I’ve been intimidated by my interviewees lots of times. I’ve gotten better at it. I can now say, “Here’s what I’m like as a human individual and also as the leader of this team, take it or leave it,” without wanting to throw up or feeling like a fraud.
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I want to send emails that are so good they will learn from them. Any go-to solutions for clarifying, confirming, or re-iterating information with a very poor email communicator?
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I expect there to be some discomfort, but I want to minimize the awkwardness and show support as much as possible!
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The best blanket “rule” we’ve been able to come up with is to be friendly with your direct reports, but not friends. If you can do that, you will stay safely appropriate and satisfied with the relationship. (Have we followed that rule throughout our careers? Absolutely not.)
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Today we’re talking about delivering a certain flavor of feedback: the kind where the root behavior is good and worthy of being cultivated, but the results are bad and need to change. It’s a “yes, but no” type of feedback.
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First, you have to get clear about what care is. You can’t evaluate “care” itself because everyone values different things.
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I like that this strategy acts as a January re-set, but it’s not overhauling anything, or starting something from scratch, or rebuilding any processes. It’s just a quick recalibration on the basics.
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I recently had a new engineer join my team who is severely visually impaired. His impairment yields a number of challenges that I am having trouble sorting out.
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Surprisingly, the expectations of a Good Employee don’t really change whether you’re on a team of many at a large corporation, or on a team of one working for yourself. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to achieve.
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Three questions sparked by last week’s newsletter on cc’ing etiquette — plus a bonus primer on bcc’s.
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