When you imagine of a typical mayor, what do you think of? I know I don’t picture a 33 year old guy who crowd surfs, dances to “Gangnam Style” to promote local arts, and sings parody songs about the city’s problems at music festivals. But that is who the citizens of Duluth, Minnesota know and love. Don NessRead… Read more »
Career development is an ongoing effort that successful people know how to navigate. Successful career developers have many common traits.
Do self confident, optimistic leaders ask this question often enough, at the right time? Risk experts Doug Webster and Tom Stanton think not. Writing in a new report for the IBM Center for The Business of Government, they observe: “The front pages of national newspapers constantly report on actions by private companies, federal leaders, orRead… Read more »
As a manager, giving difficult feedback to an employee can be one of the hardest parts of your job. The conversation can be fraught with peril. If done well, giving tough feedback can help your team member grow – but if done poorly, you risk consequences like straining your relationship, or demoralizing him or her. SometimesRead… Read more »
If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been captivated by the antics and misadventures of Murder, She Wrote’s protagonist, Jessica Fletcher. Dame Angela Lansbury, the actress behind the widowed bestselling mystery writer, keeps it real at every point of the series, which ran twelve seasons from 1984-1996. (So it’s just a littleRead… Read more »
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how to strike a good work-life balance, and a major part of that is effective time management. It’s important to understand that we can never manage time—there will always be 24 hours each day for you to accomplish everything you need to do. The real management technique comesRead… Read more »
When you’re first starting out in your career, it’s easy to think that your job consists of “what my boss tells me to do,” followed closely by “how my boss tells me to do it.” But after fifteen years of study, practice and mostly observation, I’ve concluded that the most productive employees in the worldRead… Read more »
Frustration, Rage, Anxiety, Despair! These are the feelings I have heard from many federal government civilians who have endured hiring and pay freezes, furloughs, sequestration, and government shutdowns, as well as current and pending workforce drawdowns and budget reductions. Add to the mix, the front edge of the Baby Boomer generation became retirement eligible in… Read more »
Nowadays, everyone has an opinion about federal information technology — how projects should be managed and whether chief information officers have adequate authority to do their jobs. The truth is that all CIOs are not empowered equally. Many argue the culprit is not the nearly 20-year-old law that created the position but rather inconsistent implementationRead… Read more »
More and more, managers are being encouraged to use positive reinforcement in their employee reviews, rather than focusing on weaknesses. The argument is that by doing this, employees are more productive and engaged in their work. Opponents of such a management technique say that discussing negatives, or ranking employees against each other, can actually encourageRead… Read more »