would be lovely to leave all the family drama at the door and not bring it to work….except that we do. Procrastination, for example, goes back to refusing to clean your room even when you know you should get it done. When stress hits, we all revert to patterns we learned as kids.

8:00 Yes, I just confessed that the amygdala is my favorite part of the body. Emotions are incredibly powerful and can’t just be ignored. It’s in the hard wiring. Yes, I blame my challenges with reward and recognition on my mother which is neither fair nor relevant to 2010. Oh, and apparently is a big ole Drama Queen.

11:49 I watch this play out with my kid at work. We can transform these patterns but we have to see them first.

12:42 Does this mean we have to psychoanalyze all our employees? How important is it we know their story? Not as important as knowing what patterns show up in their work.

15:00 Sylvia walks us through coaching a chronic procrastinator. She gives us very specific language for having the conversation. Two key things. You need to ask:  What do you want as an outcome?  and you need to shut up.

19:50 When giving feedback, it’s important that you expose yourself first (not in the bad HR way). This leads to mirror neurons firing in their brains and they relax. If you don’t come in as a friend, the threat response takes over.

21:00 Sylvia’s process is OUT- Observe, Understand and Transform. It takes a little work but we get her to talk more about transformation and how it happens.

25:00 Is this all Western Freudian nonsense or is it internationally relevant as well? Sylvia finds families are families. Only the terminology changes.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Follow Wayne on Twitter

Follow Sylvia on Twitter

The Glass Hammer Blog

Wally Bock’s 3 Star Leadership

Sit down, shut up and listen to Harvey. He hasn’t been around this long without learning  a thing or two.

Don’t forget May’s How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams webinar workshop. Click here to learn more and register.

June 28th’s workshop will be also be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Now you can get 3 of the best Cranky interviews on project management on one CD for $15 plus postage

• Green PM
• Lazy Project Management
• Managing Projects Across Distance

Click here to learn more and to purchase this CD. Contains a discount coupon for all Greatwebmeetings.com webinar workshops.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today since we’re talking about finding a job and being in charge of your own career we dedicate this episode to John Hawkwood, the Renaissance mercenary master of outsourcing and living on your own terms.

3:35 The quote of the week is from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Is your career a matter of luck or cause and effect?

5:07 Whether you’re currently employed or you’re out on the street, we all need to think about our careers and where the next job is coming from. Harvey gives us some hard numbers about how hard it is to find a gig. In your career you’ll have 10+ job changes and more than 3-5 full blown career changes in our lifetime.

10:50 The biggest challenge for a lot of us is the belief that our work will speak for itself. It doesn’t work that way, the competition is too strong. The only thing that will save you is your network. What shape is your network in?

13:30 What does a network look like today? Online social networks are an addendum, not a replacement for your own personal network. You have to put yourself out in the mix. Harvey has a radical solution if you get let go from a job… go volunteer. You’ll learn networking, sales and management skills plus meet lots of people.

18:11 No one wants to deal with you or hire you if you have a pout on. Harvey gives us some tough love (and a couple of cliches) about adjusting your attitude. We impact our own mood through the people we meet and the input (books, blogs and stuff) that we read.

22:49 You can’t reach out to your network when you’re out of a job if you haven’t been in touch before that. It takes a plan and some work. Informational interviews are a good way to do that.

25:58 What do we need to focus on when we go out on an interview? Do your homework and personalize the contact when you send out a resume or CV.

Harvey’s Resource

There’s a ton of stuff on his website , including his free book on networking

Susan Cramm joins us to talk about hating IT.

Don’t forget May’s How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams webinar workshop. Click here to learn more and register.

June 28th’s workshop will be also be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Now you can get 3 of the best Cranky interviews on project management on one CD for $15 plus postage

• Green PM
• Lazy Project Management
• Managing Projects Across Distance

Click here to learn more and to purchase this CD. Contains a discount coupon for all Greatwebmeetings.com webinar workshops.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to one of the more fun shows we’ve had in a while. We’ll talk about why we hate IT. This is tricky since so many of our listeners are IT but if anyone knows about self-loathing it’s middle managers. We dedicate this episode to Dionyisus the Elder of Syracuse- the model for evil IT directors everyone. A little technical knowledge and a lot of power is not a good mix.

3:40 The quote of the week is from Marshall McLuhan. If you’re in IT are you intelligent AND lighthearted? Didn’t think so.

4:50 Welcome Susan Cramm of Valuedance. You gotta love a book called 8 Things we Hate About IT. How did she limit it to that few? Okay why do we hate IT? It has a lot to do with how much money we spend and how little value we see. Too little, too late, for too much money is not a recipe for creating great relationships.

9:20 The real owner of IT should be the department heads, not IT and that’s the core of a problem- a disconnect between accountability and authority. I tell a story from a prospect I actually spoke to. Does your company have this same problem? (Call me if you do!)

13:37 The first thing on her list is “you need service and IT needs control”.  Are you waiting on the IT breadline?

15:49 There are cheap consumer grade products out there that project teams can use but IT often stops them. IT needs to help set boundaries and then get out of the way. I’m a big fan of the Skunk Works concept. Come out of the innovation closet!

19:15 There’s a natural tension between tactics that managers need to implement and the strategic alignment which is IT’s job. It helps if everyone understands the end goal. It would also help if we spoke a lingua franca (which is ironically in a language no one understands). The best way to make sure we’re talking about the same thing is smallscale examples instead of big projects.

26:00 How can you succeed where others have failed miserably? Make sure you understand the impact of your project on your external customers and have something worth doing and then pass that on to others. Get them excited and ask for a little bit of money and time and prove your concept before going big.

28:00 We use less than 28% of the functionality of our IT products and systems. You have way more capability than you think. Oh, and IT shouldn’t necessarily be doing the training. Do you want your sales demos taught by the same guy who fixes your hard drive? Oh and if you want your people to use technology, you have to be one of the first to adopt.

Susan’s Resources

Check out her blog

Ron Holohan is a very smart guy, and the host of the PM411.org blog.

You can hear my interview on PM411 Here

Don’t forget May’s How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams webinar workshop. Click here to learn more and register.

June 28th’s workshop will be also be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Now you can get 3 of the best Cranky interviews on project management on one CD for $15 plus postage

• Green PM
• Lazy Project Management
• Managing Projects Across Distance

Click here to learn more and to purchase this CD. Contains a discount coupon for all Greatwebmeetings.com webinar workshops.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. We dedicate this episode to a project manager who really let things slip- King Nimrod, the PM on the whole Tower of Babel fiasco.

3:45 The quote of the week is from Gustav Flaubert, and it’s cynical and counterproductive. Still, it made me feel better.

4:40 Welcome Ron Holohan.  If you haven’t checked out the PM411 podcast, (and you promise to keep listening to me) you really should. Ron recently gave a great presentation and you can get a copy of it by emailing me. “3 Reasons Projects Slip”. He explains that statistic that 70% or so of projects fail. Actually 44% come in late or over budget. The other 24% are cancelled or are never implemented. Sleep well.

8:44 Why the rush to PMP and other Certifications? Ron points out that even perfect plans are prone to slippage. Is a Zombie takeover a risk or a constraint? The 3 reasons projects slip are:

1. Student Syndrome
2. Parkinson’s Law
3. Bad Multitasking

10:03 What is Student Syndrome and why does it impact us? This is a fascinating look at why we screw up deadlines we impose on ourselves? The answer is to focus on duration not dates.

19:41 Parkinsons law is similar but basically we wait to turn in finished work but then spend time polishing the work and last minute snags arise. Turn it in when it’s done, not when it’s due.

22:08 The chance that something will go wrong on any task is high…the odds of something going wrong on every task is very low. The man is an optimist….

24:08 Multitasking is a myth but by golly we cling to it…. it’s like driving drunk only you put it on your resume.

30:00 Okay repeat after me: turn off the email and the phone, turn it on when you’re done. How hard can it be?

Ron’s Resources

Check out PM411 or drop him a line for a copy of his presentation

Cornelius Fitchner’s PMPodcast you can also hear my Cranky #163 interview with Cornelius here

PMStudent.com

Askaboutprojects.com

Our FREE Whitepaper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail and How To See It Coming

Sam Culbert says we should kill the performance review…. and I thought I was cranky………

Don’t forget May’s How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams webinar workshop. Click here to learn more and register.

June 28th’s workshop will be also be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

You can also follow us on Twitter

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show all ye who labor and are sore weary…especially of doing performance reviews. Since these things are so often witch hunts, we dedicate this episode to a real witchfinder… Matthew Hopkins. Good news, you’re not a witch. Bad news, finding that out killed you. I’ve worked in companies like that…..

4:04 The quote of the week is from Lord Byron ….. are you the Boring or the Bored?

4:45 Welcome Dr Sam Culbert to the show. He’s crankier than I am, and mostly about performance reviews. So what’s wrong with them? He uses a word I have never used on this show…..although highly tempted from time to time. The problems include: they’re not objective, the standards are bogus and it kills the trust between managers and each employee.

7:30 Being a pessimistic historian, I am curious as to where the performance review came from. Turns out the real culprit is “management by objectives”- a flawed concept to start with. Astonishingly I find myself defending
HR and Sam will have none of it.

12:42 The HR department should be seeking alternatives instead of keeping the Kabuki theatre going. Sam claims it’s in their interests to keep these things alive. They get to keep the dirty little secrets.

14:28 Oh, and the notion that pay is tied to performance reviews is nonsense, it just ticks off the employee and frustrates us managers.

19:08 Don’t get him started on 360 degree feedback either. Anonymous sniping is not feedback.

22:02 There is a difference between a “job description” and describing the job- the unique way each person tackles the job to accomplish their results.

25:30 So what’s the alternative to the Review? Sam calls it the Performance Preview. Constant,candid conversation about the goals, how they’re doing all along the way and honest communication without fear.

30:30 How do companies do this preview without a paper trail? Sam doesn’t seem to understand the insane need for documentation in companies. Sam’s goal is to make work fit for human consumption….

Sam’s Resources

Erik Van Slyke of the Solleva Group joins us to talk about failure. So why is he smiling?

Don’t forget April’s How to Create and Manage Remote Teams webinar workshop. Click here to learn more and register.

May’s workshop will be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show and the ultimate irony- you’re here to succeed, so why are we insisting you learn how to fail??? That’s today’s topic and we dedicate this show to Guy de Lusignan who succeeded in failing spectacularly yet wound up with not a bad gig. Something for us all to learn from.

3:35 The quote of the week is from John Keats…. romantics dig failure, even the successful ones.

4:30 Welcome Erik Van Slyke to the show to discuss the F word. Well not THE F word, but just about as shocking. Why should we enjoy failure? Because we’re so good at it.

7:00 An important semantic difference: accepting failure isn’t the same as expecting it and coping.  Expecting failure is a key component of project management. If you don’t think about what can go wrong, you’re not planning properly.

11:50 How can we get comfortable with failure when so many other people are connected and counting on us? Organizations are so complex we’re doomed to fail somewhere. It’s not being perfect, it’s being in the process of perfection.

