One simple thing I found was just making sure you say a meaningful thank you to those who take the time to train you. Your current teammates already have a busy schedule and now they have been given the task to train the new guy/girl. This might mean longer hours or answering more pings on the chat to help you. My new teammates were more than willing to help me, but acknowledging them for their support and mentorship is important. 

What does this simple thank you cost you, nothing but a few minutes of typing. Some productivity tools actually have praise features built into the productivity software system such as Microsoft Teams with their “Praise” feature. At the end of the week I simply write up a thank you and summarize how that colleague specifically helped me. I specifically say how they helped me because it also helps me summarize what I learned that week and how my colleague made a difference in my professional life. This simple two minute task shows gratitude, humility, and acknowledgement of your colleagues' availability. The more you thank your teammates for their availability the more they will be willing to support you. 

It’s important to go for the easy material first because it gives the client the feeling of movement and accomplishment. There is nothing worse than leaving a meeting feeling like you have nothing done and wasted an hour of your precious time. Granted there will be meetings that deal with more complex issues that take longer to tackle. However, even with those complex meetings start off with the simple items. This way at the end of the meeting you can highlight the items you did accomplish. By highlighting the things you did accomplish this will make the client more willing to return for future meetings.

Don’t underestimate the power of meeting flow, it’s all psychology. No matter who you’re dealing with, people like the feeling of checking items off their list. Give your client that sense of accomplishment in every meeting. Your meeting flow is directly related to your meeting preparation which I will discuss in another post. If you did little prep and you find your meeting stuck in the ditch remember to knock out the items that your client is confident in and are simpler. If they don’t know the answer on a set of items or need follow up information move on from those items and assign them the homework to follow up on those complex issues. Provide great service, send them a reminder email with the homework so they can come prepared to the next meeting. 

A good manager knows how everything works. Your first step to becoming a leader in the workplace is learning how everything works and learning it fast. Jump at any opportunity to learn something new or fill in a role that others don’t want. The best example I can give for this is when I was doing election judging on my sabbatical year. When I showed up on the day of the election I made sure I did every position and then trained newer judges on the position I had just completed. By doing every position that day I learned all the ins and out of each role and was able to competently teach others how to do the job as well. The next election they put me in charge of one of the larger polling sites. A good leader knows how everything works by doing it at least once. Always humble yourself and do the jobs nobody wants as the non-sexy jobs lead to sexy opportunities such as management. 

The other step to becoming a manager fast is to not shy away from difficult situations. When something difficult comes up, volunteer to help solve it. The more you learn how to troubleshoot difficult situations the more competent you will be to lead others through difficult times. It’s easy to be a manager when everything is going right. It’s a lot harder when anything out of the ordinary happens. The more you throw yourself into the fire the more you will be ready to lead others out of it. In my last job I used to have to deal with parents when their child would get in trouble with technology at school. Most parents nowadays are defensive of their children and assume the school messed up. When I first started my job I hated dealing with parents, but over time I realized if I just took these difficult discussions head on then I would grow from them. Over time the conversations got easier and the parents were no longer scary to me. A bonus tip is to always try to approach difficult situations with a non accusatory tone. 

Finally, if you want to be a manager quickly, show up, be on time, and ready to step up when others don't want it. In high school I was in JROTC and second in command of my unit. Halfway through the year our first in command had some kind of anxiety attack and could no longer perform his duties. The opportunity was mine to take, but I had to take it, and own it. Once you’re presented with the chance, take it if you really want it.

Manager on the resume equals management experience. Whether you were the manager of a gas station, one room coffee shop, or election polling site. Management is management so take the opportunity if you get it. Once you get the job keep doing what got you there learning and growing through difficult situations.

1. Come to your meeting with your own agenda or notes. When I first met with my boss for my 1 v 1 I made sure I had everything written down that I was doing. Since I was new and didn’t have any projects this gave him insight to how I was using my time and also showed him how I take initiative to find work when work isn’t there. By supplying the notes or agenda for the meeting you will drive the meeting and not forget all the awesome things you’re doing. All I do for this is literally make a bullet list in my OneNote which takes five minutes to prepare for my meeting. 

2. Come to your meeting with questions. If you have questions for your boss pertaining to processes, company policies, procedures, or professional advice write those down. Present these questions to your boss. Seek their advice on complicated issues as this a time to learn how the upper management thinks through difficult issues. 

