In the work I do each day, I coach and consult for the A Players of the world…you know…the superstars who are always going to do well and who are shooting for the moon in everything they touch.

I have found that the majority of A Players are usually quite comfortable working with the boss and top decision makers in the company, yet they are often less comfortable working with the B and C players in the organization (Superstars thrive by spending time with other superstars or people who are ahead of them in rank). If the superstar is going to move ahead in the organization (or career), developing relationships with people who are hierarchically below them will be critical to their success. By giving them the opportunity to teach and mentor B and C players, the superstar can learn the people skills needed to advance.

Most A Players respond quite well to a manager’s offer of bigger, better challenges (challenges that stretch their creativity, project management skills and results). This is an opportunity to impress the top decision makers in the company and to develop skills which can further their career.

While it may be hard to believe, most A Players often live with a lot of insecurities (Winston Churchill is one such example). They have usually lived the life of an over-achiever due to pressures from authority figures, and they go over and beyond to do the best job possible. A manager can help by giving the A Player a job for which she was perfectly designed for, allowing her to succeed and then giving praise publicly for a job well done. The praise does have to be genuine, or the superstar will dismiss it as bogus. It is important to remove platitudes from the praise and focus on her unique skill sets and how that skill set has affected the outcome and the people on the team. Example: “Susan. Your work on the XYZ project was outstanding. I was so impressed at how detailed your project plan was and how you finished the project on time and slightly under budget. You are such a role model for the other team members, and I want to thank you for your hard work.” Superstars love to hear about their results and their hard work.

If you are leading a superstar, I encourage you to take the time today to map out a plan for her development. Get her involved in that plan, and watch as the superstar shoots for the moon!

I was watching yesterday as Pope Benedict XVI was inspiring our country, and I was thinking about how difficult and disciplined a man has to be in order to lead the Catholic Church (all eyes are certainly on you). I came across this blog post today on Harvard Business Review by John Baldone on How a Pope Leads. Check it out…very insightful.

This short article by the title of So You Think You’re a Good Listener by Harvard Business Review may be concise but powerful (amazing how a point can get across with a less is more approach). The article points out that the main reason for poor listening ties directly back to a manager’s receptiveness to hearing bad news, difficult issues or criticism. As a result, employees say that they avoid giving the boss or manager anything but the good stuff.

There are a few other wedges which get in the way of solid listening, including. Look at this list and consider which ones apply to you:

1) You are distracted by noise, overwhelm or a lack of time

2) You are way too busy formulating your response

3) You are biased about the people you listen to and those you don’t

4) You are listening through a veil of “What’s in it for me?”

5) You are interrupting people to get to a quick solutions because time is scarce

6) You are living with your own assumptions about this situation or person

7) You completely miss the point that someone is making, because you know your thoughts are the only ones worth paying attention to

8)And finally…the one from Harvard Business Review…You just don’t want to hear bad news

A great practice is one that my coach gave me over a year ago: Live one day and just listen. Rather than dole out advice or cut people off, simply respond by saying “I understand” or “I hear you”. Don’t interrupt people and try to finish their sentence or give any ideas…just listen. The more you listen, the more you will understand the full context of the message being delivered.

Did I get your attention with the title?

Good. I hope so.

In the book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, author Robert Sutton goes into a concise view of the jerks we have in many of our organizations around the country. He discusses corporate bullying, manipulation and control and gives some great advice on how to stop it. The sad thing is that in reading his book, I know a few people just like this, and I get e-mails occasionally from a few who I would never want to work with. It makes me sweat just thinking about it.

This post is one of the most important you are going to read this week. In light of what happened recently in Florida with a few teen girls beating up another girl (who by the way had been bullied and beat up by these girls for months), I have to take a stand and tell you this “Stop taking orders or working for/with a bully!” If we don’t stop it now, this is going to continue forever, and these corporate bullies are the people who are teaching our teens to go beat the s— out of another teen. I am so fired up about this story…it makes me sick!

