After spending the last six years as a director of large central teams, I recently started a job managing a large project where I will only have a handful of direct reports. A few people asked me why I chose to “take a step back”, even though I am part of the senior leadership team […]

It’s performance evaluation season at my company and I have been working long hours to get all of them done.  I have read a lot of articles that are strongly against performance evaluations because of the damage they can do to individual motivation and team dynamics. Having been the recipient of demotivating evaluations (even though […]

Have you ever walked away from a meeting thinking you had just witnessed a thing of beauty?  It does not happen to me very often, but I was fortunate enough to witness that twice this year.

Many people I have worked with over the years have tried to tell me what the biggest problem was with whatever company we were working for. No company is perfect; there is always some sort of organizational friction. Technical people thought it was because we didn’t have the latest tools or equipment. The creative types […]

Now that we’ve established the realities of being a manager, what are the real rewards?  Being a manager is a tough job, so what keeps us going?  It’s not power, money or being able to get your own way all the time and you’ll likely be expected to lend a hand to the team from […]

Often in professional development discussions young team members bring up the topic of becoming a manager.  My first question is always, “Why?”  As the conversation continues, I usually have to practice the 5 Why’s to get to the heart of the matter and I can share the truth about being a manager. As a manager, […]