3. Write down the goals and tasks your boss assigns you. Sometimes in a one on one meeting it might be so laid back that you or your boss might forget what was discussed. Make sure you take notes of things your boss asks you to do for next week. 

4.Take this time to get to know your boss personally. Ask questions about their weekend, family, and events in their lives. This is a great place to get to know one another especially if you work remotely. Obviously, some people are more private than others, but you will have to read the room with your boss. 

5. Ask your boss about stretch opportunities or professional growth opportunities. If you want opportunities to learn more, tell your boss. Or if you think there is a need for something on your team, tell your boss by providing facts, history, and a plan.

6.Don’t complain, present issues that are real issues. If there are issues, try to have some solutions already written down as your boss will probably ask you how to solve them. Be a problem solver not a problem creator. 

Every church or charitable organization needs volunteers as they’re the lifeline to these entities. Most people won’t turn down free help, especially if it’s good to help. I started volunteering at my church first and foremost because I wanted to serve God. All the skills and experiences I garnered by volunteering were just an added bonus. The nice thing about volunteering is the pressure is not as high, people are willing to help you learn, and most of the time you get to be creative by making your own processes because they just need the work done.

Example of Volunteer Experience

I am a Knight of Columbus which is a catholic fraternity organization through the Catholic Church. The Knights do a ton of fundraisers for the community and the church. One of the fundraisers is called the Tootsie Roll Drive for People with Intellectual Disabilities. About a year ago the past chairman of the drive approached me and asked me to take over the drive. I was hesitant at first but was excited about the opportunity. After taking on the Chairman role I learned and acquired all of the following skills and experiences in just five months:

This is not even all the experiences and skills because the drive is still months away. By taking on this volunteer opportunity I have learned all these valuable skills and experiences. Also most importantly I have started to build more confidence in my ability to lead others and network. These were two things I was never good at or just didn’t like to do. When you start to do things with a good purpose at heart those things that were once really intimating for you become a lot easier to overcome. Get out there and start volunteering so you can give back to others and you can build up your skill set in something maybe the business world won’t give you a chance in. 

1. Keep everyone updated who needs to be updated 

If you’re working with a project manager, students, parents, or clients always keep them up to date with the latest information even if the new information is old information. For example the other day one of the project managers was trying to test out a product with a client and the website was not working. I tried everything in my power to get the website to work with no luck. I updated the project manager immediately via email explaining the situation, my troubleshooting efforts, and when I would update her next. The next day I tested out the system again and it continued to not work, but I still updated the PM again just to let her know the site wasn’t working. It sounds silly to do so, but letting her know this information allowed her to reschedule meetings with clients and shift her focus elsewhere. 

2. Be clear in your messaging 

When I write my emails I always break it down into sections. I bold the sections in my email clearly indicating to the reader how many topics are in the email to address. By doing this nothing is lost in gigantically long paragraphs. Short sections with a title allow the reader to know the key points and address them if necessary. 

3. Be positive 

Even when the situation is frustrating or someone is not doing their job don’t turn to negativity. It’s very easy to read negativity in an email. Luckily nowadays we have Grammarly which has a built-in feature to rate the tone of your email. I always make sure my email is positive even if I have something negative to communicate to the reader. 

4. Communicate well in advance 

If you need something unless it’s an emergency don’t ask for it last minute. Always try to send information well ahead of time. 

5. Radio Silence, follow-up time! 

Don’t wait for a reply that is not coming. Let’s be real you start to get to know the people who will reply and the people who need nudging. There are individuals who don’t respond after the first email so make sure you follow up with them if you need an answer. This plays into point number 4, the earlier you get someone a message the quicker you can follow up with them. For the people who never reply you just need to call, text, or go see them face-to-face. Ultimately, this depends on how much you need this person to be involved. 

6. Respond to people's email 

Piggybacking on point number five RESPOND TO PEOPLES EMAILS ASAP! This is what made me really successful at any of my jobs. If I receive and read an email I always respond to the person immediately acknowledging that I have read their email. If I have the answer I reply with the answer, If I need to get further information I explain to them I will get back to them asap with their request. It's kind of funny we live in a world where people can respond at a moment’s notice but they don’t. Yes, going this route does means you might have to write multiple emails, but trust me people will appreciate this. 