14:20 Where is the line between striving for excellence and driving yourself crazy? Again, it’s in the process.You have to be collaboratvie- really collaborative.

16:24 Erik claims to have an actual case study where people do this without getting fired. Listen up.

19:23 A lot of people who live in the PMI world are amazed when projects go wrong. The problem isn’t planning, it’s communicating during the plan. How can we create an environment where people are comfortable talking about failure and getting into trouble? Make it safe for your team to screw up.

22:36 How do we communicate our teams’ failure to our bosses in  constructive way. The trick is to admit to the problem but also offer a solution. Don’t just say “00ps”.

25:20 There is a relationship between innovation and failure. You can’t innovate without stuff going wrong. The quest for perfection will kill real creativity.

Erik’s Resources

His blog

Walter Kiechel III talks to us about The Lords of Strategy and makes it so even I understand it.

Don’t forget April’s How to Create and Manage Remote Teams webinar workshop. Click here to learn more and register.

May’s workshop will be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show middle managers- even if you refuse to accept the title. We all know what you are. Today’s show is dedicated to the Ottoman sultan Murad Bey who understood both outsourcing and the power of independent advice.

5:30 The quote of the week is from my boy Francis Bacon who knew a thing or two about being a consultant. Advice and example is what we’re looking for…and it helps if you have a cool model.

6:03 Welcome Walter Kiechel who will explain where consultants came from and what they’ve done to the business world- and it’s not all bad. Really.  Actually, you wouldn’t think strategy is new, but it’s only been around since the mid 1960s.

9:00 With no track record to run on, why were the big consulting companies so successful? The power of a practical tool like the Growth Share Matrix.  What has it wrought on us? Are we now driven only by stock performance?

14:00 Let’s be fair, the advantage of a consultant is the ability to offer objective insight…when it is objective.

15:45 One of the first consulting models that really took off was BCG’s Experience Curve.

18:15 What has been the impact on business overall of all this consulting? Walter maintains it’s an overall healthier competitive landscape. Competitive advantage only lasts 6 months if you don’t watch it.

20:35 Besides making sure you keep your job, what’s the best way to work with consultants? Volunteer for one thing to make sure you’re heard, and this is not the time to be shy. A great tip- ask to present with them instead of having them tell the story on your behalf.

23:21 Not that I want to kill new ideas, but there are consulting fads so as a service to you the new ones are “analytics” and innovation.

Walter’s Resources

adamalexander

Today’s guest Adam Alexander.

Don’t forget April’s How to Create and Manage Remote Teams webinar workshop. Click here to learn more and register.

May’s workshop will be How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams. Find out more here

As always, use the discount code cranky to save 10%!

Also, check out our new BNET blog on Managing Remote and Virtual Teams.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Hopefully you’ve had the resilience to go to work yet another day. Today we dedicate the show to the Greek poet and playwright Sophocles and his two plays Ajax and Philocthetes. Some folks make it through the day, some fall on their swords.

4:27 The quote of the week is from Confucius, or so I’m told. How often do you get back up after getting knocked down?

5:03 Welcome Adam Alexander of Masteryworks. Resiliency is a combination of adaptability, flexibility and strength of purpose. No one said this was going to be easy.

7:47 It’s really hard to look at the busy work and drudgery as strength of purpose. How does your contribution fit into the big picture?

9:08 Resiliency comes from confidence- which is great if you have confidence to start with. What’s the difference between bravado and true internal confidence.

11:21 Confidence can be impacted by how old you are and what gender you are. Women are less confident than men but more resilient…which makes sense because they have to put up with men.

15:00 How can a manager tell who is truly resilient and who is just putting on a good show? They are usually less productive and really resistant to change.

17:49 Often we try to delegate to develop people and it backfires because they don’t succeed. You build resilience through failure and the ability to navigate that as well. You have to delegate effectively and let people know where to get help.

20:04 Finding help is more than just mentor/mentee. In fact reverse mentoring might help bridge gaps between generations as well.

Adam’s Resources

Follow us on Twitter as well
Join us at Greatwebmeetings.com

Don’t forget our How to Create and Manage Remote Teams webinar workshops. For March 22nd, click here to learn more and register

April 26th, Click here to learn more and register

Check out my new BNET column on Remote Team Management

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. We dedicate this show about doing great work to someone who created a Great Work (even if I hated it) John Milton. Creating a magnum opus with a quill requires a lot more work and thought than most of us can even dream of, but there’d be a lot less horrendous email if we had to do with with a goose feather.

3:47 The quote of the week is from Aristotle. Excellence is a habit and it’s not something you have it’s something you do- and do- and do. Wish I could tell you it was easy.

4:26 Welcome  Michael Bungay Stanier to the show. He’s going to tell us how to do more great work and stop the busy work. Of course, we’re both Canadians with different accents, living in different countries and still clinging to Canuckness. Work falls into 3 categories: Bad Work, Good Work and Great Work. Where do you spend your time?

6:24 We can’t avoid Bad Work entirely. Sometimes it’s just gotta be done, but how can you tell the difference and how much effort do you want to put into Bad Work? Good Work is never ending and we could spend all our working life here and never get to the end of it. Who has time for Great Work?

8:28 Sometimes it seems like we either have way too much work, or we’re unemployed. How do you find the middle ground? You need 3 things: Focus, Courage and Resilience .  Focus isn’t an easy thing to achieve and most of us don’t do it very well and your brain isn’t designed for it. Oh good.

12:37 There’s a really important point to be made here: We’re not just talking about doing our work great, we’re talking about doing Great Work. We are capable of delivering drivel at a very high standard. Great Work may not be done quite as well. Irony, thy name is middle management. Oh, and most of what we do needs to be done well but not perfectly. Deal with it.

16:36 Michael spends a lot of his time helping people be creative, because that’s where Great Work comes from. He gives us a couple of tips including a great question- “and what else?”.

21:14 It takes courage to do Great Work and keep going. Too many of us are too timid in the work that we do. Being beaten about the head and ears psychically will do that to you.

23:54 One of the contributors to Michael’s book is Tim Hurson and he share some great tips.

Michael’s Resources

TED.com a collection of 18 minute talks from brilliant people

Mike Greer helps us understand "Just Enough Project Management" to get the job done

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March 22nd Webinar Workshop  Click here to register and learn more.

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SPECIAL Get our e-book, The Four Disciplines of Highly Effective, Leadership Exhibiting, Project Nailing, Cheese Moving Managers” PLUS “100 FREE Web Resources for Managers” for $9.99

By the way, I’ll be speaking at the Northeast Indiana PMI Chapter meeting April 28th in Fort Wayne, IN and at the PMI Madison chapter annual conference in Madison, WI on May 21st.Will I see you there?

Oh, and check out my new BNET blog with articles like this one on Project Management for remote teams…..

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome all managers, whether project managers or just regular old managers. Today we look at Project Management and how much do you really need to know to be functional. As a result we dedicate this episode to the Chinese Emperor Qin Shih Huang a man who knew a thing or two about starting huge projects, although not a big fan of continuous learning and development.

4:51 The quote of the week is from Igor Stravinsky How do you view constraints? Are they barriers to success or opportunities to focus and excel? Just asking.

5:40 Please welcome Mike Greer to the show. The man actually listens to this show so I don’t know what kind of credibility hit he takes for that. Also, what kind of madman thinks we should learn just enough project management instead of becoming an expert? PM is not an end in itself, most of us do it to achieve what we really want to do. It can kill the fun, if you let it.

8:55 Most of us are not doing multi-million dollar projects with multiple parts. There are some basics you can learn to just get on with the job. Let the smart PMs develop the tools, and you can learn them without getting a degree.

12:45 The first thing you want to do is in fact make sure it’s a project. Define it, and find out who cares about it from upper Management. You want to get a “Project Charter” and find all the stakeholders.

15:00 How do you break the project down into the right task descriptions? You need to figure out who does what with which and to whom. You need a “high-res” project plan.

19:37 When you’re building in a timeline, don’t forget to build in time for input and people sticking their nose into your business. Be realistic, not overly optimistic. Stakeholders are like puppies in the yard- watch your roses.

22:00 How do you balance being a micromanager and just knowing what’s going on? Get the team’s participation and buyin into the communication plan to start with.

25:11 At what point does certification like PMI/PMP certification make sense? Does your career path depend mainly on doing projects, or your expertise in your area of focus? Do you want to do projects across fields, then you should look into certification.

Mike’s Resources

Check out Michaelgreer.biz for articles, podcasts and other stuff

Check out Scope Crepe

PM Hut

Download Michael’s EBook- The PM Minimalist

Joe Calloway

Kris Young

Don’t forget our “How to Create and Manage Remote Teams” webinar workshops.

For the March 22nd workshop click here to learn more and register

For April 26th, click here

To buy our e-book “Meet like you mean it- the Cranky Middle Manager’s Guide to Painless and Productive Meetings click here

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we are talking aligning people and strategy. That happens -or doesn’t- most often in meetings. We’re talking today about meetings: what works, what doesn’t. So we dedicate this show to Emperor Constantine who had to facilitate one of the toughest meetings in history, the Council of Nicaea. Trying to launch a religion without a scope of work from the project sponsor makes any problems you or I have seem pretty minor.

3:46 The quote of the week is from TE Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. Do you dream at night or in the daytime? One of those is infinitely more dangerous.

4:30 Welcome to Joe and Kris. The book is Never by Chance…but that’s how many managers got their jobs. If you’re going to do the job, though, do it on purpose and do it like you mean it.

6:30 Do people really understand what the strategy they’re supposed to implement even is? Ask yourself a simple question: Is what we are doing at this moment acting on our strategy? Can you even begin to answer that one? If the manager doesn’t build strategy, do we have to do that so deliberately?

11:30 Oops, apparently we have no excuses because even on the team and project level you can do this.Oh, and asking “is everyone okay with this?” isn’t going to get the job done. These are tough conversations to have, but you have to have them. Leadership has a high discomfort level.

14:27 We talk about culture a lot…but do you and your team understand what that means? Do you have a culture of truly saying what you mean?

16:00 The biggest complaint people have about their work is meetings. Kris gets a word in edgewise to talk about common mistakes. No big surprise it’s holding a meeting when you don’t know what you’re meeting for. Seems a no-brainer so why does it happen so darned often? I take Joe to task for something that sounds too good to be true. I could be wrong…..it’s been known to happen.

21:00 The format and setup of a meeting is important. Play with different formats like panel discussions rather than speech after speech.

30:55 The most important skill for leading a meeting is not talking or presenting- it’s listening. You have to hear what’s said and especially what’s not said. Trust me, it makes sense.

Resources

Check out Bizbash.com

Ted Talks are worth checking out for sure
Corporateevent.com

Steve Farber (check out his latest Cranky Interview here)
Mark Sanborn

Don’t let the weasels get you down!

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is with us again to talk about his book MOJO and to help ours a little…..