Here are the signs that you are probably being bullied at work:

1) You are working day and night, only to be criticized by your boss or manager

2) You are being intentionally left out of meetings or social engagements with co-workers

3) You are hearing gossip about you from your work colleagues

4) You wake up in the morning, nauseated and with a headache, and you call in sick more than you know you should

5) You are doing work for your boss, and he/she is taking credit for your ideas and labor

6) You are noticing that you are being sabotaged at every turn

7) You can cut the tension with a knife

8)Your boss/manager is constantly asking you to work an ungodly schedule

So…if you are someone who is experiencing this, then please, please ask for help. And by all means, get out of the environment. Let’s put an end to this madness now!

Did I get your attention with the title?

Good. I hope so.

In the book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, author Robert Sutton goes into a concise view of the jerks we have in many of our organizations around the country. He discusses corporate bullying, manipulation and control and gives some great advice on how to stop it. The sad thing is that in reading his book, I know a few people just like this, and I get e-mails occasionally from a few who I would never want to work with. It makes me sweat just thinking about it.

This post is one of the most important you are going to read this week. In light of what happened recently in Florida with a few teen girls beating up another girl (who by the way had been bullied and beat up by these girls for months), I have to take a stand and tell you this “Stop taking orders or working for/with a bully!” If we don’t stop it now, this is going to continue forever, and these corporate bullies are the people who are teaching our teens to go beat the s— out of another teen. I am so fired up about this story…it makes me sick!

Here are the signs that you are probably being bullied at work:

1) You are working day and night, only to be criticized by your boss or manager

2) You are being intentionally left out of meetings or social engagements with co-workers

3) You are hearing gossip about you from your work colleagues

4) You wake up in the morning, nauseated and with a headache, and you call in sick more than you know you should

5) You are doing work for your boss, and he/she is taking credit for your ideas and labor

6) You are noticing that you are being sabotaged at every turn

7) You can cut the tension with a knife

8)Your boss/manager is constantly asking you to work an ungodly schedule

So…if you are someone who is experiencing this, then please, please ask for help. And by all means, get out of the environment. Let’s put an end to this madness now!

Which company do you think was recently voted as the most trustworthy company by Forbes.com? One clue: The company was voted as having solid accounting practices, being transparent, following the book in the domain of corporate governance, an absence of negative events and operating with an all-around clean slate.

Find out who the winner is from this video from March 27, 2008

Watch video here

One of my favorite clients told me a rather brilliant story yesterday that is impacting me greatly this morning as I reorganize my thoughts to prepare for a company vision call. Last weekend, she was at Michael Gerber’s “In The Dreaming Room” event in San Diego, a place where she and I met in June of last year. This time she brought her son, an amazing gift unto itself. When they were at dinner one night with another participant in the group, this participant challenged my client to stop making excuses and start living her dream. Her son’s comment was that she had yet to “put the baby down”. The next morning she had an epiphany as to what that meant. As a mother, you hold that baby tight to protect it, but eventually you are forced to put it down, and when you do, only then can it learn to crawl, soon after stand, begin to walk and eventually run on its own. NONE of that can happen until you put the baby down.

What a brilliant analogy for business. Any business. I, of course, think of it in terms of my business. Writers of the Round Table is almost three years old and I am still, in many respects, holding the baby. Waking up to that realization feels immense to me. We have five dedicated employees and more than half a dozen freelancers working together every day with brilliant synergy and creativity exploding left and right. We have built a solid foundation; and yet, I’m still holding the baby. Amazing. It’s time for me to let go. Today, at noon, on our company vision call, I will be putting the baby down. Annette, my client, my visionary, my friend, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Person Michael Gerber’s

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I was thinking yesterday about an exercise that I was given one time to spend one day asking questions only (and not giving advice or any answers). I have to say that it was one of the most challenging activities I have been given. As a leadership consultant, I make a living by asking questions but when asked to live a day by only asking questions and being genuinely curious, this seemed to be a lot harder than I had thought it would be.

