Archive for September, 2008
September 30, 2008
It’s Not a Bailout
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Our organization’s GR director wrote a good post explaining why the economic recovery act is important to small business.
September 30, 2008
The Last Thing I’m Worried About Offending Is Your Delicate Sensibility
Posted by Kevin | (3) Comments | Print This Article
Lisa Junker wrote a great response to a Seth Godin post on asking questions (or, really, “challenging assumptions”). It’s a good example of the value of blog commenting because I wrote a response, but then Lindy Dreyer wrote a great response, including this:
“A lot of times, game-changing questions get asked by people who are least in the position to change the game. How a manager responds when the question is asked is very important. Is it a valid question that can be revisited at a more appropriate time, or is it a question that will never have the answer your staff person wants to hear? Can you answer your staff’s concerns without shutting down their creativity and problem solving skills?”
To which I thought: Good point. But then Lisa responded to Lindy’s comment, with what I thought was an even better point:
“Sometimes you do have to say no to an idea, and it’s the idea-generating person’s job to take a breath and not let the word ‘no’ stop them from suggesting their next idea or asking their next question.”
Here’s the thing: it’s the nature of what we do (perhaps, indeed, the nature of life in general) that every day most of us are going to have a few ideas. Frankly, it’s the nature of ideas that most of them are bad. This doesn’t mean that one should stop having ideas or that one should stop sharing them. In fact, the most successful people are those who never take personally a statement like, “No, that probably wouldn’t work.”
And yet — over the years, I’ve known more than a few people whose biggest complaints about their jobs were, “Nobody ever listens to me.” In a few of those cases, those people worked for jerks (by which I mean, bona fide jerks, not just people they disagreed with). But in most cases, they were people who had offered an idea or two that for whatever reason weren’t feasible, and then promptly decided they would be better off to just think ideas instead and complain at happy hour about how no one can read their minds.
In a post I wrote last spring about growing your association career, I wrote, “Opening your mouth for its own sake and stating the obvious is not a way to endear yourself to leadership. At the same time, opening your mouth with ideas for other people to implement is even worse. It’s not enough to throw out ideas — throw out the plans. ‘I think we should do X it would offer Y benefits in fact, here’s a plan, and it won’t really cost us any money [key point there] and I can take charge of this RIGHT NOW.’ Then do it.”
If you are, as Lindy wrote, “least in the position to change the game,” that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be coming up with great ideas (and “good questions”) on a regular basis. You should. Remember: 9 times out of 10, your manager wants you to succeed, because your success is her success.
But that doesn’t change the fact that ultimately, only you are responsible for your own career.
If you stop asking questions or offering ideas just because your manager doesn’t have time to devote two hours to dissect your every gem of insight, then you will be hurt more in the long run than either your manager or your organization. Keep asking questions, keep offering ideas — but (and here’s the thing) get better at it, every day, by learning more about your position, your organization, life in general — and yes, by learning more about your manager and how he or she wants ideas to be presented.
This is how life works. You can complain about how nobody takes you seriously, or you can get taken seriously. It’s your choice.
September 30, 2008
Well, It Made Me Laugh, Anyway
Posted by Kevin | (2) Comments | Print This Article
What does it mean when the organizers of something called “The Motivation Show” refer to their own event as “very disappointing”? (Via Sue.)
September 30, 2008
Unspoken Truths for Association Leaders, #3
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The strongest leaders in your line of succession are often those who didn’t actively lobby to be there.
September 29, 2008
Serialized Content by Email
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I swear every day I find something on the Internet that still manages to surprise me.
September 29, 2008
Unspoken Truths for Association Leaders, #2
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At an association where I used to work, one of our volunteer leaders — a committee chairman — once said to me, “Each and every one of our members is important, in the aggregate.”