Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching

Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch

Today I am reprinting Sunday’s Say “Alaka‘i” blog post in total here, for some variation of this conversation is coming up quite a bit currently. While it is directed toward job-hunting for managers who now find themselves out of work, it may apply most of all to those who still have their jobs, but are feeling nervous, seeing “the writing on the wall” and wondering when your number may be up too.

This economic recession we are in, sends out this message: No job is safe. To keep it, you have to deliver just one kind of result, and that’s financing your own paycheck with profits. At the very least, every manager should be educating themselves thoroughly about the state of their company’s financial health: Are they on as solid a footing as you think they are? Many companies are surprising us right now.

Here is a snippet of another article at The Honolulu Advertiser today: 2008 saw end to many big brands:

NEW YORK — Shoppers won't be picking up ornate lamps from the Bombay Co. in the coming year. Or investing with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. No flying to Hawai'i on Aloha Airlines or buying ultra-cheap tickets on Skybus, either.

All those names vanished in the past year, victims of the economy, the financial meltdown or other factors. Experts say 2009 could mark the end of even more well-known brands as the now yearlong recession puts more struggling companies on life support.

"I think 2009 is going to be a bloodbath," said Scott Testa, a marketing professor at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. "I think it's going to be very, very ugly."

Here’s today’s Say “Alaka‘i” article: Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch. My intention is NOT to bring you down this morning, but to help you see what you CAN do, and should be.
~ Rosa

---

Preface: Welcome to Sunday Koa Kākou. Sunday is the day I answer questions you send to me. If you have a question connected to management and leadership, leave a comment here, or email me. 

From the Say “Alaka‘i” mailbox:

I was laid off recently, and while it was upsetting, I can’t say I was surprised, for it was obvious that the company couldn’t afford to keep me and the others who were let go (all of us managers). I’ve been looking for another job for about three months now and it’s been tough: I’ve just found an hourly position that will help me get most of my bills paid, but I want to get back into management and I’m going to keep looking. Any advice? The rejection has been grueling.

That sage advice of fulfill the biggest need is still the best advice I can give you.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone with the ability to hire you and keep paying you: What are they looking for, and why should they hire you, unless they are sure you’ll deliver what they need?

Fulfill the Biggest Need

There are two things business owners are focused on right now, and they go together:

a) Boosting cash flow quickly
b) Making customers deliriously happy

Said another way, cash is King and a paying customer’s loyalty is Queen.

To be blunt, these two things were not the priority for most managers before our current economic recession. Most managers were focused on making everyone else happy (employees, peers, the boss, vendors, suppliers and other partnerships). They were preoccupied with organizational systems and processes, most of which need to be reinvented right now, not maintained. Why should any business owner maintain something that isn’t working?

Business is, and has always been, about money and about the value add for a customer that results in market share (i.e. brand penetration). Those are not bad things, however this recession has made that truism blatantly real and completely unavoidable for every single person in a company – you can’t departmentalize them anymore as the responsibility of the sales and marketing people, or those in customer service who “directly touch the customer.”

Job-hunting is a waste of your time and your brainpower

If a management or leadership role is what you are looking for, there really is no such thing as ‘job hunting’ now... it’s like trying to go fishing in a desert. If you want someone to hire you, (or recast or promote you) when almost no one is hiring, you have to be a) more creative and b) much more proactive. You cannot apply for, and realistically hope to fill jobs that are old news and simply not there: You have to be the one who creates a new role, a highly necessary and desirable one, and then pitches it to the employer in the best position to hire you, and give you the opportunity to test your creation and earn your keep.

Go back and read that last sentence again: You have to author a job description for yourself. It must be one that showcases your best talents with cash generation and customer satisfaction in a company. You must propose it to a prospective employer BEFORE they hire you and pay you a dime. It’s the new resume you take to an interview.

And keep this in mind: They probably aren’t even scheduling any interviews. You have to call for an appointment when you’ve scoped out and chosen the company you want to work for, by saying something like this,

“I have a proposal I’d like to discuss with you. My proposal has two deliverables: Increased cash flow, and happy customers. I am a big fan of your product and services, and I have been one of your customers: I’m very interested in helping you succeed. Do you have some time this week to meet with me?”

