Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

Everyone makes fun of the soft stuff.  Personality assessments.  Psychological profiles. Team building exercises. Ropes courses. Trust falls.  Etc...  But maybe making fun is really nervous laughter because it's the soft stuff that causes self-reflection.  Everybody wants to provide criticism and advice. Nobody wants to receive it.  Guess what?  How people perceive you is reality. How legendary you may think you are is not reality.  Therefore take the soft stuff seriously.  You may actually improve yourself. 

It is common in the management consulting industry to conduct 'assessments' for organizations.  This is usually done for free or as an investment. Inevitably the consulting firm will find "opportunities" for improvement. Hell. As a bonus you'll probably get a roadmap of projects to address those opportunities.  Opportunities turn into SOWs thus turning into billable work.  It's kind of like going to the doctor knowing that he or she will always find something wrong that will end up causing you to spend more money.  The problem with assessments is that not only are they are used as a 'wedge' to get into a client's business, they are used for consultants to understand the client's business.  Every trip to a new doctor requires him to baseline your health.  That visit should always be free.  But unlike doctors whose responsibilities are to make recommendations to keep you alive and healthy, there are some consultants that are like d...

Everyone wants to be part of the in crowd.  In small companies, the in crowd is synonymous with leadership. In professional services firms, this could be synonymous with a Partnership. In listening to a recent HBR Webinar  on office politics, the advice given was to become politically savvy and do what it takes to become part of the in crowd.    Hard work no longer gets you noticed and promoted.  What you need to determine is how much of your soul you are willing to give up to become part of the in crowd. At what point does it become selling out?  Let's say that you don't want to sell out.  The next piece of advice is to create your own in crowd - you just don't want to be in a crowd of one.  When finding or creating an in crowd, you should not have to lose too much of yourself. Find like minded individuals that align with your set of values.  Life becomes so much easier. 

When you are doing something that you truly care about and are passionate about, title shouldn't matter.  Partner, President, EVP, CEO, Ironman  - these invoke a desired perception in others.  It's the perception of power, prestige, and wealth. As Diddy would say, "It's chasing the paper and not the dream."   Take a look at the people around you that are making a difference.  Do you remember their titles or do you remember their names? I'm not going to discount the fact that behind the names, these people are usually a founder or builder of some thing . But maybe that's part of my point. My point is to get people to remember your name. Title only matters when you want to become the head zookeeper. 

When you join a professional services firm, the first thing you should ask is, " How do you do things around here?"  I'm not talking about the administrative tasks like putting in time and expenses, getting your security badge, understanding which internal sites are important to go to on a consistent basis, or any of those other routine activities that you'll eventually figure out with experience.  What I am talking about is:  Delivering quality service and deliverables Delivering customer satisfaction Building client relationships Collaborating with your peers  Growing your personal brand  Growing the firm's brand If your onboarding experience is dominated by finding the bathroom instructions as opposed to living the values of the firm, then you've made a big mistake if you are looking for that organization to add value to you. Once you've realized that you've made a mistake, immediately search for people that have made t...

When calendar invites come out with no purpose or agenda they can induce what I call the Sphincter Effect.  Figuratively what happens is that your anxiety level rises and that aforementioned part of your body tightens up.  You begin to speculate what that meeting is about. You begin to send out emails  to understand what is going on.  Depending on your personality, the thought of what may  happen could consume you.  The Sphincter Effect is not instantaneous- it builds over time as a result of experience.  It requires a few experiences with the same people in the room before the effect starts to take place.  The good news is that there are ways to manage the effect so that your sphincter doesn't stay tight too long.  Decline the meeting. The only problem with this is that you've only delayed the inevitable. The effect will come back stronger the next time a situation calls for it. Change your perspective. There a...

In the project management and change management world, there is a tool commonly used called a stakeholder analysis. It's should be used to identify people that could torpedo your project.  If only that was the case.  Many people use a stakeholder analysis to identify everyone that needs to be informed on the project's status.  I remember sitting in a meeting reviewing a stakeholder analysis and it might as well have been a dump from the HR system listing the entire corporate hierarchy all the way down to the summer intern.  The goal of any manager is to reduce the amount of noise in the system (increase the signal-to-noise ratio). This ultimately means streamlining communication. It kills me when an email goes out with hundreds of people in the To: and even more in the Cc... You are essentially asking for unnecessary noise which leads to decreased productivity.  It kills me when the answer to solving a problem is to insert even more managem...