How’s the mojo of your virtual team? Get a FREE copy of our white paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail and How to See it Coming

Join us March 22nd for our “How to Create and Manage Remote Teams” webinar workshop.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show once again. Today we talk about MOJO, and so we dedicate this to the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans- Marie Laveau who got her power less from dark powers than from actually listening and paying attention- lessons to the wise.

4:30 The quote of the week is from Henry David Thoreau. Whether you call it enthusiasm, mojo, flow or anything else without it you’re a dried husk of yourself.

5:20 Welcome back for the fourth time Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. He’s here to talk about Mojo, the subject of much discussion and blues songs. It’s the positive spirit towards what we’re doing now that starts inside and radiates outward. If any group needs to keep their mojo working it’s us.

7:20 We start out with good intentions, why do we lose our mojo? It’s because our default reaction is not to experience happiness or meaning…. it’s to stay in a state of inertia. We also find out that the world’s most famous executive coach has a coach- what’s your excuse?

11:15 Keeping your mojo in line is a discipline. Marshall talks about the Mojo Meter but it’s really two questions: 1) How happy was I (with what was going on) and 2) How meaningful was that (event, interaction)?  You can measure both your professional mojo and personal mojo. Very rarely is one in line separate from the other.

13:30 Employee engagement is way down. Instead of having the company try to do it, what can each of us do for ourselves? We have responsibility for the suckage  (my word, not Marshall’s).

15:10 Marshall takes a bit of a detour to the Checklist Manifesto and how a little humility would serve us well. He also tells a great story about the US Top Guns…. If it really WAS life and death, how humble would you be?

17:15 The four areas of mojo are Achievement, Identity, Reputation and Acceptance. Is your identity what you think it is and how does it impact your mojo? Your identity might be created, reflected or programmed? Bono is a great example.

20:00 A big part of all this is acceptance.  If you can’t accept how things are, you have two choices: Change “it” or change you.  Hard to get  your mojo working if you fight battles you know you can’t win. Marshall challenges me on my whole mission in life. One of us has a better grip on things than the other. Guess which one is whom.

23:15  One last piece of advice if you feel your mojo slipping: focus on now. Not next week or next year. What can you do to increase happiness at this moment?

Marshall’s Resources

MOJO The Book (includes an app for Blackberry and iPhone)

Other Marshall Goldsmith Cranky Middle Manager Interviews:

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Cranky #79)

Marshall Goldsmith on Influencing Upwards (Cranky #100)

Marshall Goldsmith on Succession Planning (Cranky #180)

Dr. Ken Eisold takes us on another brain-geek adventure into why people don’t do what we tell them to.

Don’t forget our FREE White Paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail and How to See It Coming

Then help avoid trouble by signing up for “How to Create and Manage Remote Teams” February 22nd or March 22nd

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show everyone. Ever wonder why problems don’t magically solve themselves? Well we dedicate this show to Horace and the whole concept of the Deus Ex Machina … “God in the Machine” which is a lousy plot device (see the last 2o minutes of The Abyss if you don’t believe me) and makes no sense. The answer usually lies in the mind of the people we’re dealing with- hence our talk with a shrink today.

3:21 The quote of the week is also from Horace- adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would otherwise lay dormant. Cool thing to think about when adversity makes you want to freak out.

4:45 Welcome Dr Ken Eisold. What is the uncosncious and why should managers care about it? The answer to the question “what were you thinking” is more complicated than you think.

9:30 Remember that you (and they) are paying for the sins of whoever managed them before you got there. Don’t assume they work under the same assumptions you do. The way people think is not governed by rationality but by habit and past experience.

11:51 When we get data we often don’t process it, we just see how well it fits our mental picture of the world.

15:25 You have to check your assumptions. Married people know better than to take “fine” as an acceptable answer.

19:22 Three important concepts: Persona, Role and Identity. Everyone plays all 3…. it helps explain why we torture ourselves. I also get some free therapy, which is one of the perks of this show.

24:10 Guess what, not only do we have our own drama going on, but so does each person we work with. Do you understand their persona, role, etc? You have to work at questioning and understanding what they really think about what you’ve just told them.

27:30 Here’s a take-away: don’t take it personally. Resistance frequently has nothing to do with us personally…although EVERYTHING is about me personally, but that’s my drama to work with.

Ken’s Resources

Check out his blog
>

James Lawley and Penny Tomkins are all about using “clean language”. They were recommended by friend of the show Bob Selden (hear his Cranky interview here).

For a FREE copy of “3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How to See It Coming” click here

Don’t forget our “How to Create and Manage Remote Teams” webinar workshops

For more information and to register click on February 22nd or March 22nd

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show all you Middle Managers and Steeler’s Wheel fans. Today we are talking about the psychology of management communication and so we dedicate this episode to Prince Pyotr Ivanovitch Bagration, one of the heros of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Are you inspiring your team in the midst of chaos?

3:53 It seems only right that we quote Leo Tolstoy today, who knew a thing or two about human psychology even though he was mad as a hatter himself.  Is your truth like gold?

4:32 Welcome to the first of a couple of shows focusing on the psychology of communication. Yes, more brain geekiness but that’s part of our charm here. Welcome Penny and James, authors of Metaphors in Mind: Transformation Through Symbolic Modelling . There’s actual real world value here, don’t let the title fool you.

7:32 Why is Clean Language such an important concept for managers? If people don’t understand you and vice versa all kinds of havoc erupts. Clean Language is a way of asking questions to avoid misunderstanding and making assumptions.

9:45 What part do metaphors play in the way we speak to each other.  Research shows we use about 6 a minute… which works great if we all work from the same metaphor playbook- there’s another metaphor. Metaphors can be overt or more subtle.

13:22 Language is the constraint we have to work with, so what’s the problem? We don’t all interpret metaphors the same way. Rather than make assumptions- challenge them and ask questions.

17:55 The Psychological background of this is the work of David Grove and was used as a therapeutic technique. What kind of language and metaphors do you use? Military? Sports? Political? It’s not easy to get used to changing your language as I stupidly demonstrate during this conversation.  Also I dare you to find another business podcast that uses the word “etymology”.

21:40 As we work in languages other than English, what madness does metaphor cause? It’s important that we think about metaphors people use…  we discuss skinned teeth and hairy ears. Trust me, it’s relevant.

23:47 Bob Selden will be leading a workshop on Clean Language February 16th. Click here for more details.

25:30 check out their website at www.cleanlanguage.co.uk. There is lots of great information there including questions to ask. Among the best questions is:

• “and is there anything else?”
• “and what kind of _____ are you talking about”
• “and then what happened?”

This is not just active listening or paraphrasing. The purpose is not to demonstrate understanding but to help people understand themselves. Oh, and Star Trek is a teaching point on this. How’s THAT for geeky?

Resources and books

Look up Cognitive Linguistics for more…

Check out our White Paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail-And How to See it Coming

Don’t forget our next “How to Create and Manage Remote Teams” workshop on February 22nd. Click here to learn more and to register. If you have new managers this would be a good piece of training to help them out.

Drop me a line to ask about discounts for Cranky listeners.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show, gang. Today we’re talking about those darned kids again, but it’s not how they work or who they are….it’s too late for that. We need them and they are going to be the leaders of tomorrow…. which is rapidly approaching since I’m feeling my mortality of late. The President of the US is younger than I am…. I’m officially out of excuses. And we have to mentor and teach them to lead or they might wind up like this week’s dedicatee King Henry the 6th of England. Take over too early without training and mentoring and it can get ugly.

4:44 The quote of the week is from someone with great parenting advice, although probably not the first person you’d think of…. Friedrich Nietzsche

5:40 Welcome Lisa Orrell, author of “Millennials Into Leadership”. This is not another show about how they want to start at the top, but some day we’ll get there and you can help. First we have to define the term, and it turns out I own one. They’re born between 1980 and 2000.

10:40 I look at my daughter and am really impressed by her energy and leadership skills. Their problem is they are too work-oriented and don’t have much use for timetables. They are loyal to people who actually earn it and are loyal to the work, not the company. If it doesn’t matter they won’t stay.

14:30 Virtual teams aren’t unusual for this group. Facebook is great training in a strange way. Allowing them to have the technology is the next step. By the way, the people surfing porn at work are NOT 22 years old….

17:00 A lot of young workers are getting promoted before they’re ready, so what challenges do they face?  A lack of training is a huge problem- and unlike Gen X, these kids want training….. if it’s relevant. The biggest challenge is that they are immature… no kidding. Communication skills are key.

22:00 One of the big things to consider is their personal “leadership brand”. What do you want people to think and say about you? How do you stand out as a leader? It’s made up of your Communication style, Philosophy, Social style,Intellectual style, Emotional style and Ethical style. You can read a blog post about it here

26:15 Who do millenials turn to for leadership examples? Turns out it’s you and me (if we do it right). They also aspire to those who change the world.

31:00 Unlike those of us who hide from our bosses and want to be left alone, Millennials can’t communicate enough which drives some managers crazy

Lisa’s Resources

The Personal Branding Blog

Millennial Marketing

David Noer, author of “Healing the Wounds”

Get a free copy of our FREE white paper: “3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail and How to See it Coming”. Click here to download

Join us February 22nd for our How to Create and Manage Remote Teams Webinar Workshop. Drop us a line for more information and discounts.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Pretty much all of us have been expected to manage a layoff, and come out the other side still getting work done. It’s not easy on our people or on us. We dedicate this show to  Balian of Ibelin, who knew a thing or two about trying to work after your team has been gutted…. in his case literally.

4:00 The quote of the week is from one of  my favorite but politically incorrect writers, Rudyard Kipling. Overwork has killed many people stronger than us. Take care of yourself my people……

4:50 Welcome David Noer to the show. One good thing about being the victim of a downsizing is you don’t have to manage people through it.  Middle managers are at risk if your social and emotional well being is tied to your job, you’re at risk.  Leadership makes a different, especially over distance.

6:50 Middle managers are particularly vulnerable because they are both laying people off and at risk themselves. Before you try to deal with your employees, get yourself together and handle your own emotions. David also suggests you break a couple of rules if only to save your sanity.

10:00 Why do companies so seldom get downsizing right? Do they let too many people go? Are they the right people? Proper or not, you’re the one stuck dealing with it. Layoffs never meet their financial goals because they don’t factor in survivor guilt and lost productivity.

12:15 How do you get your team back on track? Acknowledge the emotions and don’t try to just push through it. Being lucky to still have a job is not sufficient motivation for most humans. It’s okay to be lean, but mean is just unnecessary. The good news is if you focus on the customer and how to be efficient, you’ll find a lot of what was being done was useless to start with.

15:18 Companies whine about a lack of engagement, then do everything to get people disengaged. The contract has changed. Managers need to take responsibility for their own careers, learning and psychological well-being. We’re all temps, we just don’t all admit it.

19:00 How do you balance taking care of yourself with giving a fair effort to your employer? “Cautious loyalty” is the solution. And if you thought Gen X and the millenials had this figured out, don’t believe it. They’re getting sucked in too.

22:00 Even if you are employed, you need to act like an entrepeneur…. and that’s hard for a lot of people. Newer economies seem to get this better than we do.