The only one actually ‘interviewing’ is you

What I am suggesting you do takes work on your part, but it is creative work that will burst open far better possibilities for you. So make the entire process worth your time and effort. Do your homework on a company's values, mission and vision. Interview the company which deserves to hear your proposal. Think of them as your best-case scenario buyer of your idea, and a purchaser of you as a package deal of ready-to-hit-the-ground-running talent, skills, and knowledge.

Every savvy business owner knows that there is one thing better than buying a patent: Hiring the inventor.

Good luck to you! Pull this off, and you’ll discover there’s another huge bonus: From here on in, you’ll be working on management the way it should be done in the first place.

A bit of related reading: If you missed it, I wrote about the best role for managers in another Sunday Koa Kākou response just two weeks ago: Staying Positive in a Negative Workplace.

Go to the sub-heading within that article titled “How will you know if your managers are up to the challenge?”

Keep in mind that this describes the role someone with a calling for management eventually wants to be filling, however in today’s recession, you must work on the ‘King and Queen’ we talked about above first.

Talking Story: Changes versus Constants

Tuesday Coaching is up on MWAC today, and we're looking at both change and our constants using this Nānā i ke kumu framework:

Let’s look at “both source and capacity to learn” in another way, as constants (source) and as change (capacity to learn). At any given time, and with any given effort, we are working on one or the other: Either we are

• Working to maintain our healthy constants, or

• Working to effect a change we desire.

Further, it is in effecting a desired change that we experience our most elevated experiences with learning.

People will write me after they have read my book, and ask for exercises for the small business or for the single team in a larger organization, saying, "We don't have access to the resources the big guys have." You don't need them! This is precisely the reason I blog here in the first place, to offer you possibilities for discussions ("talk stories" as I call them) that can turn into exercises and mini-studies you can personally apply to your own situation and within your own context.

Changes versus Constants is a beauty.

As I have written at MWAC (and again above) we are working on maintaining a constant or effecting a change within every effort we make - sometimes we work on both simultaneously.

To transfer this lesson plan to your team, just set up a flipchart or whiteboard with two columns:

1. Write "our Constants" atop one, and "Desired Change" atop the other and get a brainstorm and discussion going.
2. End it with a specific action plan for one of the efforts you talk about.
3. End the talking about it (say mahalo!) and get out and do it!
4. When your team has finished tackling it, bring the flipchart out again in another huddle and just ask everyone: "Do we have anything current to add to this, or shall we just move forward with picking our next issue from this list as it stands?"
5. Repeat the process.

You can use the full coaching on MWAC to help you as the facilitator (by "full" I just mean today's Tuesday Essay -- don't get overwhelmed!) or you can print it out and distribute it to your whole team -- read it together, then start with number 1 above.

Here is a snippet of the Change section on MWAC today:

Are you okay with Change? Are there certain proverbs or quotes which became aha! moments for you when you first heard them? This was one of mine: “People do not resist change; people resist being changed.” —organizational change pioneer Richard Beckhard That made so much sense to me! It made sense both in my own experience with when I vigorously resisted change and when I embraced it. It made total sense when I thought about those successes and failures I’ve had in trying to champion changes that others resisted accepting no matter how good I thought the change sounded, for aha! it just didn’t sound that great to them. Said simpler, it wasn’t their idea, and they thought it was a lousy idea.

These are the sub-headings of the MWAC Essay today, How Nānā i ke kumu Helps You Embrace Change and Growth:

• Are you okay with Change?
• The worst possible Change? To your Constants.
• Choosing Embraceable Change.
• You Choose, or I’ll Choose!
• Choose to Learn.

If you turn any of them into a Talk Story within your workplace, come back and share your experience with us!

Shedding the Blinders of Age and Wisdom

… and finding my-worth marketing gurus.

I eased into the weekend with some online reading with a definite intention: I wanted to get to know a few people better who I’d impulsively (or you could say instinctively) had begun to follow on Twitter. I even said so on Friday with as much intention as I could tweet in those 140 characters:

Aloha Pō‘alima: Aloha Friday Twitter plan ~ Click on your links, read some good stuff, comment in those places, cut back my own noise here.

My instincts were pretty good; I got reacquainted with a few people, and was somewhat startled by how much they had accomplished or changed since I last visited their web pages, for new looks have popped up everywhere, and initiative is flourishing. As just one example, I love what Mark Goren is now doing with his Planting Seeds. (I wrote about Mark 15 months ago on Joyful Jubilant Learning and will need to update my links there!)

