Leadership coach and consultant.
“An umbrella at home won’t keep you dry in the rain.” This obvious, but all-too-familiar, experience sums up an essential aspect of my new book, The Manager’s Dilemma. The truth is that managers know what they need to do, and in most cases they even know how to do it. However, because of the dilemma’s […]
Author Q&A from Recruiter.com Last week, author, leadership expert, and Recruiter.com contributor Dr. Jesse Sostrin published a piece on our site about “leaky” talent pools. According to Dr. Sostrin, a “deep bench of emerging leaders” means nothing if your company routinely places impossible demands on the shoulders of those leaders. These impossible demands are part of what Dr. […]
The Manager’s Dilemma is a phenomenon that affects roughly 80% of all managers. It gets triggered when your demands and responsibilities increase, yet the resources you have available to meet them do not. The problem with this inverse equation is that when demands outpace capacity you end up negotiating with yourself about which fire of […]
When the demands you face outpace the resources you have available to address them you end up negotiating with yourself about which fire of the day you will put out while others are painfully neglected. I call this set of imperfect choices the manager’s dilemma because it is truly a no-win situation without an obvious […]
My new book, THE MANAGER’S DILEMMA, explores the widening gap between the increasing demands we face and the shrinking resources we have available to meet them. However, it is not a time management book to deal with the avalanche of e-mails, meetings, and tasks dropped on your plate. Nor does it offer a packaged set […]
Nobody means to do it, but it happens anyway. Managers get so busy focusing on the wide ranging and increasingly complex responsibilities they face that their people slowly fall through cracks because of inadvertent neglect. If you are concerned about the status of your employees, you can download a free guide to “Getting Your Direct […]
Many have tried and just as many have failed. Well-meaning and highly skilled supervisors, trainers, executive coaches, management consultants, and human resources professionals have all accepted the challenge of “improving” communication within their teams. For those of us who have had the wonderful experience of attending a communication skills workshop of some kind, only to […]
Clearly, change matters. However, when the only day-to-day constant is change, it can be difficult to sustain focus and forward progress on true organizational priorities. If change fatigue sets in, our teams can experience reduced morale and important client services and projects can stall. The good news is that a climate of change is also […]
There is nothing wrong with solving problems! When the supply room catches on fire, you want to put it out quickly and effectively. Forget the organization chart, whoever is closest to the extinguisher, grab it! Problem solved, and then life moves on. But when the supply room keeps on catching fire day after day, your […]
It’s 9:15 am and you are just getting into the rhythm of your day. The phone rings, and on the other end of the line one of your colleagues unexpectedly asks you to attend a meeting that starts in just 45 minutes. Although you respect this colleague and ideally would like to support her, you […]