David’s Resources

Dr Timothy Clark asks you to take The Leadership Test. Preferably before you become one.

Join us for How to Create and Manage Remote Teams

January 18th Details and Registration

February 22nd Details and Registration

Drop me a line for discounts and more information!

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we’re talking leadership, and how  you know you have what it takes. We dedicate this show to Spartacus.…because  a real leader creates that kind of identification with a cause. I can’t even get folks to admit they were at the meeting.

4:00 Don’t forget to check out my latest piece on Management Issues: Why your virtual team chooses to suck. You can also follow everything we do on Twitter.

4:20 The quote of the week is from Geoffrey Chaucer.… whether schlepping to Canterbury or a staff meeting the rules are the same.

5:00 Welcome Tim Clark to the show. He has a unique definition of leadership…and involves getting people to volunteer, even if they’re being paid to be there. He also has a three part spectrum of influence… from Manipulation through Persuasion and on to Coercion.  Persuasion is better, trust me.

9:39 In Tim’s book, the character doesn’t necessarily jump at a management job. Why not?  Ask yourself, WHY do you want to be a leader? Is it all about you? What’s your “leadership intent”?

12:55 If you know why you want to be a leader (and it involves other things than the raise), then you have to take the Leadership Test. There are 5 areas to examine:

1. Fill your pack- are you willing to take on not only your load, but more than your share?
2. Sign your name- are you really willing to take responsibility for others?
3. Share the stage- are you willing to share the credit?
4. Take the oath- what’s your mission and what exactly are you signing on for? Do you have a commitment to honesty and integrity?
5. Pour your cup- can you take what you have and pour it into the lives of others? Mentoring and coaching is critical to leadership.

16:00 What does it mean to really own the results of you and your team? Real leaders don’t hide, even when it’s bad news. Much easier to do when you’re an individual contributor- but you might not be the one who screwed up!

19:00 Giving credit is not easy and you have to take care of your people first. Reward and recognition is a tough one when things aren’t going well.

23:00 There are only 2 things people remember when they leave an organization: their relationships with people, and their contribution to the company.

Tim’s Resources

you can take the test at www.theleadershiptest.com

How to Conduct Great Web Demos and Sales Calls January 25th

Nannette Rundle Carroll is today’s lucky guest.

Don’t forget our monthly training webinar programme: How to Create and Manage Remote Teams. January’s class is scheduled for the 18th. Click here to learn more. Tell your training people about it!  Drop me a line for the Cranky Middle Manager Show discount.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. We are the mystery but yummy white stuff in the Oreo Cookie of management. Can you tell I fell off my diet over Christmas? Today’s show is dedicated to Empedocles who broke rhetoric into component parts so we could systemetize it. And he did it in rhyme which is not an easy thing to do.

4:41 The quote of the week is from Joseph Priestley who invented Soda Water and knew a thing or two about communication and making it simple. Not an easy thing to do when your coworkers are on the other side of the planet.

5:39 Welcome Nannette Carroll to the show. We have talked this subject to death (Communication, not Nannette) so why are we as a group so lousy at it and why does it matter? It’s a business problem, not just an interpersonal one.

7:26 Real communication is more than just accurate data transfer. Just because the plan is out there for everyone to see doesn’t mean they “get it” or it will happen. She gives an example from a project that didn’t go so well. Both parties have to want to communicate for it to work though.

10:17 Questions are the best process tool you possess.  Also, don’t forget to check in because if you wait til the milestones are due you’re going to be in trouble. Looking at it as a process sometimes makes it less “touchy-feely”

13:38 you  can break almost any communication situation into a process. Nannette takes us through things like judging unfairly. It’s all about describing the behavior without ascribing attitude to it. It’s like root cause analysis.

18:50 The speed of communication works against us. If you think you don’t have time to talk about it, think about how much time you spend on rework and missed deadlines. With project teams in particular, scheduled meetings are critical. The priority is face to face, then webcam, then voice to voice……. do the best you can. Sadly, emoticons are not real communication

24:50 How do you heal the wounds on a virtual team?  It means getting down to individual communication and helping the team communicate with each other. Understanding their silos and how their boss works is an important key.

Nannette’s Resources

Tony Alessandro

Sam Horn

Jim Cathcart


CEO Refresher’s review of her book

Bruce Rosenstein                                                                                                                                                

Peter Drucker

Show Notes

0:00  Welcome to the show, our last of 2009. After lots of navel gazing and obsessing/thinking deep thoughts just want to leave you with the idea that no company, no HR department and no body else is going to help you with your own learning and development. That’s what we’re here for.

If you’d like to learn How to Create and Manage Remote Teams, please take advantage of our monthly webinar workshops. Learn more here

You can also learn how your sales people and Subject Matter Experts can learn to Do Great Web Demos and Sales Calls here. Drop me a line for an additional 10% off the registration fee!

5:25 Forget planning for tomorrow. What are you doing today to ensure there is one (for you and your company, but mostly for you?) Today’s quote of the week is from Drucker himself.

6:25 We continue to celebrate Peter Drucker’s 100th birthday with Bruce Rosenstein, who knew Drucker and writes a lot about him. (For more Drucker conversations check out Jeffrey Krames and Frances Hesselbein’s Cranky Interviews)  Why does Drucker still matter after all this time and what’s the importance to individuals, not just their employers?

8:28 When most people think of Drucker’s work, they think of corporate-wide philosophy and thinking. Bruce believes that a lot of his stuff depends on individual thinking and accountability. Lots of it is about personal development, learning and growth.

12:41 Rosenstein’s book talks about core competencies for managers- much like our own disciplines.   Workmanship, Diligence and Excellence. Recognizing achievement is critical- work towards being excellent at what you do, including your role as a manager.

16:01 Taking stock of where you are in your personal life is even more important than doing performance reviews, no matter what HR says. Part of that might be systematically abandoning the policies and procedures you and  your company were built on. What legacy will you leave? Have you even thought about it?

22:45 Drucker invented the term “knowledge worker” but did he ever envision how that would become a different kind of drudgery? Why are people in the insurance business so miserable? I put in my 2 cents worth as well on this one but it boils down to mission and why are you doing what you do and what meaning does the work have?

27:43 What is the biggest lesson Bruce has taken away from his association with Drucker? Probably the idea of parallel careers.  I did it, (which is how this show came to be), he did it and what are YOU doing to prepare for the future?

29:34 Resource and Stuff

http://www.druckerinstitute.com

Rich Maltman

Dave Shirley

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we celebrate Green Project Management- getting things done while doing good things for the planet and your Karma.  It seems only right, somehow that we dedicate this show to Noah, project manager and defender of wildlife. Any project where you can stop the stakeholders from eating each other is a successful project in our book!

3:00 If you manage teams, have responsibility for managing teams or just want to help your company’s managers, check out January’s How to Create and Manage Remote Teams workshop. Drop me a line and save an additional 10% per attendee! If you can’t make it, look at February’s scheduled class.

4:08 The quote of the week is from Carl Schurz, who knew a thing or two about practical idealism.

5:00 Welcome Rich Maltzman back to the show (hear his first interview here) along with his partner Dave Shirley. Together they run the EarthPM blog. Do you need to be a tree hugger to want your projects to be greener? Projects will run better if you think big picture and long term even if that’s not your job description.

7:27 What kind of things fall under “green”?  It’s more than just shutting off computers (although you should do that).  Can effective communication be done without paper, for example? Collaborative tools saves travel, time, paper and waste in general. Identifying risk triggers like travel or energy costs is a great start.

11:25 When you look at your projects, do you look at the Beginning of the Beginning and the End of the Beginning as well as the Beginning of the End and the End of the End? When you do that you’re outside your normal scope but it’s good business.

16:23 Even if (like me) you’re a skeptic about Cap and Trade and Carbon swaps, there’s real money at stake- and how much of an idealogue do you need to be to ignore millions of dollars just to prove a point? New technology is all about new projects. Coming out of Copenhagen it will be all about projects and their management. And your projects don’t have to have anything to do with “green” technology to understand sustainability and waste reduction.

20:05 Is this whole topic easier to contemplate from a rich white person’s perspective or are people with REAL constraints adding to the body of knowledge? The leadership of Project Management Institute(PMI) are very aware of sustainability and globalization. Should green be a separate discipline or should it be just built into how projects are run to start with?

26:42 Communicating virtually is a great way to green your projects. So is life cycle, or “lean” thinking. Take the end of your product into account.

Books and Resources

Follow EarthPM on Twitter
Follow Wayne Turmel on Twitter

“Towards a New Mindset” – researching the often-inexplicable resistance to new work practices

I’d like to invite you to participate in our SURVEY (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3PTR6F8) into workplace opinions and beliefs.

It’s part of our collaboration with Durham University into attitudes to new work practices – the aim being to gain stronger insight into the often-inexplicable resistance from executive to new work practices.

Explaining this irrational opposition is often referred to as today’s $64 million question for corporate competitiveness, and is precisely what our “Towards a New Mindset” study aims to address.  The report will consider the array of interventions available to change organisational and individual mindset.

Additionally, the University are developing a ‘toolkit’ of effective management practices that can be applied to achieve mindset change.

If you’d like a free copy of the report and toolkit, just complete our survey and let us know your contact details at the close.  You can also remain totally anonymous – it’s entirely your choice.  Either way, we’re delighted to have your contribution, and would welcome you circulating the survey amongst your colleagues – more contributors will strengthen the sample.

If you’d like more details on the study, its objectives, deliverables, and timescales, just drop Sam Thornton (samantha_thornton@jbassociates.uk.com) a note.

Best regards

John Blackwell
Chief Executive

Thanks, John. Please tell all your friends about the latest Cranky Middle Manager Show and post your opinions: do they get it? Is John huffing glue? Let’s hear from you folks.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. You know the way we work has changed forever. I know the way we work has changed forever. Does your company get it? Remote working, telecommuting and global stakeholders have changed the game forever. Today we welcome John Blackwell back to the show for the 4th time (You can hear his other interviews here as well as here and here) We dedicate the show to Umayya Ibn Abd Shams, who created the 6th largest empire ever, without holding a webinar or live streamed town hall.

5:00 If this show moves you to get some training for yourself, your managers or your team on managing remotely, check out our first monthly “How to Create and Manage Remote Teams” webinar course. You can save 10% off early registration by dropping me an email and letting me know you listen to the show.

7:06 The quote of the week is from Simone Weil, who understood that distance is relative and good communication travels better over wires than over the cubicle wall.

8:00 Welcome John Blackwell back to the show. He has done some amazing research on remote working over the years but he’s getting more pointed and controversial over time. He tells us some of the surprising results, as well as some of the least surprising- that the biggest barriers to changing workplace are senior managers.

12:23 Why is IT so afraid of Skype and consumer platforms, and how does it relate to doing busines with BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries? Is security just an excuse? Is the fear irrational? Post to the blog and let us know what you think? Even I have to come to the defense of companies.. what’s the world coming to?

18:30 What is the “change gap” he’s finding?? It’s not just Old Triceratops in the corner office, but do companies offer any help to managers with the way they really manage? Do systems and performance reviews reflect reality?

