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You’ve surely seen the four-quadrant matrix to help you prioritize your work along the axes of urgency and importance. It’s sometimes called the Eisenhower Matrix. But after you’ve whittled your list down to only the important tasks, there are two more dimensions to consider when managing your time and priorities: 1️⃣ Importance for when?2️⃣ Importance…
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The fine artist discerns which brush or knife will apply paint to canvas to communicate each precise detail correctly. The woodworker selects from among many instruments to shape, carve, and connect to maximize strength and beauty. And leaders who perfect the craft of managing their team’s performance draw from an entire box of tools. Here…
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“I’m doing the best I can. Why can’t they just cut me some slack?” Suddenly, they stop asking for things or pointing out problems. Leadership feels so much more comfortable. But you’re now in more danger than ever before. Unless you’ve managed to actually address the challenges your team faces, a sudden silence of criticism…
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“We talk all the time. Why should I schedule one-on-ones?” “We have our one-on-ones. Isn’t that enough?” I’ve heard both extremes from managers who want to stick to their preferred style. But leaving out either scheduled or spontaneous conversations can leave team members disengaged. ✅ With one-on-one conversations scheduled every one or two weeks, it…
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A leader isn’t a leader without followers. Followers don’t follow people unless they trust them. Trust comes from a combination of competence and character. To a follower, character is shown by demonstrating care for others as valuable human beings. “Oh, but I’m an 8.”“Oh, but I’m an ITSJ.”“Oh, but I’m a high D.“ It doesn’t…
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This is what I tell people when they ask for my top advice to advance at work. If you can build strong, positive relationships with the people who report to your supervisor’s peers, you’ll create the network of allies who will help you succeed. The reasons are both political and practical. 💡 Think politically first.…
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When you give the wrong meaning to a change in a metric, you can end up making the wrong decisions. ⚠️ The reported number of after-hours emergencies decreases. Is the system really getting better? Or are more of the problems going undetected? Or has a class of problem dropped in severity? Or are people too…
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When your technical hero brings down your team’s morale, you have to step in as a leader. Often, they may believe that their “backbone” is crucial to the success as a team. They’re willing to change to help the team, but they don’t know what that change needs to look like. To give the kind…
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Am I overstating when I say there are no best practices? OK, maybe a little. But not nearly as much as we often overstate when we say that there are. There’s certainly value in learning how others have addressed a particular challenge. ✅ The “best practice” label gets applied because it has been shown to…
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Goals and deadlines have a lot in common, but it’s easy to get them mixed up. And when we do, we can set others up for confusion and frustration. Here’s what they have in common: ✅ They both need a clear definition of “done”✅ They both need a clear expected finish date.✅ They can both…
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I have a slightly different take than some others on the following quotation from Teddy Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in…
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When the next opportunity arrives, it will be too late to start becoming the person who can seize it. Here are a few things you can do right now to begin preparing to outgrow your current role. If you have little margin: ✅ Identify one small habit you can begin practicing that will strengthen your…
Musings
Insights on leadership, management, success, and personal growth every Tuesday and Thursday.