Outgrowing Employees

In a growing organization, it is possible to outgrow a member or multiple members of your staff. It’s never an easy decision on how to proceed and managers fret over how they’re going to move forward no matter what the options available may be. Most often, it is a case that the employee was there when the company needed that resource, but the employee has not continued to evolve with the organization.

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The Importance of Gratitude

There are few people in the world who do not feel good when receiving a “thank you” from another. Even the consummate philanthropist who asks for no recognition and only that the world accept his work does not react poorly when gratitude comes his way.

However, it is often hard for us to thank those around us for the things they do. We fall back to thoughts of “they’re just doing their job” or “it’s all in their day’s work.” We’ll still thank those around us for exceptional work, but rarely do we express gratitude for the things we’re used to them doing.

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Mission: Statement

I’ve often poked fun at mission statements. When I read a company’s mission statement, it’s very rare that I have a “wow” moment. More often, I look at a long paragraph that means nothing to anyone but the one who wrote it and wonder if I’ll remember it by the time I finish reading it.

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Keys to Customer Service

I don’t believe in the adage “the customer is always right.” If the customer was always right, they wouldn’t need me because they could just make something up and it would be correct. I realize that’s taking the adage a bit too literally, but when you train customer service employees to make the customer always right then there is little room for your employees to do anything other than what the customer is asking. I believe the customer always knows what they want, but we have to help them find what they need. My keys to this follow.

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The Chain of Command

In business, the chain of command is not “the chain I go get and beat you with ’til ya understand who’s in ruttin’ command here.” Although, not following that chain of command can often make your employees feel like it is.

The higher you go in an organization as a manager, and more often as an owner, the more likely it becomes that you’ll run into a situation where you’re going to be looking down the length of your own chain of command and deciding to go around it. The best advice that I can give to you is: don’t.

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Employee’s First Steps

My wife and I are expecting our first child in October and one of the things that people give you when you’re expecting is a “Baby’s First” book. It notes the accomplishments of your child, when they occurred, and how. For a newborn, these are things like “took her first step” and “walked across the room.” As the child gets older it’s “rode a bike without training wheels.” All of these, in retrospect, are small accomplishments to those of us who do them daily. I can’t remember the last time I took note of myself moving from place to place. But when your baby is learning these things, they’re huge accomplishments.

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My Secret to Public Speaking

It’s no secret that I don’t enjoy networking events. I think they’re a great way to meet prospective clients and, in the service industry, the quality of clients that you get from networking far outweighs any other form of marketing. However, as I’ve told many people over the years: being that person for that long is exhausting to me. On the other hand, public speaking is something that has always come easily to me. In college I took a public speaking course, as I’m sure many people did, but the course did not help me at all. The preparation methods — prepare an outline first, put your notes on cards, rehearse the speech — these were all things that only served to make my speeches seem boring and lackluster. The only thing we were required to turn after giving the speech was the outline so toward the end of the semester my method became “give the speech, and then write the outline.”

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Password Accumulation

It used to be that any IT person worth his salt would tell you never to write your passwords down. Memorize your password, never tell it to anyone, and guard it like you would your only daughter. That works for your network login because you only have to remember one password, but what about all of the other accounts that you have in your online life? It’s not feasible to remember more than a few passwords and it’s not safe to use the same password for multiple sites.

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Time Management: Delegation

One of the common questions we get from entrepreneurs is “How do I find the time?” or, put in the phrase of a restraint, “I never seem to have enough time.” It’s common in corporate management training to hear the word “delegate” repeated like a mantra, but it does take some time to understand what delegation means.

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The GSD Method

A very good Office Manager I once worked with coined a phrase around our office that she eloquently titled “GSD.” Not to be confused with David Allen’s GTD or Getting Things Done, although at a high level it did share some aspects, GSD just meant “Get Shit Done.”

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