After one day of this activity, I realized how much I was missing out on. By not asking questions, I was missing some very important information from my family, friends and colleagues. The dialogue was so much richer and deeper through my curiosity.

In my work with leaders, I cannot help but notice that many don’t ask questions…they give advice and answers. Curiosity seems to be a leadership skill which is often forgotten (or it has never been considered by many to be a leadership skill in the first place), so it has me wondering “Why”?

As you read this blog entry, consider this question “What is it that causes you to want to give answers and advice and not ask questions?” and “How would your life as a leader be different if you invested 75% of your time asking questions and 25% of your time giving answers?” Send me a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Over the last three days I have been reading the galley copy of our book Edge in an effort to give it the final proof before printing, and I have to say that going through the journey of the book again reignited my passion for leadership. Epiphany after epiphany struck me, as I recognized all of the commonalities I had with our leading character, Mitch. What fascinates me most is that I am a different leader now than I was when we initially wrote the book. I have grown and now I face new challenges; so Mitch’s journey is hitting me differently this time through and inspiring me in new ways. I’m more excited than ever about the debriefs that Bea does at the end of each chapter and how they bring the story into context from a leadership perspective. They forced me, as I was reading, to ask myself some serious questions about my approach to leading Writers of the Round Table. Leading can be lonely. Leading can be brutal. Leading can be rewarding like little else. Thank you again Bea and Eva for going on this journey with me. My pride for what we created together overwhelms me. I am excited to watch the journey of this book as others begin to read it and benefit from our unique approach.

I was talking with a young woman yesterday who recently left a company after she was written up for “walking too fast”. She told me this, and I thought I had heard her incorrectly. I said “Can you say that again?” She then said “I just left XYZ Company, and a part of their culture is to walk slowly to reduce stress, and I was reprimanded for walking quickly”.

She then proceeded to tell me that she was hired to do a job for which she was highly skilled and then was actually assigned another job (70% of her day) and that the job she was assigned was one of her biggest weaknesses. She was given high marks on the 30% of her job for which she was highly skilled and low marks on the job that was her weakness (duh?). And, supposedly she told them upfront that this particular skill was not her job and, the company did they tell her that “walking slowly” was a part of the culture (this woman is very fast moving and highly energetic, and any person with a brain could see it a mile away).

Why is it that we continue to do this to people in our companies? I hear this constantly, yet many leaders don’t stop to consider the consequences of blindsiding people on the job. Leaders get employees quickly to fill a position, feed them a bunch of bull during the interview and then blame them when things go wrong! Come on! Stop it!

My question for today is “Are you leading in a blaming organization? Or are you working for one?”

If you are, some of the behaviors might include:

1) Shooting the messenger

2) Squelching employee’s opinions

3) Saying one thing and doing another

4) Passing the buck up or down when you encounter a mistake

5) Closed-mindedness to new ideas

6) Poor training (or you are providing training one time a year in a classroom thinking this will do the job)

I believe that we can change this blaming organization to an organization which thrives on responsibility, respect and support. We can all start by implementing these steps:

1) Deploying talent (putting people on the right job where they can thrive and succeed).

2) Shifting our language “he or she did it” to “I take full responsibility for this incident” (if you are a leader or a manager involved in an accident [notice I don't use the word mistake], then you are ultimately responsible).

3) Listening and appreciating your employees’ opinions by saying “Thank-you for your idea. I will sleep on this.” Then, get back to them on your thoughts around their suggestion.

4) Under-promise and over-deliver. If you tell an employee they are being hired for a certain job, don’t give them another job or make promises you cannot keep.

5) When you get bad news, sit down, take a deep breath and stop talking! Just listen, take it in, step back and calmly thank the person for the news.

6) Start providing on the job training and coaching on a daily basis. The best way to stop the blame game is to train people well on each and every step of the process and then make yourself and them accountable to their success (yes…you are accountable for your followers’ success. If they don’t get it after great ongoing training and coaching, then it’s probably time for them to move on).

We encourage your comments on this subject.