25:00 What are some of the skills managers need to develop and some of the changes we should make immediately? Using “trust based” measures rather than imposed criteria. We also need to do something about the way we interview.

30:30 What does John see as the biggest changes in the next year? They’re not so much changes (since they’re already here) but there are three:

• the decline of the physical corporate hub
• the increase of independent consultants and workers
• social networking as the standard for how things get done

LINKS TO HIS RESEARCH

John Blackwell and Associates Library

Remote Management Articles I’ve Done for BNET

The ever-perky Phil Gebyshak joins us. Hopefully he doesn’t look this darned happy when firing someone.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we are talking firing people, something no manager wants to deal with and actually prevents some people from even becoming managers just so they never have to deal with it.  We dedicate this show to Peter Des Roches who fired, was fired and kept coming back for more.

2:20 If you or your company are looking to help managers deal with their virtual employees, you might want to check out How to Create and Manage Remote Teams.  New monthly courses will be posted as early as next week. Meanwhile, check out the Course Description and drop me a line to learn more.

3:00 Our quote of the week is from John Paul Richter, who said we save our best for hellos and goodbyes. What are we saying in between that make the goodbyes necessary? Ask yourself that one today.

3:46 Welcome Phil Gerbyshak back to the show. If you were a fan of the Slacker Manager blog, it is no more but he’s now the host of The Management Expert blog.  All you need to be something is to claim you are, but in Phil’s case it’s applicable. He and I wanted to talk about something that scares most managers: firing people.

6:00 Contrary to myth, we can’t imagine any manager actually likes firing people. In fact, it’s a reason some people don’t take on management roles.There are a thousand ways to say it but we’re talking about firing people. Less than 10% of the time it’s not that they’re incapable of doing the job so why don’t they work out and we have to let them go?

10:00 I can think of one big misconception- that you’re going to surprise the person. If you’ve done your job as a manager it should NEVER come out of the blue. Phil claims if it’s a surprise, you’re a terrible manager. He said it, not me.

13:00 We talk about how to put together a Performance Improvement Plan (and what the heck is a widget and who really makes them?). The biggest factor often is assumptions about what people know about the expectations of the job.

18:00 Step by step, how do you fire someone. You have to be prepared, almost to the point of scripting. Get HR involved and don’t get “squishy” (definition included free of charge).

20:40 Documentation for firing someone needs to be verbal and then written down. Phil uses the RISC model:

Report

Impact or implications

Specify

Consequences and commitment

Phil’s Resources

Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership Blog
Past guest David Zinger

The good news, the camera is on Kevin, not on me. As my journalism prof once told me, I have a great face for radio!

All this AND I got to give away steaks!

First, my latest Management Issues article on managers using their Reptilian Brains. This was inspired by my recent conversation with Judith Glaser.

Secondly, my latest BNET article on the challenge of collaborating online. Does it always mean you have to use tools that allow you to be on line at the same time? I don’t think so. Collaboration, like a good marriage, also requires some time alone to think and strategize. Did I just say that out loud?

Watch for a schedule of regular webinar courses starting in January!

Today we talk to the Mysterious Mr Stanley Bing

If you like to laugh at business people, check out my book  ” 125 Quotes for Whacking Weasels, Centuries of Wisdom, Motivation and Snappy Comebacks from the Cranky Middle Manager Show”

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we celebrate Gnaeus Pompey Magnus- Pompey the Great. Well actually we’d like to celebrate the slave who whispered in his ear but of course we have no idea who that really was.  Using humor to aerate the egos of the great is nothing new but today’s guest does it better than most.

3:15 The quote of the week is from Lord Byron- if you’re talking about fools, satire is the best weapon to use and that’s what today’s show is about.

5:27 Welcome Stanley Bing to the show. We’re off to a good start despite my blaming him for inspiring this show. His book is all about learning to take it a little easier than we do, and for inspiration look to our bosses. They’re not lazy, they just manage to relax and actually have some fun. Let’s start with having breakfast. You do remember breakfast, right?

10:00 There’s no honor in taking all the bullets and taking on everyone’s burdens. Steven King is a great example of short bursts of productivity and lots of downtime. Oh, and the Protestant Work Ethic is overrated (and slightly racist).

13:30 Delegation is vital, if a bit complicated.  Don’t underestimate flattery as a tool. Also, other people’s assistants make great helpers.

17:40 Employee engagement is all well and good, but Bing believes you should be only as engaged as you need to be at that moment. We also do a slight riff on HR and Quality.

21:40 We often complain about crazy bosses… but maybe they’re bosses because they’re crazy. The qualities of dementia necessary to run anything are extreme. Take a tip from them…rope off mealtimes as zones of defensible entitlement.

Check out Stanley Bing’s Resources

www.stanleybing.com

Judith Glaser is back for yet more Crankiness. You can hear her first conversation here and the second one here.

Don’t forget to check out www.greatwebmeetings.com and www.crankymiddlemanager.com while you’re surfing around.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show one and all. Today we are talking the “soft stuff” of management- getting people to come together so we dedicate this show to someone who did that well, but could have used some hard process skills- Moses.

2:46 The quote of the week is from Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale- who knew he would be able to say something that would apply to virtual teams 500 years later? This guy was good.

4:30 Welcome Judith Glaser back to the show to talk about “42 Rules for Creating WE”. Silly me, I thought I knew what WE meant…..

8:00 True “WE” is all the unwritten stuff, the beliefs and unexamined assumptions that are always there and often cause trouble. She gives us a case study that tells the tale.

11:15 I call a halt to the consultant speak and get some firm definitions. She’s up to the task. A great example of how assumptions can upset WE. The killer is to have the conversation about assumptions. We also define the “elephant in the room”.

15:30 Do we make it okay to challenge assumptions? We delve down into the brain science behind fear and rejection. My mother overestimated sticks and stones and underestimated words.

17:40 Leadership is more than the standard vision of a single person leading from the front. I refer to a Management Issues article I wrote on the topic (shameless plug).

19:30 One of the rules is “To be Selfless You Have to be Selfish”. That includes standing up for yourself.

24:05 Another is the very mushy-sounding “Live in Your Heart Zone”. Basically you can’t just rely on logic. Managing from the Reptilian Brain is a problem. I also learn more about the chemistry of the heart.

Judith’s Resources

Check out her Institute

One of my favorite people, Penny Power joins us today. If you don’t listen to me, at least listen to her. Her book Know Me, Like Me Follow Me is not a guide for stalkers, but one of the best books on social media for beginners out there.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Pull up a seat and gird your loins. We dedicate this show on networking and social media to Elizier of Damascus.

2:36 Let’s all get connected. If you’d like to connect to me, and by extension each other, you can find me on Twitter

Ecademy or LinkedIn.

4:13 The quote of the week is from Augustine of Hippo. Try to imagine what his Facebook page would look like…. anyway…….

4:55 Welcome Penny Power to the show. Before you roll your eyes and think “Oh no, not Social Networking again” be glad it’s not leadership. Okay? Up until recently she was one of  my “invisible friends”. She and her husband Thomas co-founded Ecademy. She talks about how that developed and how it’s different from LinkedIn.

7:30 Why should gainfully employed managers with limited time pay attention to their online networks? Connectedness is becoming more and more important to our careers and daily lives. I question whether “stuff happens” when your network is big enough but let’s let her go….

11:46 Even if you can get by without an online social network, the kids coming up and looking for your job ARE connected,and that’s an oncoming train. Customer Service, in particular, is going to be impacted. This is not a fad, gang.

15:44 What are some do’s and don’ts of building an online brand? The big thing is to remember it’s social. Taking and broadcasting is not true engagement. Win-win is the focus and you never know when it’s going to pay off or how. But what does she mean by “Know me, like me follow me?”. The biggest “don’t” is trying to control the conversation.

22:22 The younger generation (that makes me sound so old!) understands this so much better than many of us who’ve been around for a while. Who are you? Who connects to you and why? People bring their networks to work. We have to get comfortable forming real relationships online because that’s how many of us are forced to manage now.

27:00 How are people supposed to get comfortable with tools if their employers don’t encourage them to learn and get training on them? (If you go to www.greatwebmeetings.com I’d be happy to talk to you about that). Why are some people able to say things online that they could never say face to face?

31:00 Does the online world have a culture that transcends nationality???  Penny waxes poetic about this. Are you a friend?? Should someone know you?

Penny’s Resources

Thomas Power

Louis Gray

Chris Edgar looking mindful.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show and  a big “ni hao” to our friends in China. I have no idea how or why, but our audience has grown a lot there and it’s now our second biggest audience. Anyway today we are talking productivity and mindfulness. As a result, we dedicate this show to the prolific Feng Meng Lung who wrote productively yet couldn’t pass his civil service exams which suggests his head wasn’t really in the game.  Do you procrastinate? This is the show for you because the problem is all in your mind.

3:00 The quote of the week is from Robert Browning. Do you know your search?

4:34 Welcome to Chris Edgar. This show treads some lines  we don’t normally tread but as Dr Phil would say…you know what you should be doing and how’s that working for ya? What does he mean by “mindfulness” and it has an awful lot to do with procrastination because we love to get distracted and aren’t always hip to why.

7:24 Many of us know the systems and have every tool we need to get the work done, so why is procrastination such a problem? The problem is a wandering mind. He comes from the legal profession which would seem an odd path to trod for someone in this field.

11:57 This isn’t about religion, but about practice and exercise. A lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to meditation or other “touchy feely” ideas but the benefits are real.

12:50 It’s important to understand the difference between Response and Reaction. Reaction is automatic and unconscious. Response is how we CHOOSE to respond to the stimulus. Misery (or procrastinating)  is optional.The trick is to slow down and find out WHY you’re feeling like procrastinating.

15:30 A practical example of how this works….

17:00 What’s the difference between INTENTION and ATTENTION? Attention is putting our mental focus on something. Intention is taking a big-picture view of what we’re trying to achieve. You can put a lot of attention into playing Solitaire on the computer but are you achieving your Intention?

20:00 Being mindful can be as simple as askingAdd New Post ‹ TPN :: The Cranky Middle Manager Show — WordPress yourself “why am I doing what I’m doing right now?”. Physical symptoms can be a sign we ought to ask those questions. Tension, discomfort and stomach pain are all clues.

23:00 What is “breathing through” a situation? You think by now I’d know what breathing is.

25:00 Chris takes us through a couple of simple “mindfulness” exercises. When you’re thinking about NOW you can’t think about anything else.

CHRIS’ RESOURCES

Thanks to Dan and Paula McCarthy as always.

Peter Taylor, the Lazy Project Manager.

This was the first picture I found, couldn’t be bothered to look any further. Probably an example of bad laziness but what are you gonna do?

Show Notes

0:00 Thanks for stopping by the show. Today we are talking laziness. There’s good laziness and bad laziness and a man who knew the difference was Archimedes….who did NOT invent the lever but did figure out how to get the job done right the first time. Something to be said for that.

