Love Languages
Years ago, my parents told me about the five love languages:
Gifts
Quality time
Physical touch
Words of affirmation
Acts of service
The languages, I learned, could be applied to any type of relationship (familial, friend, romantic, work, etc.). The premise is that you should figure out your love language–the way that you feel most loved–so you can clearly communicate it [...]
Change for the Sake of Change
This past fall, I moved out of my condo for a few months. I gave about a fourth of what I own to Goodwill after I packed all the stuff I really wanted. Then I moved back into my condo two months later, still feeling like I owned too much “stuff,” but lighter and less [...]
Management Tactic #21: Random Promotions
I was reading through the New York Times “Year in Ideas” online the other day, and I stumbled across a fascinating article about the most effective way to promote employees within a large company.
The article references something called the “Peter Principle,” named after Canadian psychologist Lawrence J. Peter (or is it Peter J. Lawrence? No [...]
My First (and Only) Music Video
I posted a few weeks ago about a music video that the interns at my work filmed with all of us. They based the video nearly shot for shot off an exaggerated video of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s song September. Check out that video here so you can truly appreciate how precise the interns were [...]
Management Tactic #27: Earth, Wind, and Fire
In Japan, every morning millions of workers do something called rajio taiso before they start working. Rajio taiso is basically a series of stretches and movements to get your blood flowing and your muscles–including your mind–limber. It’s also 15 minutes of togetherness for hundreds of employees doing what is essentially a series of funny movements [...]
Management Tactic #19: Always Accept the Cake
Have you ever been at a birthday party at work and one person makes a fuss about not eating the cake?
I’ve seen this several times in my illustrious career. Someone goes out of their way to make or buy a cake for a birthday, everyone’s really happy about it, and yet one person “isn’t in the [...]
Management Tactic #23: Too Good to Be True
The year was 2002. I had returned from my junior year abroad in Japan having resisted buying any tiny, fancy Japanese laptops that wouldn’t have worked at all in America. I needed a laptop, though, because I wanted to take typewritten notes in class. (Which, by the way, I never did. How many people actually [...]
Management Tactic #6: Say Your Phone Number Like You Just Learned It
I get a lot of voicemails on my office phone. I’m up from my desk a lot, and it seems there is a 100% chance that people will call me when I’m in the bathroom (which is in my office, so I can hear the phone ring).
When I listen to voicemails, I always have a [...]
Management Tactic #34: Dress Up When You Go Up
People treat you differently depending on what you wear. Try going to a job interview dressed in slacks and a blazer, and then try the same thing in a nice suit. An interviewer knows that you’re taking him seriously when you dress in the suit, and he’ll take you seriously in return.
I consider airline travel [...]
Treat Your Customers Like Potential Girlfriends
Last Monday I sent a project proposal for TypeTribe web development to a company called Intridea. 6 days later, and I still haven’t heard anything from them. Not a word. Not even a confirmation of receipt. In this economy.
This absolutely, positively bewilders me. Most business spend a significant portion of their operating budgets trying to [...]
The Fourth Secret to Extreme Happiness
This week I’m exploring the secrets to extreme happiness based off a list of the happiest, most gratifying, most joyous, most awestruck experiences of my life. You can read more about the premise here, the first entry in the series here, the second entry here, and the third entry here. Today’s entry concludes the series.
The last entry of the [...]
The Second Secret to Extreme Happiness
This week I’m exploring the secrets to extreme happiness based off a list of the happiest, most gratifying, most joyous, most awestruck experiences of my life. You can read more about the premise here and the first entry in the series here.
The second category I’m going to talk about is where these experiences happen. There [...]
The First Secret to Extreme Happiness
This week I’m exploring the secrets to extreme happiness based off a list of the happiest, most gratifying, most joyous, most awestruck experiences of my life. You can read more about the premise here.
The first category I’m going to delve into is when these experiences of extreme happiness happened. There are a few that happen [...]
The Secret to Extreme Happiness
Recently I wrote about the idea of spending 15 minutes a day doing something creative that has no chance of being profitable (see here). Since I wrote about that, I’ve seen two things online that gave me an idea for such an activity. One of the blog entries was about one man’s “wow” experiences–moments that [...]
TED
Does anyone else watch TED talks? I’ve determined they’re the perfect form of entertainment during lunch when no one else is in the office. I feel smarter after watching them.
TED is an organization that hosts conferences based on the premise that there are brilliant people out there with “ideas worth spreading” (no, I have yet [...]
The Egg Drop
On Tuesday, I gathered my staff together and gave them the following challenge:
I asked them to drop an egg from the third floor onto concrete and prevent it from breaking.
The guidelines were simple: The egg had to be dropped by me, an impartial party, and it had to land on the concrete. The only tools [...]
Management Tactic #7: Gratitude
There’s a simple rule that I’ve learned from my amazing development director. It’s a helpful tip for anyone in any job or any walk of life. If you ever find yourself wondering, “Should I thank them for that?”, just consult your memory for this piece of advice:
It never hurts to thank someone.
Simple as that. It [...]
Management Tactic #26: The Carrot Effect
The secret to being a successful corporate blogger is dangling something that your readers secretly desire right in front of them.
I call this the Carrot Effect.
Think about this from a reader’s perspective. To the average reader, blogs are something to read while you’re bored. Some are insightful, some funny, some inciteful (wordplay!), but in the [...]
Management Tactic #12: Run Your Meetings Like a Narcissist
I tried something a little different at today’s staff meeting that I’d recommend for some–but not all–meetings. I think it probably works best for meetings when you’re looking back over a set amount of time–a month, a quarter, or, in our case, a semester.
Before the meeting, I asked everyone to come prepared to share one [...]
Management Tactic #18: Pay Your Employees to Quit
The first time I read about this tactic, I was awstruck by the audacity of it. There’s a company out there (maybe more than one–I only read about the one) that pays employees to quit after one month on the job.
Picture this scenario: You get hired at a company. You go through training for a [...]
Management Tactic #52: Lunch
I’ll keep this short and simple: If you’re going out for a business lunch, decide what you’re going to eat before you get there.
Go online to get the menu if necessary. The last thing you want during a lunch when you need to be “on” is to spend 5 minutes poring over the menu while [...]
Management Tactic #17: Compliments
I have a simple lesson to teach on today’s blog: How to accept a compliment.
It’s rather simple. If someone gives you a compliment–at work, at home, on the field, wherever, whenever–all you have to say is this:
“Thank you.”
That’s it. Don’t deflect the compliment, don’t immediately compliment the other person, and for goodness sakes, don’t disagree. [...]
Management Tactic #31: The Camel Rule
There is such thing as a stupid question. My advice would be not to ask it.
I work in a Catholic church. In Catholic churches this time of year, we have something called a Passion play. It’s basically the story of what we believe happened to Jesus Christ on His last few days on earth (the [...]
Management Tactic #24: Pranks
April Fool’s Day 2009 is officially over. It just happened to be poker night, so I asked the other guys if they had pranks pulled on them at work or if they pulled pranks themselves. The answer was universally “no”, and they all seemed a little disappointed.
In 2008, it was the first year at a [...]