My message today is a simple one. Test your assumptions before you take them in and operate as if they are fact. Human beings always make assumptions. That’s how we create order and logic in our world. Sometimes, however, the assumptions are not accurate and can hold us back from taking positive action. Below are a few of the assumptions that I hear most often from my clients who are looking for a job: There are no jobs. Everyone knows…
Last week we talked about the difference between using your emotional response to gather data about what is going on for you and creating emotional drama. We defined drama as the uncontrolled or unconscious expression of emotions, often in ways that exaggerate the importance of what has happened. Drama is the antithesis of healthy emotional expression; it’s the seeping of emotions into the workplace, through covert means, as a result of people not believing they have been heard or understood…
From time to time, an executive will come to us saying that they are working to create an environment of logic and reason but despite their best efforts they are failing. Unfortunately, the fact that they are failing makes sense. Business is and always will be an enterprise where feelings and emotions are a central part of the environment because of the simple fact that businesses are made up of people. It’s a package deal; people bring the whole of…
A number of years ago, a thoughtful and talented business owner, Andrea, was bumping into some old anxieties about the sustainability of her business and the decisions she was making. We spent a couple of meetings teasing out the data behind her anxiety. We explored what she needed to be genuinely concerned about as the industry changed and the economy floundered. We also explored the various old messages, which were rooted in her family, that were grabbing her by the…
Recently, we took a cross-country flight and on the flight we witnessed an extraordinary leader in action. Let us explain: At Carpenter Smith Consulting we define leadership as a willingness to influence your world and a willingness to be influenced by your world (or in this case, a plane with 180 passengers on board). One of the things we see in great leaders is that they are in relationship with the people they lead even if it’s not face-to-face. As…
Over the years, Memorial Day has come to mean many different things in our culture—it’s the beginning of summer, the running of the Indianapolis 500, and a day of countless sales—everything from mattresses to lawn furniture. It can be hard remember why we have this holiday at all. A brief history lesson: Memorial Day is the day when we remember the men and women who died while serving our country. Originally (in 1862), it was called Decoration Day, an apolitical…
Development or revision of a resume is an ongoing, challenging effort. Remember that we adjust and revise descriptions of our professional experience in our resume to address a specific position. We add elements as our skills or experience build and broaden. We are constantly challenged on how to accurately present our value so that we truly can be understood as a “solution” to the work world. Today, I want you to take a pause in this ongoing process and think…
One of the things teachers often say to the parents of struggling kids is, “Johnny just needs to apply himself.” The parents often walk away agreeing that, in fact, Johnny does need to apply himself and they tell him as much when they get home. While it may sound like a utilitarian comment, it is far from clear what action is required in “applying” oneself—therefore, nothing changes. We can only imagine the number of kids who walk away rolling their…
We received some very nice comments about last week’s post, thank you, and also another question that deserves some thought. “What do you do with people who don’t know enough to know whether or not they are going to hurt the business?” Last week we talked about how to establish the 3-5 rules that, if set, could help guide individuals and teams as they are tackling all the things that come at them day-to-day and week-to-week. The challenge of course,…
Thank you for your comments on last week’s post, 3 – 5 Rules. A lot of executives out there resonated with the idea of providing 3 – 5 key expectations or “rules” that can guide their team as they make choices in their leadership and their work. And, many of you asked how to identify the “right” rules for your teams. As we said in last week’s post, the key to developing powerful rules “is to keep them broad enough…