3:15 The quote of the week is from Marcus Aurelius whose work I really like even though he didn’t really walk it like he talked it. At some point just reading and claiming to do research is really being lazy (bad lazy) so get on with it already!

4:14 Welcome Peter Taylor, the Lazy Project Manager to the show. Project Management is one of the 4 Disciplines of Highly Effective, Leadership Exhibiting, Project Nailing, Cheese Moving Managers. Can you be lazy and still get the job done? Well according to Peter (And Robert Heinlein) laziness is responsible for most of the progress in the world.  Here’s another guy who understood that the lazy and smart make the best leaders: Field Marshal von Moltke

8:51 Delegation is hard and it’s a discipline to be learned. Sometimes we get dragged in to do the job but mostly we need to know the boundaries. Give yourself space and time… close the door on occasion and give yourself time to THINK.

10:24 This is probably the only management concept ever inspired by Monty Python’s Anne Elk character. Does this show have a dinosaur fetish? Check out Wally Bock and his Dinosaur Egg Theory.

12:24 Projects are thick at the beginning and end, thin in the middle. Trust me, this makes sense, but how you start is vital to how you finish. You can’t get lazy yet and you don’t want to finish lazy. Lots of time to read the paper in the middle.

14:44 A special bonus dinosaur theory: You don’t want to carry a dinosaur, you want to ride it. And if you can’t do that, then eat it.  When you have to establish your leadership of a project, don’t be afraid to look like it. Dress for success.

17:00 Yeah, I know but communication is important and listen to this: 70% of your time on a project is spent communicating and there’s a difference between communication and reports. Lots of reports don’t communicate much of anything.

20:55 The other thick part of a project is at the end- you have to finish strong. Debriefs and consultation with stake holders is really important to making sure the next project goes well.

24:24  Peter’s Resources

Hey you can also hear John Warshawsky’s Cranky Interview Here

John Spence joins us to talk about his new book, how to tell when you’re ready to start a business and why he’s the “human Cliff Notes” guy.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome in whatever language you choose, pull up a rolling chair and make yourself at home. This is a darn fine edition of the show, which we dedicate to Col Benjamin Grierson a grand example to middle managers who didn’t have the advantages of family connections or the right schools, took the lousy projects and still managed to have fine careers.

3:13 The quote of the week is from Ludwig Wittgenstein. The simple is often hiding in plain sight, or we pretend it is so we don’t have to do what we know we should.

3:45 A shameless commercial for www.greatwebmeetings.com. check out all the free resources as well as our Course Offerings. Tell the training people at your company about us, no matter where you are in the world.

4:55 Welcome John Spence to the show… so what’s the difference between simple and easy? Simple is easy to UNDERSTAND but that doesn’t mean the DOING isn’t going to be a real bear.

6:45 Business owners constantly claim they want their employees and managers to have an “ownership” mentality. We expose one or two basic flaws with that approach.

9:00 How is having a “vivid vision” different than having a fancy vision statement? Can you state it simply? Do you know what it means? After 200 shows my tolerance for consultant speak is about zero so I hold his feet to the fire.

13:15 It’s not every show that will quote Charlie Daniels and Steven Covey in the same conversation, but that’s why you listen to us….what’s the difference between having a “sense of urgency” and losing sense of what’s important instead of urgent? Oh, and I finally tell a story that has changed my training and speaking career, not to mention how I tackle emergencies.

21:00 John is the Executive in Residence at the University of Central Florida’s Technology Incubator. How do you know if you should stay gainfully employed and what’s the litmus test for going out on your own?

Here’s the answer: How do you feel Monday morning? How obsessed are you with your idea and where you want to go?

John’s Resources

Joe Calloway

Readitfor.me

Alltop.com


Change This Manifesto

The incredibly energetic Mark Wiskup talks to us about good bosses communicate, and bad ones just give orders…

Show Notes

0:00 Hello everyone, a bit late but still hanging in here. Today we talk to Mark Wiskup about the communication skills managers need to be effective, and typically we dedicate this show to Raynald of Chatillon who knew absolutely nothing about that and lost his head as a result. We also revisit an old vaudeville joke with a point… you know what bad bosses do, DON’T DO THAT.

3:50 The quote of the week is from the Turks…or so I’m told but I’m always suspicious. It was probably Seth Godin, he claims credit for everything these days. What is your listening/pondering/speaking ratio?

4:15 Welcome to Mark…. so what boss do you NOT want to be? A boss who totally leaves out of the equation that you have to connect with your employees. They don’t have to love you but they do have to be willing to listen to you.

7:00 Here’s a hard lesson for all of us… being right has very little to do with being a boss. It’s your ability to influence and convince others. That’s not data, that’s communication. Oh, and communication is more than just transmission of messages.

10:46 Good heavens something we haven’t talked about before- managers dealing with vendors and why good communication is so critical in that relationship.

14:11 We often believe in if/then… IF I nag enough people WILL do whatever the heck it is I want. Yeah, how’s that working for ya?

17:40 How do we maintain communication that works when we aren’t around…it’s simple. Ask them personal questions and at least pretend to care about the answer. Seriously. If you’re not willing to put in the effort, don’t complain when you can’t connect.

22:50 When you’re talking to an employee or vendor and they’re complaining… spend some time to find out what they want in place? Drop the business speak and define what you want.

Mark’s Resources

Arment/Dietrich’s Newsletter

Execution, by Larry Bossidy

Anything by John LeCarre

He’s kindly invited me to join him via webcam at 1:20 Eastern (US) time. You can sign up here.

Comeon you’re working from home on Friday anyway, right?

Gary Cohen, author of “Just Ask Leadership”

Hey, don’t forget our webinar workshop on “How to Conduct Great Web Demos and Sales Calls”. Click here for more information and to register.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show one and all. Today we dedicate this episode to Sir Percival who could have made the Grail quest a lot shorter and saved us Sean Connery as Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot. Oh well….. Too late now.

2:25 The quote of the week is from Voltaire. What do your questions say about you?

3:20 Welcome Gary Cohen to the show. What does he mean by “asking great questions”? It turns out there might not be any silly questions, but there are destructive, negative questions. We get an example of a good question.

5:50 Drucker said the leader of the past knew how to tell, the leader of the future will need to know how to ask. I’ll let Gary take it from here….

8:35 What are some of the questions that get us visibility to the rest of the organizations? “what is it that our customers expect of us?” and you can ask that of any person in the organization.

11:20 Are you managing the future or are you managing the present? It’s so easy to get caught up in day to day stuff you don’t really move forward.

14:45 As we get promoted, it’s hard to shift to being responsible for more time.  Yeah, we needed our job to be harder.

18:45 Therapy time for Wayne…. my mother always told me “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it”. Apparently the same thing is true for questions.

22:00 What about remote teams? How can we ask questions that create accountability between teammates? Start with understanding the goal, rather than the barriers.

Gary’s Resources

Leading Up

On Intelligence

Predictably Irrational

Don’t let the weasels get you down!

Dimdim showcased some of my content on their blog lately- very happy about that. Read the article here

A new BNET article on managing remotely has hit the air. Read “Turning THEM into US”

You might also want to check out Active Garage’s “No one wants to see your demo”

And another ezine article: “ How to do online demos people don’t hate”

It’s not like I haven’t been working gang. Talk to you soon…..

How confident are you that your sales team or demonstrators are converting demo opportunities into sales?

Are they selling value to the customer or just presenting features?

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• Understand what makes an effective online demo or sales presentation from the customer’s point of view
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• Use a consistent format to present “Key Value Points”
• Pick up presentation tips to be more influential and effective
• Use planning tools and checklists to make your demos more consistent and effective

At Greatwebmeetings.com we believe training without proof you’ve learned is wasted money, so in Part 2 (48 hours after Session 1), participants will present a demo using these new skills to others in their group. Your registration fee consists of both sessions.

All participants receive a pre-program PDF packet of worksheets and analysis tools to use in planning their events.

About the presenter:

Wayne Turmel is the president of Greatwebmeetings.com and a recognized expert in the field   of presenting and selling online. His books include “6 Weeks to a Great Webinar” and “Selling Power’s Trainer Tips” and his client include GE Global Marketing and The American Red Cross.

For questions about group rates and this program, click here for more details

Click here to register and more info

Rick Smith, author of The Leap joins us.

Don’t forget our upcoming webinar workshop: How to Create and Manage Remote Teams

September 30, North American version click here for info and to register

October 1, Asia/Pacific version click here for info and to register

New Webinar Workshop: How to Conduct Great Web Demos and Sales Calls Click here to register and get more information.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we dedicate this episode to King David of Judah and later of Israel Shepherd to King might seem a bit of a career leap but if you plan it right, anything is possible.

4:19 The quote of the week is from Ella Wheeler Wilcox who said that nothing can hinder the firm resolve of a determined soul. With poetry like hers, she should know.

4:50 Welcome Rick Smith to the show. Before we talk about our careers, we should define the difference between a job and a career. The job is the list of activities, the career is the longer journey. Clear now? Some of us set out to be managers, some have managership thrust upon them. Rick is one of them so he can relate.

8:54 So often the logical path might lead somewhere you don’t want to go, but you can “leap” to something else. Rick gives us his own story. Volunteer for things they’d never consider you for is a good start.

12:15 A good example of someone who embodies this is Silvia Lagnado who started Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.

16:28 So what are the three myths that hold people back?

1. I have to fix myself… that I have to change inside. What you really have to do is become more of who you really are
2. You don’t need to go it alone…. Big selfless ideas attract a supportive team that will help you
3. You don’t need to take dramatic risks…..

18:03 Rick talks about finding your “Primary Color”… it’s kind of a fun assessment tool You can take that test here. For the record I”m a ‘Purple Mountain Majesty” (Far left top corner) Big on curiosity and leadership, not so much with the execution.

24:40 Why is Curiosity such an important part of making “The Leap”?

Rick’s Resources

Tim Ferris’  Four Hour Workweek Blog

Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist Blog

Leapbuilder.com for all Rick’s stuff

Mark Goulston makes a return visit to the show

Don’t forget to support  the show with your copy of 125 Quotes for Whacking Weasels.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to your oasis of sanity, The Cranky Middle Manager Show. No dedication this week, just an offer for you to attend our How to Create and Manage Remote Teams webinar workshop. Register early to save money.

Click here to learn about our Sept 30th North America/UK edition

Click here for the October 1st India/Asia/Australia edition

3:20 The quote of the week is from Igor Stravinski... do you listen or hear? One of them is no big deal.

3:55 Welcome to Marc Goulston, author of Just Listen- The Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone. Listening skills is one of those things everyone talks about and we seldom master. It’s really about putting your agenda aside. “The purest form of listening is to listen without memory or desire”. Dang I like that one.

8:38 These skills work on large and small scales, including the FBI hostage negotiators he trains.  He shows us a great way to check for understanding, even if I sometimes feel a bit patronized.

13:39 It’s hard to put aside our own agendas when listening but the impact is huge. He gives us a great way to position an order so that people don’t immediately push back. Science shows us you can’t argue someone into changing their mind… it’s that darned mirror neuron receptor deficit. Check out this article in the Huffington Post. He tells a great story at that point.

