Dear Crucial Skills, Recently our company moved some services “offshore” BUT (proudly) we have been able to retain the jobs of all current employees. Unfortunately, there is one employee who appears extremely negative about this situation and has been sending “negative” e-mails about it. We want this attitude and negativity to stop because it seems …
During this last month I did a couple of things I haven’t done before. I went to comedy club with my friends (a first for me) and I had a colonoscopy (also a first). One was a frightening and painful experience, and the other was the colonoscopy. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not as …
Dear Crucial Skills, I’ve recently promoted a person to be my assistant who is a very capable, gung-ho type. He has plunged himself into his new responsibilities with an inordinate zeal and is now micromanaging folks who are not his direct reports. He has an advisory role with them but no line authority. He also …
In my last article, I suggested that employees frequently defer to their boss’s suggestions even if they disagree with an idea or, worse still, if they think the idea is positively moronic. To show how this insane transformation might happen, let me share a personal experience.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four bestselling books, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, What does a manager do when a job has outgrown the employee? In this age of rapid growth, often the job a person was hired to do is no longer …
Dear Crucial Skills, I have a manager who seems to be missing in action. In all fairness to my manager, my work is independent and in a different location. Nonetheless, his communication is superficial, and he doesn’t act as if he’s genuinely interested in my performance. He’s difficult to find (always in meetings), fails to …
One day while waiting for my car to be repaired, I asked Leo, the repair shop’s head honcho, why his crew members kept coming to him with questions. “It’s simple,” he explained. “They aren’t as good at diagnosing as I am. Never will be. So every time they can’t figure out what to do they ask me, I tell them, and then they do it. The truth is, I know just about everything there is to know about their jobs and they don’t. That’s why I’m the boss and they aren’t.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability, Influencer, and Change Anything. READ MORE Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes It’s Valentine’s Day, 1968 and my mother is holding a heart-shaped box. She abruptly opens the cardboard container to reveal a pathetic looking array of chocolates—one …
Dear Crucial Skills, In my organization, I keep hearing that senior management does not empower middle management and that middle management does not empower the front line workers. How can Crucial Conversations help every level feel more empowered? Signed, Seeking Power Dear Seeking Power, When the empowerment movement became popular in the mid 80s, the …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four bestselling books, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, The director of the agency I work for has decided (after three years) to call us in every month or so to discuss what’s going on in our departments and …
