Scaling Out - Mentoring for Consultants

Exponentially expand your reach by rethinking the work you do.

I will be leveraging my personal & professional experiences, provide some examples and include guest speakers with their take on these topics. By sharing my approaches to management & technical consulting in quick consumable chucks hopefully will make it easy to implement in your own consulting. New podcasts will be available on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Not the TV show! This is for management & technical leadership positions As a manager, I believe that your team is only as good as your weakest team member. Included is a discussion on how to support the weakest team member.

Deliberate communication styles to meet the customer where they are at will win their trust and respect. 

Don't initiate the conversation with a customer by acting as the expert in their field, it only causes issues.

Take a moment to see where the customer is coming from and position them & you for a successful implementation

Listening is more important than talking, especially in the beginning of the project. Seems counter-intuitive but trust me!

Don't pretend to be an expert.

Be true to yourself!

There is nothing wrong with being vulnerable even as a leader. This gives everyone permission to be human, and then to take risk that might result in failure. Ultimately, this enables an innovative work environment!

A unicorn is a mythical beast with basically a narwal tusk for a horn and magical powers. Well there are lots of definitions for the term Unicorn as it applies to humans, so what about in the business world?

Do you have a unicorn on the team? Yeah? Ok, here is what I recommend to keep them engaged, satisfied, and loyal.

As a manager you need to make an effort to keep the unicorn engaged and appreciated. Sometimes this corresponds to cash, cold hard cash.

Well, lets talk about hiring and feelings. What would keep you or one of your managers from hiring the best candidate?

We cannot be Vulcans, so how do we handle our emotions in order to provide value rather than create CLMs (or Career Limiting Moves)?

What if we approached our new employees like authors of the book 'The Art of Possibility' by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander who reminded their music students that everyone had straight As at the beginning of each semester?

Dedicate more time to your new hire, capitalize on their excitement and provide all the information quickly to enable their success.

Maximize your 1-1 time with your manager by focusing not on status reports, but on three areas: Highlight, Request & Escalate.

The last thing you want to be called is a time suck by the boss. Take a few moments to plan out what you want to communicate and then leverage your boss & all they can do to help you achieve your tasks.

Shut up & listen! And never ever ever cancel .... just a quick 2min note on how important this time is with & for your team .

Being equitable is still being fair, consider the individual and your approach when motivating and encouraging each team member.

Be specific and timely, don't wait to discuss the good/bad/ugly of what happened.

My first guest Alison will share a learning experience in personal responsibilities. 

Some thoughts around necessary preparing for, gathering and following up on project requirements plus the inevitable changes after development starts.

As the meeting facilitator, put in the work to make your meeting achieve great things. No more moneys dancing to bad charts.

Have meetings with decision making in mind, dont just spend resources sitting on a call getting status.

We are all being asked to do more with less, here are four quick thoughts on how to continue to improve your productivity.

Included is my take on reading "The World Without Email" by Cal Newport and what additional steps are necessary to focus on what is most important rather than what is supposedly hot.

Its not all luck, there is work involved to get your career moving in the direction of your choosing. Alicia, an HR business partner, joins me in this podcast to chat about what you can do to further your career.

Do what you say you are going to do & own up to any mistakes. And as a manager, ensure there is a culture of accountability rather than fear.

Take time to understand what is important to fight and get feedback from others before you go fight it.

What can you do when you don't have any influence or control over something?

Have the courage to fix that ugly baby, but consider the factors that will make the next one prettier. We aren't talking about hair bows and cute outfits! It all boils down to organizational change management.

Ok, this is about breaking the cycle of bad management, not the TV show. Don't replicate what your bad boss did, be a leader!

Always give thanks, set up steps to continually give thanks, make it a habit.And while I'm at it, THANK YOU for continuing to listen to my podcast!!

Maybe the latest isn't necessarily the greatest or maybe the latest is best option. When do you decide & where do we go from here?

One of my favorite interview questions is to uncover how curious the candidate is. Here is why that's so important.

What if we think about buying & selling with multiple purposes in mind? This helps our environment but there is also a need for this in our software! Buying & selling the flexibility of the product/vendor returns ultimately more value due to the variety of cost impacts it has on the organization.

Going for the long game will help embed your solution into the organization's practices. Here are some quick tips for getting started.

What you read on paper isnt always what the customer wants. Take some time to dive in & understand in order to be successful in your implementations.

Kids can get pretty whiny if we don't set expectations appropriately ... customers can get upset too so setting expectations is very important.

Part of trusting your team includes giving them space because some days are just not as good as others.

The customer is always right. At the end of the day does it matter how they got there?

There will be another crisis with your business or at your customer. Plan for the inevitable. 

When you can, definitely ask 'Why?', but consider how best to ask that to ultimately get the information needed for everyone to be successful. 

There are always opportunities to share feedback up, but there are methods to being successful at it.

Heard the saying "If momma aint happy, no one is happy", same is true at work.

Keeping your boss informed is a must, here are my categories of incoming and how I communicate up.

Your boss is busy, so informing via email is an important way to keep them in the loop. But they are SO busy that reading books isnt gonna happen. 

Billing by the hour seems to be counter to helping others for free. However, there are loads of examples on how lifting others ultimately lifts you.

There will always be complaints, but what if its the messenger? A couple examples on how to handle those squeaky wheels.

Always strive to help employees grow into their next careers, whether that means they work for you or maybe - you work for them later! My Guest, Will Butcher, is joining to share a story about hiring and mentoring the best & brightest.

My guest Salma Ibrahim joined me to discuss how team members can make environments more inclusive. 

Be prepared! Have someone ready to take your place when the opportunity does arise.

Building a community of professionals that genuinely care for one another helps everyone succeed. 

Look at my prior topics like empathy, humility, listening, you see that being a successful consultant requires various approaches to interacting with others.

Early career candidates will not have the technical skills yet, so interview for attitude!

Neurodiversity isnt just a term for those on the Autism Spectrum, it includes those with ADHD, Dyslexia, and other neurological conditions. Guest, Angela Broach, will share her stories and advise on making your management approach more inclusive.

You are doing your team a disservice if you don't, here are just two reasons why.

Who wants to click the same button everyday? Think about scaling out when you are developing & code for the exit ramp.

What does this even mean? My interpretation is don't work to enjoy the life you can afford, work for a balance to enjoy the life you have.

Like a bad movie title, we all have boring work to do. Here are some tips to deal with or even reduce "The Boring" tasks assigned.