Is This Thing On?

Have you ever suffered from the case of “I shouldn’t have said that” or “That’s not what I meant?” It’s tough to say the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. We had Rebecca Barth from She Shares Ministries on the show this week talking about how to communicate for maximum impact. And while we talked about the different ways to communicate, from senior leaders to direct reports, I want to expand more on the topic of communicating with our peers.  Continue reading

How Relationships Change Everything

“People, process, or place?” That was the question I was asked when identifying the root cause for opportunities within my department. Are they people problems, process problems, or location problems? Every time, I boiled it down to people issues. People are the drivers for success, but they are also the drivers for failure. This week, Deanna Landers was on the show, and we talked about how understanding our personalities and how they relate to others’ can make a big difference when trying to improve a department.  Continue reading

Take That Back!

I have to admit, I’m a closet Glee fan. Often, I wish my life was Glee. Oh, to be singing and dancing my way through life! But then a scene with the antagonist, Coach Sylvester, comes on, and I’m thankful that I don’t know a soul like her. But I digress. There is an episode where Coach Sylvester tells a kid to take a tube of toothpaste and squirt it into his hand. After a nice blob has formed she tells him, “Now put it back.” Her point is that once news is out, no matter if it’s true or not, it can’t be erased.  Continue reading

Finger-Pointing

Today I sent a project status report. Shortly afterward, I received an e-mail informing me that while I had reported a task as complete, it wasn’t actually complete. The manager wanted to know where I got my information, and I let them know I heard it on the status call. The manager then informed me via an e-mail cc’ing the world (OK not really, but when you are being criticized, it can feel that way) that I should get information from a reliable source, and the manager named a few. It just so happened one of those “reliable sources” was the person who told me the task was complete. Graciously, that person stepped up, responded to the e-mail, and said that she was mistaken and had passed the bad information on to me. The manager then sent me an e-mail berating this “reliable source” for passing on bad information. While the task was not done, it would still be done on time.  Continue reading