http://directyourcareer.com/blog from MEA Strategic Solutions, LLC Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:48:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/good-better-best.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/good-better-best.html#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:19:51 +0000 Mike http://justmike70.wordpress.com/?p=23 I have been in business for a little while now. As I gained more responsibility and rose higher on the org chart, I found that not only did I get better looking, smarter, funnier, and ever taller, but I also found that people needed my permission, or at least my opinion to get things done. Money, Money, Money Many times during my illustrious career, my staff would be bring me proposals that required me to spend the company’s money to get something done. I take spending the company’s money very seriously. I learned that from a boss that once said in response to the comment “c’mon boss, it’s only a $1000″, to which he replied “Really? If you think $1000 is not a lot of money, then write me a check.”  Anyway, I got the message that every dollar spent was a dollar of profit that some poor sales guy had to make up in sales. Actually, for every 10 cents of profit you want to spend, your sales people have to generate $1 of sales, if your margins are 10%. So, driving the example up a little further, to spend $1000 of company money, your sales guys need to [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/good-better-best.html/feed 3 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/will-ya-wait-til-i-put-down-my-coat.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/will-ya-wait-til-i-put-down-my-coat.html#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:11:21 +0000 Mike Anderson http://directyourcareer.com/blog/?p=1215 Have you have ever been pounced upon by a boss or co-worker who meets you at the door before you’ve gotten to your cube with a caffeine fueled request? 7:45 a.m. Walking to your cube “Hey Mike – can you get me a copy of the year end sale report for socks as soon as possible?  I need it for a meeting at 9?  Huh?  Will ya?  Will ya?  Will ya?  MIKE!!!!” Ok, I may be exaggerating a little bit, but the premise is true.  You arrive in the office, a little early even only to be met by Gerry who has been there since 5:30 a.m.  Gerry always arrives at 5:30.  He is a former Marine and just can’t help himself.  Somehow he seems to have this natural radar, because he seems to know when you are walking down the hall, and you have been ambushed by him before.  You have even gone so far as to try a different path to your cube, and walked quietly, but to no avail – Gerry knows. Or how about this one?  You yourself have been in the office since 6 a.m.  It is 4:50 and you are tired and getting ready [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/will-ya-wait-til-i-put-down-my-coat.html/feed 0 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/it-is-hard-but-why-is-retail-it-so-much-harder.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/it-is-hard-but-why-is-retail-it-so-much-harder.html#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:58:51 +0000 Mike Anderson http://directyourcareer.com/blog/?p=2386 I have been in IT for my entire career, and I love it.  Right out of college, after studying computer science at Indiana University, I got my first programming job in a hospital, and I loved that job.  I loved writing programs and watching my users’ faces light up when I made their lives just a little easier.  I loved a clean compile after days of cleaning up bugs and syntax issues.  Yes, I love IT. Throughout my IT career, I worked in several different industries.  I worked in healthcare, insurance, distribution, manufacturing, and retail.  Mostly, retail.  I held many different technical positions during my time, ranging from the help desk to programmer, and eventually to the top position, called the Chief Information Officer (read that while letting the words echo ceremoniously in your head).  The CIO is the big cheese. Each industry in which I have worked, has its own challenges, and its own rewards.   In healthcare for example, it seemed we had endless access to great doctors, nurses, and technicians.  I remember once telling a doctor, while eating lunch in the cafeteria that I had a pain in my neck, and he scheduled me to come by that [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/it-is-hard-but-why-is-retail-it-so-much-harder.html/feed 0 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/do-you-always-live-your-values.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/do-you-always-live-your-values.html#comments Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:03:01 +0000 Mike Anderson http://directyourcareer.com/blog/?p=2315 Do you always live your values?  Now that is a difficult question to answer. What are your values? Wikipedia says that values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action or outcomes. As such, values reflect a person’s sense of right and wrong or what “ought” to be. “Equal rights for all” and “People should be treated with respect and dignity” are representative of values. Values tend to influence attitudes and behavior. For example, if you value equal rights for all and you go to work for an organization that treats its managers much better than it does its workers, you may form the attitude that the company is an unfair place to work; consequently, you may not produce well or may perhaps leave the company. It is likely that if the company had had a more egalitarian policy, your attitude and behaviors would have been more positive. Many people have two sets of books where values are concerned.  One set of books contains the values they live with their family, in front of their spouse, and their children.  They are “God fearing” people who have a clear sense of right and wrong.  They live in a [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/do-you-always-live-your-values.html/feed 1 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/take-charge-and-dont-name-drop.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/take-charge-and-dont-name-drop.html#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:05:00 +0000 Mike Anderson http://directyourcareer.com/blog/?p=81 I have been in business for some time now.  I love business and I love management.  I have had my fair share of challenges, but I have learned something from each one. Some years ago, as a new manager, I had a bad tendency to drop my boss’s name anytime I had to deliver bad news.  I used to say “Ken said we need to work overtime” or “Ken said that we need to improve our quality.”  In my mind, I was not the bad guy, so that would make my staff  love me.  I never had a problem delivering good news, only bad. One day, after a particularly tough meeting, a meeting I probably dropped Ken’s name 15 or 20 times so to avoid being the bad guy, I had a visit to my office shortly after the meeting had ended.  Tena came in, sat down and sheepishly asked if I had a minute.  I had a good relationship with Tena, so her visits were normally pleasant and I invited her in.  I could tell from her body language that this was not a normal visit. YOU are the boss! She began by telling me that she really liked me, and enjoyed working with me, but…  A [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/take-charge-and-dont-name-drop.html/feed 0 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/persistence-dont-leave-before-the-miracle-happens-2.