You receive a meeting request for August 5th.  Your calendar is open, so you accept the request. You get asked to visit an out-of-state client on August 12th. Your calendar is open, so you say yes. You’re asked to make a presentation in place of a team member who is out of town, on August 14th. You want to be a team player, so you say yes. And soon what was a relatively slow month is booked with meetings, travel, and other commitments. Mid-month you’re tired, over-extended, and resentful. You want to be a good team member and a responsive professional. How do you do both without feeling t ..read more

When people send me an email with five paragraphs, my eyes glaze over. I close the email promising to read it later, but don’t until the sender asks if I received their email. People are busy and have to choose where to invest time. When it comes to communication, often, less is more. The question is, how to be succinct and still be thorough? How do you make sure people know what’s expected without providing so much information that nothing gets read? I’m going to admit, I struggle with this. I wrote a repair person, who worked in my house, a two-page, single spaced list of all the things that ..read more

The word candor is not being used on a regular basis. Some people may not know what it means. And, in my experience, people who are familiar with the word often misinterpret candor to mean bad news. Most people expect bad news to come after the question, “Can I be candid with you?” The definition of candor is, to be honest, truthful and forthright. We at Candid Culture define candor differently. The Candid Culture definition of candor:  Telling people what you need before challenges occur. Anticipating everything that can take a project or relationship off track and talking about potentia ..read more

No one likes to make mistakes. We want to do good work and have people think well of us. The key to maintaining your relationships and reputation, when you make a mistake, is to take responsibility and make things right as soon as possible. Saying something wasn’t your fault or becoming defensive will only damage your reputation and relationships. As counterintuitive as it sounds, you will gain respect and credibility by taking responsibility and correcting problems. I often get asked if people lose credibility by being humble – asking for feedback and admitting to making mistakes. It takes st ..read more

Companies want people who make things happen, and to make things happen, you have to speak up. Anticipating the train wreck and commenting after the train goes off the tracks, doesn’t count. What if you said what you thought, in a way other people could hear you, when you had the right to do so? Meaning, you have the relationship with the other person to tell the truth and you’ve asked permission to be candid? 6 Courageous Steps to Advance Your Career: Look for opportunities to make things better. Ask for permission to take the ball and run with it. Build relationships with other people who ..read more

You interviewed for a job four weeks ago but haven’t heard back from the recruiter. You asked a coworker to have lunch, no reply. You asked a team member for a document, but after three emails, two texts messages, and a voicemail, still no reply. It’s normal and natural to go to a dark place when we don’t get the response we’re expecting. We wonder, “Maybe they don’t like me? Perhaps they don’t want me involved in the project? Did I step on their toes? Maybe I asked in the wrong way?” Wondering why we haven’t heard from people and inventing reasons for the lack of communication is normal and n ..read more

Yoga, wellness programs, and mindfulness will not prevent or eliminate burnout. Burnout is an organizational issue. If you want to prevent and eliminate burnout, focus on your organization, not individuals. Burnout comes from a lack of role clarity and employees feeling like they can’t be successful at work, either because they consistently have more work than can be done in a regular work week or because they work for a manager who is a perfectionist, and nothing is ever good enough. Employees who constantly feel pressured at work or feel like they’re failing, regardless of the amount or ..read more

Most training programs about giving feedback focus on negative feedback, because giving negative feedback is hard and makes us uncomfortable. But most people aren’t any better at giving positive feedback. Most of the positive feedback people get at work really isn’t feedback at all. It’s vague, fluffy, and unhelpful. Aka, Cap’n Crunch – sweet but useless. “Great job.” “You’re awesome.” “You’re great to work with.” None of this qualifies as real feedback. The purpose of positive feedback is to make people feel valued and appreciated and to get them to replicate a behavior. Telling someone, “gre ..read more

Many years ago, before starting Candid Culture, during my annual performance review, my manager said, “You had a great year. You rolled out 18 new training programs and got more participation in those programs than we’ve ever seen in the past. But you’re all substance and no sizzle. You’re not good at sharing the work you’re doing, and as a result my boss doesn’t know enough about what you’re doing  to support a significant salary increase for you, so I can’t even suggest one.” That happened to me ONCE, and I swore it would never happen again. Too many people believe that if they do good ..read more

There are three reasons people say “that’s above or below my paygrade” or “that’s not my job” – they don’t feel empowered to make decisions, they think they’re being unfairly compensated for the challenges at hand, or they aren’t particularly motivated. “That’s not my job” (aka, I don’t do things that are outside of my job description) is a mindset, and if someone has it, I’d suggest not hiring that person. People who think they should only have to do what’s on their job description aren’t utility players, and your organization is likely too lean to afford employees who only want to perform in ..read more