What works better: coming down hard on someone who rebels against the change you want to see – or coopting them to be part of the solution? When I was managing change for Barnes & Noble, this was something I gave a lot of thought to. In the decades that I worked there, we regularly …
Imagine this: you have been put in charge of a project and given an unreasonable deadline (deadlines are always impossible, right?). You get organized, get moving, and actually making progress towards getting it done. Then your boss says, “I don’t feel like I know what is going on with this project.” Oops! You quickly prepare …
“Are you ok?” My boss asked. “You sounded kind of heavy on that last call.” I was surprised. I hadn’t realized I had let it show. I go through these phases, I explained, where I am trying to integrate new information and figure out how to navigate with this new information. Much of the time, …
From time to time I find myself stuck. You know that feeling: it feels like you are trapped and that nothing you do will make a difference. I felt trapped at work – I couldn’t figure out how to move to the next level of a relationship with someone that I needed to get feedback …
Have you ever noticed how, when you do something often, you can almost do it without conscious thought? You get up in the morning, you stumble out of bed, brush your teeth, take a shower. Maybe you wake up a little because you have to make a choice about what clothes to wear. But then …