20:30 The ability to clearly analyze the situation and respond appropriately in the moment takes courage. You can do what you need to do, though. People don’t like being lumped with people exhibiting the same behavior. Maybe it’s not that they’re lazy or stupid, they might need training or just more hours in a day.

23:56 How do you re-start a relationship with someone who doesn’t think you’re a good listener? How do you let someone know you’re really trying to change your ways? It helps if you have an event that shakes you up.  He brings up Marshall Goldsmith and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. (You can hear that interview here)

Marc’s Resources

www.justlistenthebook.com

www.markgoulston.com

Deasun O Conchuir talks to us about managing across distances.

If that’s important to you, check out our How to Create and Manage Remote Teams webinar workshops.

For the September 30th workshop for North America, click here

For the October 1 workshop for India/Asia/Australia click here

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome our guest Deasun O Conchuir of Scatterwork. Since he’s our first Gaelic speaking guest, it seemed an opportune time to dedicate the show to the poor schmuck who had to fight the Scots on behalf of Rome, Aulus Platorius Nepos. His fate as project manager awaits us all if we don’t take care of the details and keep our teams together.

3:18 The quote of the week is from GK Chesterton. How would you define your pet project. Are you constructing or creating?

4:15 Welcome Deasun O Conchuir. Project management is one of the 4 Disciplines of Highly Effective, Leadership Exhibiting, Project Nailing Managers. Managing projects across distance involves language, culture, context and lots of other stuff it’s hard to do. Lots of practical examples today.

6:55 Why does it matter if you can meet face to face since we’re all professionals and such is life?  It has to do with brain chemistry as much as anything else. Brain chemistry and project management, you don’t get that connection just anywhere. That’s what this show does best.

9:20 Avoiding chitchat and personal time seems like a good idea but it leads to  bad assumptions and miscommunication.

12:30 Sometimes you have to take the time to make concepts clear to a remote team. Roles may differ from place to place even if you don’t know it. Lots of cross cultural examples.Yes, there’s a thin line between stereotype and observation, hopefully we’re on the right side of it.

16:00 When do you check assumptions and when can you assume everything is okay. You want to avoid Wile E Coyote moments. I assume everything is okay unless told differently. Apparently I’m wrong.

Cultural norms create all kinds of unintentional problems.

23:27 Communicating with your own team members is easier than getting them to communicate with each other. Recognition and sharing “wins” is really important.

What’s also important is making sure you share everyone’s objectives so they know who does what with which and to whom. Good specification is important and small teams.

27:00 What tools does Deasun like? Sharepoint is a good one when they use it well, but bits and pieces of different tools work well. Facebook is a simple way to help people get to know each other, IM works and it doesnt’ have to be but it’s quick. Also, Basecamp is a cool tool.

Other Resources

LumoFlow for project managers

Oxygenz

Join me for a special FREE video webinar: How Speakers and Bureaus Can Use Webinars to Grow Their Business. It’s brought to you in conjunction with Telenect.

Click here for a full description and to register for this FREE event. All attendees will have the opportunity to get $10 off the cover price of 6 Weeks to a Great Webinar as well.

Click here to learn more and register

September 30th for Europe/North America   To register for this workshop click here

October 1, Asia/Pacific  To register for this workshop click here

Managers today have direct reports or team members who are located somewhere else- another location or another country. The basics of good team management haven’t changed, but how does a manager or organization maintain peak performance and keep employees engaged when separated by miles, timezones and culture?

Join Wayne Turmel, The Cranky Middle Manager, for this 90 minute interactive workshop which includes assessment tools, worksheets and an action plan to help your team starting immediately.

Course Objectives:

At the end of this program, participants will apply tools and techniques learned in the class to assess their team’s connections in three areas: Team Relationships, Information Flow and Task Performance to reduce rework and barriers to effectiuve performance and team cohesion.

Topics include:

• What makes a great team?
• Why working virtually makes engagement and teamwork harder
• Assessing team relationships and and what to do about it immediately (low-cost tools, action steps)
• Assessing information flow and what to do about it
• Assessing team task performance and what to do about it today
• Next Steps

If you are a manager with remote team members, about to become a manager or responsible for leadership development in your organization, don’t miss this program.

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“Every manager in our organization should take this program”

All participants will receive a PDF Packet of prework and course worksheets that reveal how their remote teams are really working.

Special rates for multiple attendees from the same organization. Ask for details

Check out the show and join us if you can. if nothing else, if you’re in Vegas then, say hi to me and the Duchess, if you can drag her away from the nickel slots…….

Today’s guest, Aubrey Daniels, author of OOPS! The 13 Management Practices that Waste Time and Money and What To Do Instead. Whew, I’m exhausted just typing that, never mind implementing his ideas.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to your oasis of sanity in the desert of workplace craziness. Today we talk about challenging common wisdom- like the stuff all managers are asked to do but usually doesn’t work. Because of that we celebrate Nicolaus Copernicus who challenged conventional thinking but had the good sense to die before actually having to do anything about it. Not a bad plan.

2:00 The quote of the week is from William Blake, who most people considered mad but had some brilliant and lucid thoughts, one of which is if you don’t drain the swamp you wind up with reptiles….or something like that. Check it out yourself.

3:00 Welcome Dr Aubrey C Daniels. Are we lacking good role models for managers? TV doesnt’ help, and who the heck would work for Gordon Ramsay?

5:52 If he had to pick one, what is the most common mistake managers make? Stretch goals are doomed to failure and yet we keep setting them. Instead of one big monster goal, the solution is “many, mini-goals”.

10:15 Ranking employees doesn’t work well either, but I do challenge him on his notion that you don’t have to try your best, just be better than everyone else. My mother would take him to task and then some but she’s not here to take him on.

12:55 Competition is often used badly. External competition is good, internal competition is usually disastrous to group dynamics.

15:30 Done well, bonuses are lovelyPavlovian rewards. Done badly (most of the time) they drive the wrong behaviors or they feel they’re “owed” a bonus. We look at a sales example that sounds all too familiar.

23:00 We have a little difference of opinion with last week’s guest over the most talented people. (If you haven’t heard it, listen to Rob Goffee’s cranky show here). The best and brightest don’t always get you the results you need and frequently they cause more trouble than they’re worth.

Aubrey’s Resources

It’s designed for those who are new to the webinar world, or just aren’t happy with the ones they’ve done. Check out the recording here  and get a discount on “6 Weeks to a Great Webinar” while you’re at it.

Rob Goffee, looking awfully clever himself

There are two Greatwebmeetings.com webinars coming up.

September 1 at 2 PM Central Time: Webinar 101 presented by Netbriefings. Click here for more information and to register FREE

September 23        How Speakers and Meeting Planners Can Use Webinars to Boost Their Business, presented by Telenect. Click here for more information and to register FREE

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show, gang. Today we look at managing the really smartest, most talented people we have.  They add value, but they can be a real pain. Our dedication is to King Menelaus, who knew a thing or two about that problem during the Trojan War.

2:30 The quote of the week is from Naquib Mahfouz - clever is one thing, wise is another. Few people are both.

3:08 Welcome Rob Goffee to the show. He and his co-author Gareth Jones have written about managing clever people…what do we mean by clever and how is that different from just plain smart? They tend to add more value than most employees, tend to smarter and expect to be treated differently. They can also be a management nightmare if mishandled. The good news is that most of them need organizations, even if they act like they don’t.

6:18 There’s a business case to be made for handling these people differently than most , and most of that handling means leaving them alone to do what they do. Less management is more.

9:34 How do you keep your “clevers” motivated while not hurting the rest of the team. The term “benevlolent guardian” is appropriate. Rob explains it better than I do.

14:58 Why do so many superstars make lousy managers and why do companies insist on trying to make them fit that role? We mention Donato Bramante trying to manage Michelangelo. You can learn more back in Episode 35 if you’re so inclined.

19:45 How do managers keep their own heads and deal with their own insecurities in dealing with these people who might be smarter than they are? Start by acknowledging what they’re good at. And now you have to put together a team of Superstars which is it’s own nightmare.

Rob’s Resources

Chester Elton looks like he’s having more fun than the rest of us….

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show and a topic I’m notoriously bad at (apologies to all who’ve worked for me in the past)- reward and recognition. Chester came to us through both Vince Thompson (hear his interview here) and Adrian Gostick (hear HIS interview here).  We dedicate this episode to the worst reward and recognition program ever. No matter how bad your company’s is… it didn’t start the Trojan War.

3:20 The quote of the week is from Ovid….. nothing but the dresscode has changed since Roman times…

4:15 Welcome Chester Elton, author of “The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent and Accelerate Performance”. The idea of course involves the carrot and the stick…. pretty much every culture understands that analogy.

6:00 Why do so many companies do this so badly? I know I do it badly but they’re supposed to be smarter than me. The problem is that general praise does nothing useful, specificity is the important factor.

9:16 Okay, full disclosure (and it’s unfair to blame my mother) but i’m really bad at this. I’m happy to praise big things, but basic competence is the expectation. Right? Apparently i’m an idiot.

13:30 Most of us manage the way we like to be managed but maybe demotivates other people. Things like giving the same reward to everyone, for example.  For an opposite take on some of these opinions take  a listen to Charlie Jacobs’ interview on Management Rewired

20:07 The more employers pour into employee engagement programs, the more obvious it is that they’re doing a lot of little things to kill engagement.  It’s amazing how much pride in your company is critical to engagement. What are you doing to make your employees proud of their workplace?

25:27 How can middle managers do this when the larger organization doesn’t support your efforts? Hands up all those who’ve ever felt this way? Is pizza really THAT expensive?

Charlie’s Resources

Thanks.com for free and cheap rewards

Now, this is done in conjunction with a platform called Netbriefings. I have worked with them in the past and they’re good folks. Their area of focus is videocasting ( a mixed blessing when you look like me) and that will be an area you might not have heard me address before.

You can see a video clip, register and learn more here

Arlene Johnson talks about Success Mapping and focusing on where you want to go. Most of us obsess about this but don’t really act. That changes today, got it?

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show. Today is about  us and our careers. My snake oil detector usually doesn’t put up with the “if you imagine it, it will be” school of success. I come from a great long line of people who’ve crashed and burned following that advice. Why do people pick on middle managers? This is actually something to aspire to for many of us and don’t take any crap from snobs- and not everyone is cut out to be an entrepeneur. There, I feel better.

4:45 The quote of the week is from Thomas Jefferson, an overachiever who really managed to be far more successful than logic dictated. He understood that attitude was pretty much the deciding factor in success.

5:30 Welcome Arlene Johnson, author of Success Mapping… Achieve What You Want Right Now! Don’t let the exclamation mark put you off like it did me…there’s good stuff here. We don’t spend enough time on us and our careers, at least not productive time. The book maps out 8 steps… we’ll only look at a few of them:

1. What do you REALLY want?
2. The power of you- intention
3. The power of choice
4. Using your strengths
5. Transforming stumbling blocks
6. Ask for- and get- what you need
7. Making decisions with no regrets
8. Yes, i’m really ready to achieve my intention statement

8:17 How do we reconcile taking care of our careers while honoring commitments to our employers? When your’e taking care of yourself you do a much better job for your employer.