In several instances, I was very startled (though I am not sure why I should have been surprised at all) by the bravado and almost-audacity of youth.

Wisdom unfolds before my eyes in a remarkable way on Twitter. First there is this spark of brilliance. Then another tweet reveals that it wasn’t just a spark; there is a warm ember glowing there. The tweets someone shares get hotter and hotter, and as they do, I suspect I need to know this person better, and as I did over the past two days, I begin to explore and probe, from Twitter bio link to blog, to About Page, to a Hire Me statement of some kind, until I find their intentions —and more often than not, their Storefront.

What has been startling me is how young so many of my Twitter Sages are revealed to me as. Not in their content, just in their pictures. Twenty-somethings. Thirty-somethings.

What is so delightfully refreshing is that these “brash youngsters” are not allowing their age to hold them back. They know what they already have to offer the world, and so they are. Not only that: They are capitalizing on their in-born talents magnificently.

Within my own not-so-random sampling, there is not a single “internet marketer” in the bunch. If you have that statement in your bio I’m sorry, but it really rubs me the wrong way; in my consciousness, “internet marketers” have become the sharky car salesmen of the online world (with apologies to ethical car salesmen and women everywhere).

Those who have impressed me over the past two days of my focused web-reading, are all what I’d call ‘my-worth marketers’.

They know their Ho‘ohana, or at the very least they are dabbling in experimenting their way toward revealing it, and now they are busy at this new expression of the business of life. They are busy within their very intentional work, and they are contributing to our world as they do so.

Their About Pages and their Hire Me pages may be somewhat shallow in testimony to what they have already done, but my goodness they are goldmines in what they confidently offer about what they now DO. Age is irrelevant, but wisdom is highly relevant, and it is present.

My generation (and yes, I wish I didn’t have to write it that way, but it’s an accuracy, a point of reference) was way too hung up on paying our dues and logging our past experiences, when in fact, past experience is no guaranteed predicator of what will happen in the future. We lost so much valuable time, and we took too many hits to our self-esteem.

In comparison, I am really loving what I am seeing emerge right now. I am enjoying learning from the wise young.

Thank goodness our kids are not following our example.

Some kind of squash I think…
I love the way that vegetable vines like this grow with such eager exhuberance. They reach out, latch on to something, with no hesitation, no doubt that they belong wherever they end up.

Postscript:
Karen Wallace has stimulated a thoughtful discussion at Joyful Jubilant Learning this morning with a posting called Expecting Perfection. Another way of saying this might be that I don’t expect perfection from others, not at all. I do expect initiative, and I do expect people to manifest the strengths they have to offer, and that’s what I’m cheered by this morning, that the generation of my son (21) and my daughter (24) is delivering those things already.

Financial Literacy Has Never Been More Timely

Have a meeting coming up and need to fill a hole in the agenda?

Bored with the normal fluff around the water cooler or when escaping to the coffee place down the street?

Thinking about turning the television off tonight in favor of some meaty discussions around the dinner table?

Bring up financial literacy in all its timely, hitting-your-pocket relevance. From Wall Street to fuel prices, from tax relief plans by presidential candidates to your 401k risk assessment, and in thinking about how many readily available greenbacks to have in your mattress over the coming winter, broaching the subject is easy.

I’m hoping you’re talking about it and not just watching from the sidelines, because if there is one bright side to the mess of our U.S. economy right now it is this: There is a ton of learning to be had. To not take advantage of this grand classroom now called Life in the U.S.A. wherever you may live and be in business is a lost opportunity.

Just read this, following an Anderson Cooper tweet-feed in Twitter:

Commentary: Blame boards of directors for financial mess

‘Blame’ is one of those words which grates on me, and in fact, I responded on Twitter,

@andersoncooper "blame" such a futile word. Perhaps "learn from" or even, "seek to be better than" those who have erred so dangerously.

However I largely agree with these assertions by author Nell Minnow:

“Failure this broad and deep takes a village, and regulators, lawyers, compensation consultants, auditors, executives, shareholders, and the press all played a part. But the people who are most responsible for the massive meltdowns of these institutions are the boards of directors.”

“Their sole responsibility is to act as fiduciaries for the shareholders in managing risk. They not only failed to perform this task but indeed, in their approval of outrageous pay plans with perverse incentives, they all but guaranteed the current disaster.”

“I am a capitalist. I love it when executives earn boatloads of money. But it infuriates me when they get it without earning it.”

