Archive for the Your Team

I was working with someone on a staff management issue recently. She was incredibly frustrated and wanted to lay down the law and move on. When she described the situation, it was clear to me that her employee needed to be heard. He didn’t need to be right; he likely had already accepted the outcome, […]

Delegation is a 2-way street. With a new employee, delegation serves a training function. When you’re working with someone more seasoned, it’s still a critical process. Make sure you’re managing your side to maximize the impact leverage has on your bottom line.
8 points to consider when you delegate work to an employee or contractor:

Define the […]

Nothing gives your business a boost like adding an employee to your team. How you manage that person will determine the return on your investment, both in terms of leverage and energy.
In The Art of Possibility, Ben Zander and Roz Stone Zander write about an idea they used with a class of graduate music students. […]

Unless your goal is to build a DIY law firm- at some point you’ll be ready to add staff.  Here are a few things you can do now to ensure that when you DO add someone, they are up to speed as soon as possible.

Create a filing system and naming protocol
As you work, start allocating […]

Listserve question: “How can I fire this employee?” Readers were outraged at the behavior described and in post after post eagerly and sagely gave advice.  It took all day for someone to finally add that the original poster might consider taking some personal responsibility for being at the firing stage with his employee.  I’ve been […]

Have you ever had that conversation where you don’t know that someone is going to be out and they swear you approved it- and they have non-refundable tickets to some exotic location with no phone or internet service? Maybe you’ve had the situation where two people want to be out at the same time? (inevitably […]

This entry is shameless self-promotion, but also intended to show you ways to improve your life by working on your business. Here are three stories where clients have been doing the practice improvement work- and they are seeing results.
This week a client opened his office Monday to find that 7 workstation laptops had been stolen. […]

So- today’s Aardvark Day! It makes me smile every time I think of it. Why does this small animal rank a holiday of its own? Well- think of it as a day where your assignment is to enjoy yourself. Rest and restoration. Guilt-free. No email-checking allowed.
Here’s the deal- a client was brainstorming how to reward his very hardworking, […]