Nowadays a lot of us don’t have much of a physical workspace. If you’re working from home you probably do most of your work on your computer. While it is important to make your office nice and comfortable today’s post is more focused on your digital space because that's where you will spend most of your time if your job requires a lot of computer-based work.

When I used to coach educators on digital tools they would often open their Chrome browser to a slew of 20-plus tabs. Immediately, I could tell by seeing these tabs that this person was overwhelmed by their digital workspace. The first thing I would teach them is how to use the Google Chrome Tab Groups. This nifty feature allows you to group tabs into categories so you collapse them and open them when needed. Groups give you a cleaner browse to work with while keeping all your tabs available. I usually have my group's name according to the projects I am working on. The only down side to tab groups is they don’t save if you quite your browser hopefully that will change because this feature is a lifesaver for me. 

Let’s look at the definition of a desktop first, “A desktop is a computer display area that represents the kinds of objects one might find on top of a physical desk, including documents, phone books, telephones, reference sources, writing and drawing tools, and project folders.”

A desktop is a permanent place for really important things, a temporary place for actionable items, and a place for a nice wallpaper picture of the beach you dream of going to. It’s not a place for everything so don’t make it that. Make it a point to keep your desktop clean. If you have to make folders for those items that already exist on your desktop or delete them if you don’t need them. A good way to start cleaning up a messy desktop is to go to your desktop, right-click, and select sort by date modified. This will organize your items from oldest date to newest. Usually, older stuff can go so let it go or file it.

Keep all the applications you use the most in your taskbar or application menu. I usually have my Outlook, Teams, file explorer, To Do, One Note, Excel, Nimble Text, Note Pad, Chrome, FireFox, and Microsoft Edge available on my taskbar. If it’s not a primary application remove it from your bar. By primary I mean if you don’t use it daily or weekly get it unpinned from your bar. Another reason to do this besides being organized is some individuals don’t realize that they have a lot of applications enabled to run automatically when their computer turns on. These applications usually Excel or Word suck up a lot of processing power which will slow down your computer for applications you need to use. Here are the instructions on how to disable unwanted apps on startup. 

Don’t get me started on organizing your email as that will consume an entire blog post by itself. I could give you a million ways to organize your digital space, but for now, start with these three. Trust me you will notice a huge difference in your workflow and efficiency if you’re consistent with them. Just remember if you have so many tabs you cannot read what the tab is or you can’t see your desktop wallpaper you need to get your digital space organized right away! 

Being in the know is super important, especially in today’s work where things change in a matter of seconds. We might live in a time where you can Google anything to get the answer, but what good is the information if you don’t read it? Your company purposely compiles a set of important headlines to send you weekly so read them. By staying up to date with company policies, procedures, events, job openings, or company picnic information you might be able to capitalize on these announcements and do your job more effectively. Also if you’re in a cross-functional role you have to read these newsletters as they will allow you to be informed on what's going on in all facets of the company that might affect your workflow, projects, or organizational structure. 

A perfect example is one time I had scheduled a very important meeting in the main board room months prior. The Friday before the meeting I was reading the newsletter and noticed that a group was going to host a social gathering in the board room for the same date and time I had reserved the room. By reading the weekly newsletter I avoided confusion and rearranged the meeting to a new location. 

Another time I was reading the company newsletter and one of the Department Heads were asking for individuals to join his brainstorming committee to redesign the department's vision. I signed up immediately and I got my boss involved. As my boss was head of creativity and innovation he wanted us to be on the committee and this was a great opportunity for me to learn the process of planning a new departmental vision.

According to Upland Software only 22% of people open newsletters. Just think you’re more knowledgeable than 80% of your colleagues about the company and what’s going on. I can’t tell you how many times my colleagues would say the following to me;

colleague -“How did you know about that event?”              
me-“Read it in the newsletter.”

colleague -“How did you get on the vision committee?”           
 me-“I signed up through the newsletter.”

colleague -“Wait you won an Amazon gift card, how?”        
me-“The competition in the newsletter.”

You don’t have to be like me, but I did not start my weekend until I had read the company newsletter. This way I felt completely prepared going into the next week of work. Make time to read your newsletter even if it’s over a cup of coffee early on a Saturday morning. Obviously, prioritize the information maybe you don’t need to attend the sewing club group at work, but at least you skimmed and know about it. Trust me reading the newsletter will give you knowledge and knowledge is power. 

