Laura Wolfe Coaching LLC

Supporting the Evolution of Careers, Leaders,

& Climate Consciousness

Scary Managers

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red with angerIt may be Halloween but you don’t have to be a scary manager. You can grab my book Performance Pearls: Information for Improving Workforce Performance FREE for kindle on Amazon.com between 12:01am October 30 and midnight October 31 (PST).

 

Performance Pearls was written for supervisors, managers, and leaders who want to do the right thing but aren’t exactly sure how to be a better performance manager. Plus, the content is designed to be consumed in small bites because few working managers have large chunks of time to read.

 

Underlying it all is the belief that better managers really do make the world a better place: for the employee, for the family, for the company, and for the community.

Would love to hear what you do to be an un-scary manager.

 

Consuming Research

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Seems that academic research is more readily available, in forms more easily consumed. Its theories, models and formulas are also used more often in an attempt to explain and understand both common and uncommon events. What a great thing.

Here’s a list (in no particular order) of sources I consider to be good explainers and occasionally synthesizers of information:

Some of the above have been a target for criticism, especially by critics who question the interpretation, randomness, and dubiousness of the statistics reported and discussed. My response to this – the world is incredibly complex; consume as much available information from as many sources as possible. Be open to how others interpret the situation. Then make your own determination of what is or is not happening.

What got me thinking about research is that I am currently reviewing submissions for the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychologists (SIOP) 2014 annual conference. Four of out the five submissions I have to evaluate are posters.

Poster submissions are full-on, detailed descriptions of research written in academese. Flashback to grad school where I spent seven years reading academic journal articles. I loved the learning but man, am I glad for alternative sources. I do miss the grad school class environment though, where everyone (supposedly) had read the research and it was discussed. Hearing what others thought it all meant was cool.

One big lesson from grad school: Doing good social science research is very difficult. My hat is off to all who do.

Would love to know your go-to sources for cutting edge research.

Being Gotten

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JamesGandolfiniIt’s hard to believe James Gandolfini is gone – especially after seeing Enough Said over the weekend in which he starred along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This movie is about how important it is that someone ‘gets’ you and how rare that is for many. Seems as we age, it’s harder and harder to feel really understood.

Brene Brown might say that’s because we lack the courage to be vulnerable and to be seen. If you aren’t familiar with her amazing work, check out her TED talks or her books.

I think employees want someone to get them as well. And in most cases, it’s the supervisor or manager who needs to do the getting. What does it take for a manager to get an employee?

Listening is a great first step. Really taking the time to see the employee is important too. Understanding why the person is in the job and what they are trying to accomplish is another part. Learning what motivates a worker, what is important to them, and what their career goals are also helps a manager get someone.

It may not be possible to completely get an employee, given the constraints of the work environment. But people know the difference between a company that cares who they are and one that doesn’t.

All of us get that.

Here’s hoping James Gandolfini will be recognized by the Academy for this performance.

You’re how old?

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birthday cakeAre you still caught up in the seemingly never-ending conversation about generational differences? I’m pretty over it myself, because I realize I like working with people of all ages and know pillars and superstars and kind people from each generation. Being a jerk also seems to have no age requirements. Plus, every generation has created some really great music. (Got to have priorities, right?)

However, a recent article on ageisim in the APS Observer reported some very interesting research worthy of sharing. Among other important findings, one thing that caught my attention was research identifying three categories of “prescriptive” stereotypes (i.e., those describing how a group should act) for old people.

  • The first is about envied resource consumption as in “quit, it’s my turn now”.
  • The second refers to shared resource consumption as in “we have limited resources; don’t use them up older folks”.
  • Finally, the last has to do with symbolic identity as in “stop acting like a young person and act your age”.

No surprise that younger people were more likely to endorse these stereotypes than older people but interestingly, men were more likely than women.

Do you ever think these things? Is it appropriate? Is it useful?

Being that the percentage of people over 65 is increasing, the way age and aging is perceived is important to consider. It’s especially relevant in the workplace where age diversity is a factor.

Stereotyping occurs when a person makes judgments about another based on belonging to a particular demographic group. Don’t do that. Get to know people.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the aging population.