Dear Madeleine, I am a marketing manager at large consumer goods manufacturing company. I have ten direct reports and a couple of dotted-line people who work on big internal communications projects. Things move fast around here. The HR team recently did an engagement survey of my team and one of the dimensions was something along…
Leadership expert Scott Blanchard, co-author of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new First-time Manager learning program, says new managers sometimes approach their first assignment with the same energy new parents have with their first child—a tendency to overreact. “As a first-time manager, you want to make a good first impression by demonstrating confidence and capability in…
It sounds odd, right? Why would pain have any connection to coaching? There are a number of definitions for the word pain. For our purpose, let us consider the Old French verb pener, which means “to strive for or endeavor.” At its most basic purpose, pain is an indicator—a messenger, if you will—from the body…
Dear Madeleine, A long-time employee I really liked and respected recently left for another opportunity. I tried to keep her but couldn’t offer her enough money, so I gave her an excellent reference. The whole team was sad, and off she went with a fond farewell. Surprisingly, while training her replacement, I was stunned to…
I don’t like the word accountability. It’s always rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. I think it’s because it assumes the worst about people. When we talk about accountability, it always seems the assumption is a person is incapable of, or unlikely to, follow through on his/her commitments. So we spend a lot of…
As someone who has been coaching people for 26 years, I am often asked what the key to success is—and, surprisingly, whether luck plays a role. I’ll take that last part first. For the record, I prefer to pretend that the concept of luck doesn’t really exist—because if it didn’t, any magical thing that happened…
Dear Madeleine, I am a senior manager in a large and well known high tech organization. I keep my head down and stay clear on my goals. I do whatever it takes to make sure my people are successful. I have a reputation for being a good manager and I attract the best talent to…
Researchers brought two groups of people together for some testing on goal setting. One group had been identified as low performers and the other as high performers. The researchers wanted to find out if there were any differences in the way the two groups approached setting goals. To test a theory they had developed, the…
This Coaching Tuesday guest post is by Judith Donin. I recently found myself sitting beside a young entrepreneur on a flight, and we started chatting. His business was at a crossroads and he was seeking a mentor for help getting unstuck. When he noticed my study books, the topic turned to coaching. Then he asked me…
Dear Madeleine, I am a manager at a large commercial real estate company with nine people reporting to me. I really try to stay connected to them and I want the best for them. Recently, my boss came to me and severely criticized one of my people—and I understand his point. “Pete,” the employee, is…
Ken Blanchard found out early in his career that setting clear work goals, although seemingly common sense, wasn’t common practice in the organizations he worked with following the publication of his best-selling book with Spencer Johnson, The One Minute Manager®. In conducting classes with organizations eager to develop their own one minute managers (and, more…
This Coaching Tuesday guest post is from Blanchard network coach Antonio Estrada. I’ll bet you have heard about how a large percentage of New Year’s goals are no longer priorities—or even remembered—by the end of January. Here’s a formula that can help. I’ve used it successfully with clients and it might also help you succeed…