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/persistence-dont-leave-before-the-miracle-happens-2.html#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:51:45 +0000 Mike http://justmike70.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/persistence-dont-leave-before-the-miracle-happens/ I learned the hard way that the primary key to success is not talent. It isn’t brains, looks, or education. It isn’t any of the things that you are taught growing up. No, the key to success at any level is persistence. To succeed, one needs to continually strive to get what they want. And when I say continually strive, I don’t mean work harder, etc., I mean picking yourself up when knocked down and continuing the fight until you get what it is you want and to expect and learn from your failures. Some people call it suit up and show up. When I was a freshman in high school in 1776, I played soccer on the school’s soccer team. I didn’t go out for soccer because of some deep love of the game. No, as an American I played soccer because I knew it would force me to get into excellent physical condition for my first sport love, basketball. Even then I understood my own shortcomings and knew that if I didn’t have someone or something driving me to workout, I would not have been in good enough shape for basketball. Before each practice, our soccer coach made [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/persistence-dont-leave-before-the-miracle-happens-2.html/feed 1 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/different-management-personalities.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/different-management-personalities.html#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:28:40 +0000 Mike Anderson http://directyourcareer.com/blog/?p=806 Are you a good manager? I have been studying and observing business and business people for more than two decades.  During that time, I have seen more than my fair share of personalities that find themselves managing people.   Some are perfectly suited to leading people, creating a business strategy, and artfully executing that strategy.  Others are miserable in their positions. They complain privately about their disdain for managing people and conflict, and have no idea how to create a strategy, and find themselves reacting to every brush fire.  They drive their teams, colleagues, and their own boss batty. I think there are many reason for this, and I have come up with four personality types of leadership that I think demonstrate why some succeed and some fail. The first personality is the winner, the next two are neutral and pass as managers, but the fourth is a disaster. Before explaining that, I want to first to discuss something called the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle The Peter Principle is a book written by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hill that theorizes that every employee will eventually rise to their own level of incompetence.   The point is that any human being, [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/different-management-personalities.html/feed 0 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/no-suprise-management.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/no-suprise-management.html#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:37:55 +0000 Mike http://justmike70.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/no-suprise-management/ I hate surprises from my staff.  You can surprise me on my birthday or at Christmas, but I never want any surprises when it comes to business. One important concept of management that is never taught, and rarely discussed is how badly managers hate surprises. Surprises can come in many forms. A project may be late, an important sale doesn’t materialize, or the budget gets blown. Whatever it is, we hate them. Now, that is not to say we hate bad news in general.  We may not like it, but if you give management enough time to react, then we can manage the bad news. It is a simple concept, but many people are simply not taught it, and therefore don’t teach it to their staff. Let’s say that you are an important member of a team of programmers all working on a major system. The rest of the team is very dependent upon your contribution to be completely successful. You are toiling away in private, but for some reason you just keep slipping farther and farther behind. You begin to realize you are going to be a week late, but choose not to share that information with your supervisor [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/no-suprise-management.html/feed 0 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/in-flight-consultants.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/in-flight-consultants.html#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 11:48:59 +0000 Mike Anderson http://directyourcareer.com/blog/?p=93 I have had far too much experience in my career with people who believe everything that they see and hear is fact, before actually doing any research to find out the truth.   I have had bosses, co-workers, subordinates, and friends who will declare something as fact when the facts are actually in opposition to their point. I will give some examples of someone’s perception being their reality. Some years ago there was a new fad in toys called pogs. It was a game where you would try to flip disk shaped pieces of plastic into a cup. Our CEO at the time came back to the office and said he had a conversation with a 16 year old kid on a flight who told him that pogs were the next big thing.   A 16 year old kid? Our CEO then ordered the toy buyer to go out and corner the market on pogs.  He directed him to buy millions of dollars of  the stupid little game. The buyer argued that we should test the product before buying that many, but the CEO over-ruled him and forced him to move ahead.   Well, I’m sure by now you have guessed the end [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/in-flight-consultants.html/feed 0 http://directyourcareer.com/blog/im-sooooo-busy.html http://directyourcareer.com/blog/im-sooooo-busy.html#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:01:56 +0000 Mike Anderson http://directyourcareer.com/blog/?p=282 “I am sooooo busy! I can’t stand it. I can’t get anything done.” Have you ever said that? I have. Many times in my career I have allowed other people’s deadlines or their lack of planning to affect me. There used to be this little saying some years ago called the 5 P’s. The 5 P’s said “Piss Poor Planning on your Part, does not constitute an emergency on my Part.” We are usually our worst enemies when it comes to productivity and time. We rarely honestly tell the boss how long something will actually take. When they say “I need it today.” We say ok, so they assume that because we didn’t counter that we can’t do it by then. And because you felt that you were not empowered to counter, you felt as if you had to comply with his order.   And then what happens? You stress out, try to work faster, make mistakes, and drop it off just as the boss is leaving. Ugh!!! You don’t have to live that way. You have eight hours each day to work. You cannot mathematically fit 10 hours into 8. If you do work ten hours a day, but everyone [...]]]> http://directyourcareer.com/blog/im-sooooo-busy.html/feed 0