Subject Index

Simple Things Outstanding Managers Do Well

It’s OK to Care About Your Staff

When it comes to people, you need to Go Slow to Go Fast

Treating Everyone the Same is Unfair

It’s a Failure to Avoid Risk

Why You Should Play Favourites

Crucial Conversations – having the courage to speak truth to everybody

Tools & Techniques

Checklists

Why Use Checklists – checklists reduce errors and omissions, improves efficiency, and reduce stress
How to Build a Complete Checklist – use this simple technique to build complete, up-to-date checklist for any recurring task

Continuous Learning

Make It a Habit – by distilling your learning using the “so what?” question
Following Your Passion – an example of the “so what?” question in action

DATA

Goldilocks Data - not to little, not too much. Just right. Data is the basis for rational decision making and the ability to face harsh realities. The job of any leader.
Keeping It Simple For Measurements - aka how do we know we’re winning?

Developing Yourself and your Staff

Creating a Safe Place to Fail
Simple Criteria for Choosing a Mentor
How to Get the Most Out of Your Mentor
How to Pick Your Personal Board of Directors
How to Empower Your Employees –  practical tips for getting them to take responsibility
Learning By Doing –  delegation isn’t just about getting things off your plate. It’s about working hard to develop your employees
Who Are Your Best Employees? – it may not be who you think

Dress for Success

Fashion Guide for Grown Up Men On Socks and Shoes – working with engineer and programmers for twenty years has given me some unique experiences fashion-wise.
Why Do Looks Matter?w Are first impressions always fair? No, but they exist so deal with it.

E-Mail

The biggest time-waster ever created by man

Your Work E-Mail Is Not Private – and treating it that way is a career-limiting move
Your E-Mail Is Not Under Your Control – and what that means to its content
Get to the Point – by putting the bottom line up front in our e-mail
How to Set Up Your E-Mail Program – so that it’s not the time-sucker waste of your attention it is when left set to its defaults
E-Mail Keyboard Shortcuts – saving minutes a day saves days a year
E-Mail Made Simple – stop wasting time by “doing” e-mail, and learn to manage it efficiently instead
And You E-Mails Are Too Long – Stop wasting their time, put the bottom line up front.

execution

What is Accountability? – the four concrete pillars of accountability

Feedback

Hiring

Listening

Don’t Take Your Laptop to the Meeting – why taking your laptop to the meeting is counter-productive.
Test Your Face Reading Skills
Why to Avoid the Word Why
Why to Avoid the Word But
How People Stop Listening When They Hear “But”
When it come to people, it’s best to Go Slow to Go Fast
You Talk Too Much – if you don’t know the office blabbermouth is, it might be you

Managing Relationships & Building Influence

Spending Time Builds Trust
Why Administrators and Receptionists Should Be In Your Network
“What” is Better Than “Why” to Influence People
Influence & Trust Come From Time & Attention
What Emotional Intelligence Looks Like
It’s OK to Care – really, it’s allowed
Why Treating Everybody the Same is Unfair
Good Parenting versus Good Management – simple rules, repeated often, enforced consistently
Critical Conversations – think you’re brave? Try telling a direct report that their body odor is impacting their work
Building and Maintaining Trust – when the engagement and loyalty are no longer equivalent, and the employee / employer relationship has fundamentally changed.
Optimism for Fun and Profit – when people think you’re being defensive or grumpy, but you’re not. Being more effective doesn’t always mean being less passionate.
How to Manage Your Boss – without getting your eyebrows burned off when it blows up in your face.
Managing Your Boss – ask yourself “What do I do that makes her job easier?”, and “What do I do to make her job more difficult?”
Working in Small Teams – leaders need to be challenged and have conflict in order to make better decisions. What’s the right size?
To Touch or Not to Touch –  touch is an powerful connector, or a dangerous manipulation. Practical guidelines for telling the two apart
Manage Your Boss - how to communicate and create a better relationship with your boss

Meetings

Second biggest time-waster, and the most expensive because now you’re all wasting time together!

Time Wasting Meetings – how to know you are one
Setting Clear Goals for Good Meetings – if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there
Preparing a Good Meeting – things to think about before drafting an agenda
Preparing a Good Agenda – that will help you stay on topic and on time
Running a Good Meeting – simple, but not easy
The Value of Good Minutes – why to use them, how to use them, when to use them

On Leadership & Management

The Tragedy of the Welder - and why being a good welder doesn’t mean you’ll be a good boss of welders
What Makes a Good Leader – first and foremost is life-long learning. Keeping your saw sharp makes work faster and easier
The Difference Between Learning and Knowing – focus and changing behaviour. Two habits of good leaders and what they have in common
Leadership in the Long Term – what trust means to being a leader, and how to get it. Want influence and effectiveness? Build trust.
Before Leading Others, Lead Yourself – focus, discipline, learning. What you do is so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying
Drive Change by Being Consistent – how teamwork in the leadership team drives progress
How Executives Make Decisions – bias to action, passion to succeed, resourcefulness
What Do You Want To Be the Leader Of? - to by a good leader, start by examining what motivates you
Why Do You Want To Lead? – then examine why you want to be a leader
Why You Shouldn’t Be The Boss – if you’re doing anything for the wrong reasons you won’t do it as well. Just be honest with yourself