Tiananmen on Flickr by ciro@tokyo

Let’s take it further:

Why shouldn’t scores more people be taking some small degree of responsibility with this?

It is my belief that a business model of any kind is healthiest when every single person who is a stakeholder in that business understands how that model works, and thus, when it doesn’t work. A business is healthier when red flags are at the ready in everyone’s pocket, and by the time they make it half-mast there is collaborative responsiveness as people work together to get those green flags up instead. Alternatives and solutions begin to take root everywhere as the seeds of new ideas and evolutionary innovation get sown. Business models —even ones that are working just fine, should not be fixed or stagnant; that’s called mediocrity, and resting on your laurels. Both are unacceptable.

In my career, I had learned the hard way that assuming the “guys in the office” or “people who get paid the big bucks” know what they are doing is a very dangerous assumption (Read more at Blind Faith is not part of Unconditional Aloha in an ‘Ohana in Business). They might, but why shouldn’t you know too, whatever your role in an organization?

Why shouldn’t you be more inquisitive, know how all the work that you and others do is connected, and how ultimately it keeps a business thriving in the most profitably healthy way?

There are far too many organizations where people don’t speak up often enough because they feel they cannot intelligently carry their part of the conversation. I HATE seeing that in play in workplace cultures, and it is my stance that managers are the ones responsible for brokering the conversations constantly. Great managers introduce the meaty topics of financial literacy consistently as practice, and they hand out those red flags the want at the ready in everyone’s pocket.

Business takes a whole village, and a highly conversational one. If you are not now having the conversations conducive to continually ramping up the level of financial literacy in your workplace, for goodness sake, start today.

---

Take 5 with this Related Reading:

1. There’s Mellow Mālama Maintenance in Math (at MWA Coaching)
2. The Role of the Manager in Managing with Aloha: The case for a better way to work. (at MWA Coaching)
3. Book Review: The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive (here on Talking Story)
4. For the BEST 15 minutes in the workday, Huddle. Reinvent the concept of meeting.  (here on Talking Story)
5. Is Forever a good business strategy? (here on Talking Story)

Category page: Financial Literacy index.

Talk story with the Ho‘ohana Community:

1. Reflections on a Sinking Economy by Brad Shorr
2. How to Survive When Your Company's Ship Sinks  by Anita Bruzzese
3. Faith And The Bankrupt Leader by Chris Bailey

Can Talking Story go Short and Deep?

Both for me and for you?

We’re about to find out.

I am starting a 90-day experiment today called “Going Short and Deep.” I have written about it over at Joyful Jubilant Learning: Would you please click there for more? Thanks; that will be the quickest way for us to catch up. Here’s the link.

How about, “What I want conversational good human beings to know”

Okay, this pointer goes under a few categories here: being a coach, better conversations, business strategy, coaching essays, communication, words and language, web/tech, and Let's talk story. And that's without adding in any of the Hawaiian values it covers.

Chris Brogan has a great posting up at his place today that I really like. It's an open letter of sorts: He calls it What I Want PR and Marketing Professionals To Know, and it shares some pretty universal communication messages. I think he could've called it What I want conversational good human beings to know.

He shares his tips in a list of 13, but before I'd even gotten that far I tumbled his opening paragraph:

"Since quite a number of people who swing by my blog are either in marketing or public relations, I wanted to address you specifically for a moment. I’m writing to you as part of this new version of media, one blogger not paid to blog, not working for a newspaper or magazine outlet, not especially beholden to the traditions that have come before. I’m writing to you as a human being who likes people, community, innovation, and business, not to mention art, creativity, play, and many other things. I want to tell you a few things for you to consider."

~ Chris Brogan, What I Want PR and Marketing Professionals To Know

What a great way to start a conversation: Cut to the chase, preview what is to come, and openly, with full vulnerability, lay your motivations on the line.

Photo from Chris’s Flickr account:
Couldn’t resist this one because he titled it “Am I Human.”

Chris got me to

a) stop for a moment and think about my own approach with different conversations,

b) He got me to wonder about the kind of job I do (translation; effectiveness I am having or not having) with the messages that are in my circle of influence to give, and

c) He got me to go back, and read every single line of his post and all 51 comments he got (as of this writing). Pretty easy to separate the excuses and justifications from those willing to understand, be open to change, and learn.

