Comments (0)

By Rita Ashley, September 16, 2010 11:40 am

Create your own job security. How executives get control over their careers.

The Wall Street Journal reports, “40% of all executives leave their jobs within 18 months.” And every one who does potentially causes serious long-term career damage. Continue reading 'Job security your way'»

Comments (1)

By Rita Ashley, July 20, 2010 1:03 pm

Robots and ark building.

“At a certain point in the process, no credit will be given for predicting rain. The only credit will be for helping to build an ark.” Ben Horowitz

Last night I spent 45 minutes talking a client down from a rant about how negative his team had become. They were demoralized from all the customer complaints and additional workload that entailed. The Q/A team complained the developers showed them no respect and the Product Managers continued to give the developers poor stories for the sprints; all common complaints for a VP development of a small Agile/SaaS company. Continue reading 'Don’t tell me there is a problem, tell me there is a solution'»

Comments (0)

By Rita Ashley, May 10, 2010 2:44 pm

The intangibles will get you every time.

Since it is my job to give advice to people regarding career development and job search I dabble in a bit of anecdotal research to find answers. My style is to get the information right from the horse’s mouth: in this case, the executives who promote their direct reports (managers) to executive positions. Here’s what the corner office says about how to get promoted from manager to executive.

The first queries I sent out resulted in exactly the list of guidelines one would expect:

• Volunteer for more responsibilities
• Do what you can to stay visible
• Learn all you can
• Cooperate with other departments
• Deliver on your groups’ charter
• Stay up to date on the market and your area of expertise
• Maintain your brand

Continue reading 'What can you do to get promoted from manager to executive?'»

Comments (0)

By Rita Ashley, May 4, 2010 1:34 pm

Is there a tug of war to get your team to do what you need done?

When was the last time you had a new idea and spent most of your time ‘selling’ it to your direct reports? Or worse, monitoring to insure they do what they committed to doing?

How do you spend your time? Do you feel you spend 80% of your time with personnel issues instead of getting product out the door or landing that big sale? And how is turnover? A bit high? We know how expensive that is.

Frequent complaints professional employees make and in fact, reasons they change jobs are:

1. I don’t feel appreciated
2. My ideas are not acknowledged,
3. I have no say in what I do.

First step. Abandon the idea you are responsible for the solution to every challenge. Let the team be the hero. Sure, you get the final vote, but if you are committed to a quality outcome, let your team participate in the decisions. When it’s their own, they have vested interest in a successful outcome.

Second Step. Approach all challenges from the standpoint of solutions, not problems. Teach your team a new vocabulary. Use this approach as you instruct them. Get the direct reports on board with reminders that stating the obvious isn’t a conversation starter. Have them tell you a solution, even if it isn’t a viable one; it starts the conversation and it changes the content from negative to positive: Here’s the situation and here’s what I propose to fix it. Continue reading 'Get what you want from your team the easy way for lowered stress, reduced turnover'»