Performance Reviews

Manage Your Performance Review – a little planning and preparation prevents a piss-poor performance review

Phones & Voice Mail

How To Use Voice Mail – turn it from a time waster into in a time saver
The Best Voice Mail Greeting – do your callers a favour, and tell them how to get your voice-mail

Presentations

Why Practise Your Presentation – a modern fable
How to Control a Presentation – instead of letting it control you
The Elevator Speech Explained
Keeping It Simple for PowerPoint Slides – quick, powerful tips for your next pitch or presentation
Selling Your Ideas Made Simple – simple techniques for making your presentations more memorable and persausive

Remembering Names

Why Learning Names is Important -why learning to remember names is the biggest single, practical thing you can do to multiply your influence
Pay Attention to Learn Somebody’s Name – the first prerequisite to remembering a name is to actually pay attention to it
What To Do When You Forget a Name – what to do when you inevitably forget, which you will, no matter how good you are
Avoid These Mistakes When Trying to Remember a Name – there’s many a slip ‘twixt name and lip, just don’t spill all over yourself

Resumes

Deflate Your Résumé For Better Results - how your thinner résumé will give you a better chance of success
Résumé Basics – What to Put In, and What to Leave Out – let’s update that resume, and give the hiring manager fewer reasons to say no.

Risk Management

Build Alliances to Prepare for the Crisis – being prepared physically and mentally will reduce a risk’s impact. That includes building alliances
Why Avoiding Risk Management is Doomed to Failure

Strategy

Short course on strategy: where to do want to be, where are we now, how do we get there?

For business owners: How are we going to make money, and how are we going to beat the competition?

Aligning Your Value to Your Company’s Strategy – why getting your department to support the company goals *is* your job
Strangle All Other Choices – because Keeping It Simple is not about making things Stupid, it’s about reducing decision paralysis
The Value of Defining Who You Are – not convinced of the value of values? Then prepare to lose

TIME

You can’t make more of it, you can’t get it back, you can’t return it. How do you make the best us of it?

Defend Your Calendar, Define Your Life – don’t tell me what your priorities are, show me how you spend your time and I’ll tell you.

TEAMWORK

Specialization of the individuals is the power of modern corporations. Not working together is the downfall.

Taking Over a Trouble Project - when things are not so good from the beginning
Staying Calm - because your emotions having a greater impact on others than you’ll ever know
Creating a Safe Place to Fail - what a safe place to fail looks like
Emotional Intelligence - what emotional intelligence looks like
Brainstorming Kept Simple - quick tips for team brainstorming
Embrace Failure, Reject Fear - ten improv rules with surprising applications to business life
What Do Rituals Have To Do With Business – they’re shorthand for cohesion and teamwork
Bears in Camp: Using Culture to Overcome Fear 

Reading & Listening Recommendations

Must Read / Hear

Getting Things Done – the canonical scripture of practical personal productivity. The coach in a book. This is one of those books that changed that way I think and behave, and therefore changed my life.
First, Break All the Rules – What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently – practical management advice based on collecting, analyzing, and presenting fact after interviews with thousands of employees and great managers.
Awesomely Simple – the principle of creating an outstanding organization. Strategy, leadership, and execution.
Manager Tools (Podcast) – if you can only follow one podcast, and you want to learn how to be a good manager, this is it. Covers everything I try to cover, and more. These are the guys I want to be when I grow up.

Should Read

Corporate Confidential – things I wished I’d know before I got promoted, then laid off
Emotional EQ 2.0 – why emotional intelligence is important and what to do about it
Crucial Conversations – or how to have those difficult, high value, high stakes conversations you’ve been putting off.
Results.com Growth Tips – weekly, actionable tips for improving your business
The Checklist Manifesto How to Get Things Right an easy read, well written, useful for anyone who needs to think about improving processes in a way that doesn’t bury your teams in ream of useless doctrine.
Coaching for Performance - great for supervisors, managers, and executives who want to know how to develop their direct reports and staff.

Could Read

Greatest Leadership Principles of All Time- small collection of sayings, short and fun. Makes a good Christmas present for your budding Genghis Khan
Predictably Irrational – how marketing weenies screw us over. This is a case of knowledge being power
How To Win Friends and Influence People - a little dated, but a classic for a reason.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable - a fictional case study which is a good introduction to team dynamics and resolving conflicts.

Podcasts

The Practical Lexicon – an occasional podcast I contribute to with my buddy Karl

Finding a New Job – First Things First – what to decide before you launch into the search for that perfect next job
On-Line Job Hunting Resources – tools and resources to use for finding your dream job, and which ones to avoid
Job Placement Agencies – a quick tour

Customer Service Rants

In which I occasionally tee off on corporations who talk a good game, but don’t always follow through:

NTS: 2011/6/19