Do you know what to say when it’s time to lay people off? The first time I had to lay someone off, I had no idea what to say. However, if you have a reasonable context, you (or HR and you) can create a script you can use to make a layoff a respectful and […]
The news is full of this “quiet quitting” idea. Supposedly, employees are doing just what the work demands and no more. That sounds reasonable to me. (See the blog post, It’s Time to Clarify Work Boundaries and “Quiet Quitting.”) I don’t see why people should do “more” than a day’s worth of work in a day.
Acme, a software company, has a technical excellence problem. Its customers report more problems than the product teams do. Two managers, Cindy and David, want to bring specialized training in for product teams. (They want to help their teams learn to use Test-Driven Development, TDD, and Acceptance Test-Driven Development, ATDD. Cindy and David suspect that
Tim, a first-level manager, asked me, “Is it reasonable for someone to quit after just a week? With no notice?” “No. What happened?” “Sam, a new developer, started on Monday. He told me today, Friday, he’s not coming back.” “Did he say why?” “He had a whole raft of reasons. He had too many questions:
I said in the Modern Management books that managers lead and serve the team (at all levels). However, I’ve seen organizations try to separate the leading work from the serving work. That’s when the organization creates “people” managers. The people managers serve the team by creating a trusting relationship with each person on the team.
All decisions are a form of power. We exercise our personal power (power within) in many ways: when we decide where to live, what to wear, and what to eat. Not only that, we also choose our jobs, who we vote for, and where to go on vacation. We have a ton of personal power.
Daniel Vacanti and Prateek Singh graciously invited* me to be on an episode of Drunk Agile: Episode 37 Johanna Rothman Part Deux More Bigger Aging. (*Invited is their term. I sent them an email, politely demanding they discuss aging. Is it possible to politely demand? I tried. Only they can tell you if I was
You need a senior person at a meeting. The meeting is supposed to start at 2 pm. The leader strolls in at 2:15. When leaders act this way, they show their power. When I’ve asked why the person is late, they often say, “I had another meeting that ran long.” While that’s what occurred, people
Modern Management: Catch People Succeeding When was the last time someone noticed that you did something great? Too often, we hear plenty about what we did that was wrong. But we have research—and experience—that says when people notice what we do well, we tend to do more of that. Here are two examples. A Team Skills
You’re a leader in the organization. And you’re supposed to be at another meeting, that started 15 minutes ago. Your previous meeting ran long, so now you’re late. But the conversation you just had? That conversation prevented a bad product decision. (Or, it prevented a customer meltdown. Or something equally important.) At least, the decisions