Since ChatGPT was just released I decided why not give it a go to see if all the hype was legit. I logged in and asked ChatGPT to type me a press release for my event with a certain word limit. Ten seconds later I had a beautiful press release for my event with details I didn’t even think of including initially and it even matched my word limit set by the magazine publisher. 

While it was great to have this entire press release completed for me in under a minute, I did feel a sense of laziness inside me and defeat. As hard as it was for me I decided not to use the ChatGPT-created press release or at least all of it. This was a fork-in-the-road moment for me to allow ChatGPT/AI to do my work for me or for me to learn from AI and still do things myself. So I decided that I would use ChatGPT as a reference or template to write my own press release. 

Looking over the AI-created press release I tried to extract the lessons learned from my new tutor ChatGPT. The AI press release introduced me to some new sentence structures I don’t often use. In addition, I was provided some background history regarding my event I wasn’t aware of that I ended up including in my own press release after fact-checking it of course. Finally, I mimicked the flow the of AI press release with a catchy introduction, the history of the event, the where, and the when.

Yes, writing my press release took almost 45 minutes, but it was well worth it. If we let the AI do everything for us we will never learn new skills or exercise our creative juices. So use AI to learn, reference, and edit your work. Don’t let AI become your butler or secretary doing all the work for you as your creativity will slowly die. Everyone says they’re lifelong learners in their Linkedin profiles, you won’t be learning if a machine is doing all the work for you. 

Recently, I was attending an in-service workshop at my company on scrum. The workshop was a nice quick overview of what scrum is, how it works, and how it’s applied. This was a great workshop for me as I am new to Scrum and how it all works. However, my biggest takeaway from the presentation was this poster board with sticky notes on it the presenter had on his office wall called the “Wall of Pain.” 

During the Q&A session of the workshop, I asked the presenter about his wall of pain. It was created during his leadership workshop to identify pain points that impede his team from being able to accomplish their goals. Every time he felt like the team had overcome that impediment he would remove the sticky note from the wall.

I absolutely loved this activity and idea so I explored the internet for a reasonable template. Lo and behold I found a similar exercise called “The Brick Wall of Pain” created by the State of New South Wales Agency of Clinical Innovation. For the exercise, you put your goal at the top and below it you fill in all bricks with things that are standing in your way of achieving your goal. Since I started a new job I had a lot to put on the wall. It was also good for me because I realized how many things I had already mastered since starting my new job compared to four months ago. So I can already start punching some bricks out of the wall. 

The Brick Wall exercise is also good because it starts to show you what you need to focus on to achieve your goals. If I could make one change to the template I would change the sizes of bricks and place the hardest or most difficult hurdles I need to accomplish in the larger bricks. I am a visual person so making my goal and steps visual is crucial to my success. Give the brick wall exercise a try today to conquer your goals. 

I am here to tell you that nothing you do or take part in is wasted and everything you do is useful. Let’s take this example that happened to me recently. I was approached by the client success team reps to part-take in their customer support training. The training was how to submit CRM tickets for the actual product that I train the customers on. After a couple of meetings into the prep for this training I checked with my boss just to make sure this is something I should be doing. He indicated it wasn’t something that I will be doing in the future, but it was ok for me to proceed as long as I was just helping and not presenting. 

This was a bit awkward place to be in, but I tried to make myself useful for this training by creating the webinars in Teams, creating surveys, proof reading the presenter's slides, running the chat, and admitting attendees to the calls. Along with brushing up on all the technical things that go into online training, I got to work closely with the two client success teammates who help with my region. This allowed me time to bond with them as I will be working with them in the future. In addition, I got to watch the webinar and learn how the CRM process works for submitting and escalating tickets. 

Although, this wasn’t something that directly impacted my job and day-to-day responsibilities I took away a lot from being involved in this training. I will be frank it does stink to do things that seem to have nothing to do with your immediate job role. However, if you want to grow you have to welcome these opportunities and look for the positives in doing these types of assignments.

I will give you another short example. One day when I was working as an Educational Tech Coach the principal came into my office to ask me to be the security guard at the school gate for the last three hours of school. Of course, this had nothing to do with my job, but there was an emergency so they needed someone. I jumped at the opportunity threw on the yellow security vest and guarded that gate. Just by standing there that day, I got to meet so many people coming in and out of the gate. I learned how to use the walkie-talkie, where all the security cameras are in the school, and the afternoon dismissal procedures. Fast forward a couple of years later an iPad went missing, the student said they last left it on the basketball court. I knew we could track this iPad down for sure because, from my security guard experience, I knew there was a camera positioned there. Turns out another student accidentally picked up the wrong iPad thinking it was theirs. How could I solve this mystery so fast, because of my security guard stint. See nothing is ever wasted. Look for positives in everything and it might take time to realize what those positives might be. 