11:39 How do you define goals and intentions? Do we even know what our goals are? Survival is important, but it’s not a real goal. And don’t let the little guy on your shoulder tell you any different.

14:00 What’s the difference between a goal and “intention”? Intention is the end goal, clearly defined, focused and actionable

17:47 Here’s what stops most of us: do we really have choice? Feel free to challenge this idea but it’s true. Ugly, but true.

20:05 Arlene walks us through how to make a clear decision. You have to know what you value, protect what’s valuable, change what’s not and figure out where the gaps are.

22:45 Okay, we have to work from our strengths. How do we know what our strengths are? How can we tell we’re not deluding ourselves? If you enjoy it, it gets you the results you need, and you can’t wait to do it again is a good rule of thumb.

26:00 Look, you and I are alike in that we are really bad at asking for what we want. Whining and hoping someone tosses you a bone is NOT the same thing. Think about WHY they would accept or deny your request and fram it accordingly. Remember, people WANT us to be successful.

Arlene’s Resources

The first is that her blog, ManagementCraft has been around now for 5 years- nine months longer than this show and is an excellent resource for managers everywhere. She recently asked some of her favorite bloggers (i pause to blush at the excellent company I’m in ) to tell her what we’ve learned in the last 5 years. My answer to that question is in yesterday’s post. Check it out.

Secondly, I was able to finally meet Lisa. For all we’ve collaborated, interviewed each other and supported each other’s work over the years, we finally met last week in Chicago for dinner. Yes she does exist, and she’s as lively, smart, funny and terrific as you’d expect. She ambushed me by pulling out a tape recorder during after-dinner beverages and recorded our conversation. Of course, what you think happened, happened. She listened and added intelligent comment while I rambled on but it’s the kind of conversation this show was built on. I think it was a lot of fun and I think you’ll enjoy it. Download and listen to it here.

SHOW NOTES

o:oo Welcome to the Oasis that is The Cranky Middle Manager Show. If you read my latest BNET article, you know that remote teams and the home office don’t always get along. That’s what we’re going to look at today. it’s even harder when the home office is somewhere in another country and you don’t know what “they’re” thinking. We salute a couple of listeners and the guy Matthew Broderick played in the movie Glory. We can only assume that Colonel Robert Gould Shaw understood cross cultural communication better than most.

4:14 The quote of the week is from 150 BC (or BCE). Quit pouting and do it happily. Your mother said it, but it was first said by Terence in his lovely poem, The Self Tormentor which so much classier in Latin.

5:00 We are talking today to Anil Saxena about managing remotely and cross cultural problems which we’ll get to. Anil has 6 rules for managing virtually:

1. - Building a strong team starts with you
2. - Creating a high performance team takes planning
3. -Build a sense of “we”
4. - Manage by results
5. -Master  the art of virtual communication
6. - Put technology to work
   

it’s tough to start managing remotely… not impossible but certainly more challenging.

8:12 You’d better really want to do the job of manager. Have fun with it and develop patience.

9:25 How do you develop trust between team members- you have to build a sense of “we”. The team has to create the rules for how they will communicate and what they expect from each other. You have to share information and maximize every interaction.

12:15 Managing by results is a tough shift for a lot of us to make. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Armstrong needs to hear this….. Sometimes this show is just therapy for me.

16:32 Mastering the art of virtual communication means dealing with technology in the right way. Communciation is the goal, not cool technology.

20:45 Okay, one of my listeners has asked for this topic for a while. How do we identify and then elminate cross-cultural problems? They usually involve decision making, problem solving and conflict. Don’t underestimate the impact of power balances.

Anil’s Resources

I Am a Hopeless Semantic- One of our listeners, Brian Martin, submitted the new world tweetfacelinkblogging to the Urban Dictionary, and it was accepted. Check out the official definition here.

When You’re Hot, You’re Hot- I was just in Phoenix (115 degrees F for four days!) to speak on “6 Weeks to a Great Webinar”. First, the proof I was there:

Second, if you want to get $10 off the price of 6 Weeks to a Great Webinar, click this link and use the discount code P5RS4TRB.

Thanks to all the NSAers who made me feel like I belonged there and were so generous in digging my session.

Latest BNET Article On Remote Working- Do you treat your remote workers the same as your co-located team? You might think that, like mom and dad, you are even handed but they don’t think so. Check out the article here and share it with your friends. Of course it has been tweetfacelinkblogged.

Lots going on. Talk to you soon and don’t let the weasels get you down.

Alexander Grashow, co-author of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to show 201. Back to talking leadership. This show is dedicated to Dale Tallon, former GM of the Chicago Blackhawks and a sad lesson to all of us- do your paperwork.

3:33 The quote of the week is from Audre Lorde. Are you using the master’s tools to dismantle his or her house? How’s that working for you? By the way this is the first time in history Dale Tallon and Audre Lorde have been mentioned together. Just part of the charm of this show.

4:08 Welcome to Alexander Grashow, no stranger to grand ambition. His parents had more hope for him than mine had for me but I digress. What is Adaptive Leadership? Basically it’s how do you change businesses and people conduct their business? Can you actually evolve? As Darwin said, it’s evolve or die.

6:00 Here’s something you don’t want to hear- most systems are NOT dysfunctional, we get the processes we deserve. They get the results they are designed to get. Chew on that for a while.

9:49 I like to think of myself as the Steve Irwin of business people. Detached observation is the only way to really understand what’s going on and leaders need to listen and observe. This really applies to the politics of a situation- and there are ALWAYS politics.

14:30 Loyalty sounds like a grand thing, but understanding what people are loyal to and why is critical if you’re going to really assess a situation. Name your assumptions and make them plain. How do you test your assumptions without taking too much action too soon?

17:30 Finally a unique definition of leadership: disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb. I’ll let him explain. Beware the Jerry McGuire moment.

21:39 How do you make conflict useful and productive instead of having it tear the team apart.? We have to get comfortable with productive conflict. Try to keep the conflict going 5 minutes longer than we’re comfortable.

24:00 Did you know YOU are a system? What is the part of you that contributes to the mess? What should you let go of?

Alexander’s Resources

His Book

His Leadership Housecall Blog

Mark Bittman’s cooking blog

There are some great blogs, including by Cranky Guest and my buddy Steve Roessler (You can hear his interview here), Seth Godin and others. Some you’ll know, some will be new to you and all will be worth checking out.

Additionally, you can enter the contest to win Remarkable Leadership prizes- cool.

Check out my Remarkable interview with Kevin on episode 129

My friend and mentor, the always upbeat Rajesh Setty

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the 200th episode of the Cranky Middle Manager Show.  I am taking this moment to let us quit being noble and helping our companies and teams and concentrate on ourselves. In Episode 198 it was all about being Hip and Sage with Lisa Haneberg. In Episode 199 it was preparing ourselves to take control of our careers with Mike Cook. Today it’s all about keeping an upbeat attitude, even when that’s the last thing you feel like doing. Misery is optional.

2:14 No dedication this week, because I am interviewing my 16 year old daughter, Her Serene Highness about her new job. If you read the Management Issues article, you know it didn’t start well but I thought I’d ask her about her manager. it also stops her nagging me about being on my show. If you’re going to manage millenials, might as well talk to one. Good luck to all of us.

5:25 The quote of the week is from W S Gilbert. Staying positive is important, but lots of us kind of enjoy being miserable on occasion….. admit it. I’m not alone here. Am I?

6:30 Welcome back Rajesh Setty to the show. He was one of our earlier guests, has been responsible for a number of others and has been a mentor to me and the show. (Hear his earlier interview here). He is also the author of a little book on keeping an upbeat attitude in spite of everything that’s going on. In fact, his first big idea is to quit thinking of everything that’s going on and worry about your own work and what you can actually control.

11:00 One of the great human instincts is to vent, but harping on how bad things are doesn’t accomplish anything. Quit talking about how bad things are, it creates a cycle of depression. That doesn’t mean you don’t talk about what’s going on in the company. I’m not sure I buy all of this, but then I’m  uhhhh cranky.

15:05 You have to take care of your health. Seriously. For the record, I have lost almost 35 pounds and am in great shape. In a perfect world I’d be too busy to work out but I’ll let that irony sit there. Don’t let bad times be an excuse or you won’t be in shape to handle the demands on you.

18:00 Setting goals and being accountable for yourself is a huge piece of your attitude. You are important enough to keep promises you make to yourself.

21:51 Weird times are exactly the right time to take a risk…because the normal safe route isn’t working. It sucks but it’s true.

23:00 Raj is one of the best networkers I know. Tweetfacelinkblogging is not sufficient. Raj gives us some tips for creating a great network. A network is not there to help you….. it will but that shouldn’t be your focus. Start by seeing what you can do for them first…the rest will follow. Trite, but this guy lives it more than most I know…..

Rajesh’s Resources

His own Life Beyond Code Blog

Seth Godin’s blog

Tom Peters.com

Lateral Action

a very cool site I can personally recommend: Active Garage

Don’t let the weasels get you down!

Mike Cook, author of Thrive: Standing on Your Own Two Feet in a Borderless World.

Don’t forget to vist CrankyMiddleManager.com to register for our email newsletter, buy a book or have me speak to your company or organization!

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the 199th episode of the show. We are in the middle of a series that asks you to examine how you’re doing and where you’re going. Do you feel like you’ve got post-traumatic shakes? That’s why we dedicate this episode to Sir Robert Peat. Oh and you learn more than you ever wanted to know about really delivering mouth-to- mouth resucitation.

3:26 The quote of the week is from Anne Bradstreet, who knew a thing or two about adversity. Yes, the advice is trite. It’s also true and many of us need to hear it.

4:35 Welcome Mike Cook, author of Thrive: Stand on Your Own Two Feet in a Borderless World. It’s time to reexamine our relationship to work. Becoming independent and understanding your personal value is critical to working relationships. In a century we’ve gone from mostly self-employed to employed and heading back to self-employment with an education system that teaches us to shut up and do as we’re told.

10:03 Being a follower is based on the faulty logic that those we’re following know what they are doing.  How do you take grown people who have been well trained to look at security first and turn them into self-starters?

16:00 Are you dependent on your evil overlords? You need to understand your personal value proposition. What is it YOU bring to the job that no one else does and why should they care? How do you bring it to their attention?

21:30 One of the challenges is that entrepeneurial thinking is so foreign and scary it’s hard to do. Have we been domesticated like cattle?

26:00 If Mike were to grab you by the lapels, here’s the one thing he’d tell you to do: Stop, look 5 years down the road and tell me if the story has a happy ending. If the answer isn’t fast and positive, you’d better change what you’re doing.

Mike’s Resources

Francis Fukuyama  Trust

Authentic Conversations

Don’t forget you can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin

Lisa Haneberg retruns for yet more good conversation and laughs.

Don’t forget to get a copy of the