In encouraging us to choose our friends wisely (traditionally a common, and probably a well-advised parental topic) my dad would often tell us kids that whether we agree with the people we listen to is actually not as important as how much they make us think for ourselves. In this case (and often) I agree with what Chris has to say, but I read his blog because he has this frequently deployed skill with making me think.

Is that what your conversational partners (or reading of choice) can do for you?

What do you think of the 13 tips that Chris shares? If you read them as, “What I want conversational good human beings to know” are there any others come to mind for you?

Some other archived connections which come to mind:

1. My parents were a big influence on me (as I just shared with Thadeus earlier). Recently wrote about my dad for JJL: The best boss I ever had, wasn’t mine.
2. This was another time Chris got me thinking out loud: I still refer back to it often ~ Sense of Place on the Internet: A Brand New Community Ecosystem.
3. And about thinking, with this month as a great time to play with makawalu g8ways: Counting Fish, Taro, and Thinking.

“Frankly Rosa, I’m not that interested in business stuff.”

Oh dear.

We were talking story on a phone call this morning. I loved the forthright honesty of the statement, I really did, for it gave us the chance to extend the conversation —to talk story a bit more. My immediate reaction was that I could not help but blurt out, “Gosh, I really wish you were; how can I help you be a bit more interested in it?”

I didn’t intend to convert them professionally, I fully understand and support other career and life choices, but I did want them to personally think about business in a more favorable light.

You see, even if you are not in business, and can’t imagine that you ever will be, I believe you still must recognize just how much the world of business affects you and the life you live, and live daily. (The life you lead is the subject and value study on MWAC this month). Business is a master influencer, and in our present-day society it is a pretty inescapable one.

The influences happen because people in business are ‘movers and shakers’ who ho‘o; they make things happen frequently and intentionally. They take initiative with generating change because to settle for the status quo —the way things are, is akin to accepting mediocrity. Mediocrity in turn, will most certainly trigger the workplace cancers of complacency, apathy, boredom, and eventually the commiseration which wallows in a blame-someone-else entitlement mentality within any organizational culture. Pure yuck. (And then there is the killer mediocrity will certainly be with any business’s competitive advantage in the markets of free enterprise.)

Me, I LOVE the art and science and impactful visionary leadership that is possible within the world of business, so I freely admit to you that I am not completely objective on arguing its relative importance. (My own SLC Strategic Initiatives, i.e. my hoped-for and ho‘o-style influencers, are here.)

Help me out on this, would you? Especially if you can empathize with my caller this morning. Let’s talk story and extend the conversation.

Where would (or perhaps the question is how would) someone uninterested in the world of business find, and willingly step through an entry point to discovering more? I am looking for those entry point options that would entice their eagerness and be fairly quick for them: What do you think? How can I help?

ROI: The old guys were right after all.

Monday morning reality check (or topic for your next huddle):

Productivity isn’t just about how good you feel about getting something done; there’s got to be a return you set out measure.

When you are young and idealistic, the concept of ROI may be the hardest one to deal with. You bemoan wanting to “do the right thing” instead, ignoring the fact that getting a Return on Investment can be doing the right thing too.

In business, it should be.

My own challenge-to-self this week: Since I now know this, am I doing it? What is the investment I am making, both tangible and intangible (do I articulate it well?), and how am I measuring it so that I will know whether or not I am on the right track? Think dollars and cents sense.

Let’s Talk Story: When business is not great, how do you spend your time?

Had a coaching call this morning that was about my client’s need to refocus his business strategies right now; it’s a theme becoming more and more common in the short term given the U.S. economy (and how it specifically affects him/we in Hawai‘i), but when you really think about it, improving upon present business strategies is a timeless, recurring theme —or if not, it should be.

The call was all about him (also as it should be) and as we wrapped up he asked me, “What about you Rosa, what do you do when business is down for you?”

See Lost Business as Newfound Time

...and as new opportunity.

A lot of his specifics don’t apply to me, mostly in the area of employees and other business partners, for I now work solo, or with the assistance of other contractors I have certified in their niche areas of Managing with Aloha expertise. However most of the other things we’d talked about are generally the same, and my answer can be summed up by saying, “I take the half-full approach, and redirect.”

Life is rich. It offers us a wealth of variety.

When business isn’t good (i.e. cash flow is less than abundant) it means I have free time I didn’t have before, and it’s a matter of filling it up with stuff that will replace the lost abundance. The only question is, how good will I be with assessing and then pulling the take-action trigger on the different, and perhaps new options that are in front of me? What will I scoop up, and what will I pass by? What will be a direct route to a jackpot, and what is very likely a cleverly disguised rabbit hole?

