Sachin Shah

I don’t get it. Why should we expect some big hoopla for doing our jobs? It’s what we’re supposed to do. It’s different if you go above and beyond, like the Sammie awardees or if you are truly heroic in your work (tip o’ the hat to our first responders). But the idea that someone like me, a desk-bound analyst, deserves extra praise just for…[Read more]

Yawn. Want to honor me? Just get out of my way.

Hi Frank,

The short answer is “Yes, MBAs, no matter their specialization, should have strong analytical skills.” The long answer is that MBAs should be skilled at formulating the appropriate questions, leading the analysis, translating the information into specific tactical action steps and finally informing long-term organizational strategy.…[Read more]

Remember, if you get it done at the last possible second, you still get it done.

Taking the family to the beach with friends. Can’t wait to hit the open road.

The important thing to realize is that people are at different stages in their career. These roughly correspond to the concept of generations but don’t always match sup.

For example, new government workers (no matter the age) generally have some idealism, tend to be eager to please, want to work on high-impact, visible projects and demonstrate…[Read more]

I would recommend Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’s not just time management or list-making, but a complete system for “turning stuff into action”. A major weakness many of us share is not being able to manage the firehose of information that comes to us every day. Getting Things Done (or GTD to us fans) is an awesome way to enhance your…[Read more]

I got loads of Excel tips, however, I’m not an ExcelMVP and I don’t do VBA programming.

My first tip would be to organize your data carefully so that you can do multiple calculations with minimal effort. The more time you spend organzing your data, the easier it will be do run your analysis.

My next tip to name every range you can, that way…[Read more]

Neither. I’m in HR, so I’m using our internal databases.

I’m using the old warhorse, Excel, to gather data and test it before moving on to a system that costs additional money. I’m also doing dashboards in Excel.

I second using GTD. I have the book in print, audio, and Kindle and often give it as a gift.

Heather, here are a couple of quick tips to purge large amounts of Email quickly:

1. Set your inbox to be arranged by Type. You can then go through an eliminate all the Out of Office messages, obslete meeting requests, meeting cancellation notices,…[Read more]