Four Surprising Strategies that get You Promoted

By Dan Rockwell   Article

“#1. Prepare your replacement:

Work yourself out of a job before working into one. Train and enable your replacement so your transition upward is an easy choice.

The more essential you are the less effective you’ve become. If you’re indispensable where you are, you won’t move up. Your job is enabling and supporting others not making yourself indispensable.

#2. Adapt to your boss:

I just chatted with a VP of a large organization who said one reason he earns promotions is he adapts to his boss rather than working to change them. Its foolish to push against your boss.

Adapting isn’t playing dead. Adapting is learning from your current boss’s style and strengths.

#3. Have an empty cup:

Leaders are learners. People with full cups don’t have room to learn. Stop focusing on things you know, start focusing on things you don’t know.

#4. Learn people skills:

It’s likely you were hired for your technical expertise. Promotions, however, go to those who are good with people. If that’s offensive to you, you just revealed your problem.

You’re missing the mark if:

Questions are one indicator of your success. The more questions you’re asked the less you’ve prepared others to act without you. The higher you go, on the other hand, the more those around you must act without you.

Promotions or service

By Tim Fishburne  Article

Improving Service

“We often treat service as a cost center and promotions as a profit center. Yet amazing service can spread faster than any advertising and there can be a hidden cost from too many promotions. Many brands place more value on a promotion campaign designed to acquire customers than a service plan designed to keep them…
read the rest…”

Warren Buffett invests like a girl?

By Jenna Goudreau   Article

“How has Warren Buffett become the third richest person in the world with a net worth of $50 billion? It may be because he invests like a girl. Financial editor and writer LouAnn Lofton, author of recently released Warren Buffett Invests Like A Girl, studied the habits of the world’s most renowned investor and compared them to the latest research about men, womenand money. The conclusion: The Oracle of Omaha has a decidedly feminine investing style.

Like Buffett, women are more likely to have a calm temperament, a longer-term outlook, do more research, trade less and remain steady under pressure, says Lofton. And what does Buffett think about the claim? “I plead guilty,” he said.

I caught up with Lofton to learn more about her theory and uncover the secrets of the investing legend. ….”

 

Shooting stars and cash clows

by John Persico   Article

Successfully Implementing a New Model for Change

“Dr. George E. P. Box, noted statistician and quality expert famously said “All models are wrong, some are useful.” Dr. George Copa, one of my former advisors at the University of Minnesota always told me “Start with a model.” Consultants love models. Each model is a chance to demonstrate that we have a “new” theory and that our “new” theory is better than your old theory. My model is better than your model can mean thousands if not millions in new consulting fees.

Shooting Stars and Cash Cows

My partner and I have been consulting for a combined number of 50 years and during this period we have seen many models come and go. Often, they are shooting stars which are around for brief periods of time, never to be seen again. Sometimes, they linger on for many years before they flame out. Some examples are: The Boston Consulting Matrix, Re-engineering, The Learning Organization, Knowledge Management, The Blake and Mouton Grid, McKinsey Seven S model and One Minute Management.

Other models are more successful and are eventually morphed into the fabric of the business. Successful models are able to convert theory into practice and add real value to an organization. Socio-Technical Systems, TQM, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, SWOT Analysis, Benchmarking and the Balanced Scorecard are examples of models that have become standard procedures in many businesses. These models have proven their ability to lower costs, improve quality and increase customer satisfaction. When these models “fade” away it is because they have become “commoditized.” They become invisible because they are now part of our standard way of doing business.”

You want some truth? Here: the corporate world is full of lies

By Geoffrey James   Article

“Most advertisements are lies.  Beer doesn’t make you sexy, it gives you a paunch.  Technology doesn’t automatically make companies productive. Quite the contrary; it often makes companies less productive.  Car brand “A” is just as safe as car brand “B”.  Face cream can’t do a damn thing about your wrinkles.  And so forth, ad infinitum. …

If you’re in an industry that advertises, you are party to lying, if not outright, at least in some form of exaggeration. And those lies are to your own advantage, because your salary is being paid by sales that took place because of those lies.

Not that you should feel bad about that. It’s just part of living in the real world, rather than trying to live in some ethical fantasy world.

Similarly, bosses lie to their employees all the time.  They hire you to work 40 hours and then give you the stink-eye if you don’t work 60.  They say that everyone is getting a fair salary, but the boss’s pet is making 50% more than the guy in the next cubicle who works twice as hard.  They say stuff like “there’s no truth to the rumor that there might be a layoff.”  Which, in fact, means there will be a layoff. …

I tell the truth (appropriately and kindly) to the people with whom I work with and for. People who know me know I can be trusted.

But I’m not going to be mean and petty by telling an unpleasant truth at the wrong time to the wrong person.  And I’m sure as heck not going to rat out a co-worker simply to kiss up to a boss, which is apparently some people’s idea of “ethics.”

When I see a system that institutionalizes lying, I try to avoid it. But if I ended up being forced to interact with a lying sack of BS, I would feel no compunction whatsoever dishing out the same in return, if telling the truth would mean taking food out of my children’s mouths.”

Needing it is sick

By Dan Rockwell   Article

How to Overcoming People Pleasing

“Wanting another’s approval is healthy. Needing it is sick.

You can’t please all the people even some of the time.

“The disease to please,” as psychologist Harriet Braiker likes to call it, is a form of addiction. Just as a drug addict seeks drugs, a people pleaser seeks approval.

Are you a people pleaser?

1. Say yes too much and no too little.
2. Find it difficult to express your true feelings.
3. Feel devastated when others don’t like you.
4. Don’t speak up when you think others will disagree.
5. Fear rejection.
6. Take criticism personally.

Leading through the need to please

1. Accept that others won’t always like you.
2. Embrace disagreement and learn from it.
3. Press through resistance.
4. Preserve relationships even when you say no.

Overcoming addiction to people pleasing

1. Don’t swing from people pleasing to people offending. ….”