My immediate reaction is actually “Oh great!” because of newly opened windows of time: There are on-the-list choices I can now work on and devote that time to, which previously were “2010 if I’m lucky.” Second, financial realities set in (as they do for all self-employed people) and I will look at those checklists I have for myself before getting pulled into a new project. Third, I tend to get a bit productivity obsessive, seeking my defined accomplishment versus getting lost in busy-ness.

Create Your Energy

I personally find that I must resist any and all urges to get lazy; for me that will normally mean getting into project mode, and redirecting my day-to-day efforts away from things that will drain my energies. I get schedule happy, and I design Strong Week Plans for myself, plans which impose deadlines on me —and reward me when I do well. Right now, my rewards are things like photo excursions and luana weekends.

Even when I take a break, playing with something like Flickr (my normal diversion of late), I will get more detail-oriented about it: My latest uploads there on Hāpu‘u pulu ‘i‘i (the Hawaiian Tree Fern) sent me on a research mission for which species are endemic versus indigenous, and to learn more about how the Hawaiians of old used the plant.

Is the Hāpu‘u pulu ‘i‘i going to replace any lost revenues for me? No, but ‘Ike loa and learning about it will boost my energies and not drain them: The detail work will reinforce my other project habits.

Let’s talk story: How about you?

• What are your personal habit strategies for taking the “half-full” approach?
• What do you find you will naturally do when business changes (or other day-to-day pressure levels shift) as your default? How must you redirect?
• How do you keep yourself from slipping into excessive laziness and the doldrums? What are your energy boosters?
• Where do you look when you need to take inventory of new options?
• What types of activities are time sinks and procrastination traps, and which are those which help you be more productive in revenue-producing ways?

I think this is a great discussion for us to have as a Ho‘ohana Community, for we do have more in common than we realize. We can share ideas and help each other.

It’s also a good discussion to have at your next huddle or team meeting; chances are that this is not a time anyone should be on auto-pilot, and talking story about energy drains versus energy creators is always a great one to have.

Somewhat related:
Don’t blame the economy; Show me what you’re made of!

Who’s doing the thinking right now, and what do they have to say?

I have been reading a book manuscript which covers the basics of systems thinking, and the author has done a great job with a pretty dry subject. His book will be extremely useful, for it covers concepts all business organizations need to understand, and I will let you know when he is ready with his publication announcement.

Briefly, systems thinking is the premise that the work of all organizations can be broken down into inter-connected systems of inputs and outputs, and that everything is a system, not just the IT stuff. I first learned systems thinking as The Law of the Harvest, and still remember its core premise best that way: Ye shall reap what ye have sown —and don’t forget to water and fertilize.

Systems thinking can border academic and yawn-inducing for most people in a company, but it’s the stuff that project managers drool over, at least the great ones do. What I will usually concentrate on in my coaching, is giving those project managers some help in getting everyone else excited about their stuff too.

Macintosh User Manual - Chapter 1
by peterme, found on Flickr.

As I’ve read through the manuscript I find I am left with one thought over and over again: Until you get to the point that you automate them, effective systems require heaps of effective communication throughout the process. Then after that, you need even more communication when you trouble-shoot, audit and tweak through time. Even exceptionally outstanding thinking does very little good when it remains locked up in someone’s brain and is not shared with everyone else involved.

I was thrilled that the author got that; do you?

Great managers have this internal radar for people in their organization who are thinkers but not talkers. Those are the people that a great manager will seek to spend more time with, usually finding that once they can get them to talk story the floodgates open. It’s not just those squeaky wheels that should get the grease; all the wheels need some. When someone doesn’t say something, it doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t seen something —and thought of a better way of approaching it.

So what’s keeping them from speaking up?

Well, that’s what great managers and great co-workers aim to find out. If that person is you, you can be the most valuable asset your company has.

Here’s some archive-tripping:

• The 20 Benefits of Peer to Peer Coaching (and the MWA Way of doing it).

• The Best, Yet Most Underutilized Tool for Communication There Is.

• Start a WOW! Project at Work (Learn to Love Projects) and 10 Ways to Run a WOW! Campaign at Work.

• Listening with an Open, Positive Mindset.

• See me when the “ing” stuff is over.