In my most recent jobs, I have had two mentors who used the “annoying method”, but effective method of coaching me to be better at my job. Whenever I asked one of my colleagues a question for a direct answer he would ask me back thought-provoking questions. The most annoying one was “Why?” Initially, it came across as condescending and rude, but after I got to know him better I knew why he was asking why. He was doing it to make me think of the reason or purpose I was doing the task. Was the task meaningful, and purposeful, is it already being done, will it improve what the real problem is, and so on? He was never in the business of giving out answers instead he was in the business of making you critically develop an answer of your own. The Why was always the key driver. To this day I always start with the why and it has made my job much easier. 

More recently I started a new job and I need to learn how to use SQL to adjust information in certain databases. SQL was a completely new language to me. I was extremely blessed to have multiple colleagues help me acquire this new skill. Each of them with different teaching styles, but I have to say my one colleague who coached me with the “annoying method” was how I improved the most. Whenever I had to make adjustments in the database this colleague would make me explain my reasoning for each script and what that particular script does. Even If I had already acquired the script he would make me explain what that script was doing. Most of the time I was far off and I would have to painfully give an incorrect answer. Gradually my skill is growing and it’s because of his interrogative manner. 

Ultimately, no one likes the annoying or interrogative style of coaching, but it is the most effective. The most important thing to get over is being wrong or not knowing. There are times I just outright tell my colleague I don’t know and I have exhausted all my guessing abilities. That’s ok, but as I progress in this new journey I am having to ask him less often which is really a win for me. Not that I don’t want his help it just means his coaching is helping me improve and I no longer have to rely on him as a crutch. So the best advice is if you’re coaching someone don’t just give them the answer make them work for it as they will learn it more effectively!  

Let’s start with the newest party to the game the Junior. Being the new guy or gal and having to learn everything sucks. Waiting on other teammates to get back to you with an answer is painful and agonizing. You got hired for the job because you were capable right? Well yes, your degree might say you’re qualified for that job, but every workplace is different and has it own protocols you only can learn on the job being taught by your seniors. So just face it for the first six months to a year you need help, but that does mean you’re helpless. When your senior teaches you something listen, take good notes, video record it if necessary, try the process on your own, and write down your questions so you’re prepared when you do ask for help. Also, talk to your boss about this process in your one on one meetings. If your senior is not responding tell your boss so they can find a solution to get the answers you need. At first, I recommend consulting with your senior to decide regular times to meet for help, but if they are not finding times you just need to book it on the calendar for them in their open slots. Work with your senior and be patient because someday you will be the senior having to teach your junior. 

Oh the experience, oh the confidence, oh the skill, and oh the lack of time. We all know that being a senior in the workplace you have a lot on your plate to accomplish. The last thing you need is to have to be at the beck and call of a junior constantly pinging you for help. While this doesn’t sound like fun there is actually a lot more benefit in this process for the senior than for the junior. First off, training someone is a prerequisite for management material. If you ever want to be considered for a higher role you have to be willing to train people. Second, by training someone new it allows you to refine your skills and relook at processes that might be a pain for you in your day to day. When training someone new if they say something doesn’t make sense tell your boss this might be the perfect time to get that old pesky process off the books and it's coming from the new guy's innocent feedback not you. When training the junior don’t be shy to give them some of your workload, stuff they can handle, and will accomplish easily. It’s not pawning off your work if you’re using it to teach someone. If the most important thing as a senior is your time you need to make the training schedule work for you. I recommend setting the tone as the senior tell your junior what times you have available so you can meet regularly at those times to discuss questions, consult, train, and work through problems. In an ideal situation have a quick call/meeting in the morning and one at the end of the day. Tell the junior to take notes on any questions they have and bring them to the consultation this way you won’t get sporadic messages throughout the day. 

Well, this is why you get paid the big bucks, to make things work. As the boss, you need to be honest with both the senior and the junior separately. If you know someone is hard to work with you need to tell that nicely to the people who need to work with them. If a senior feels threatened by a junior taking over their job you have to reassure them this is not the case. If the junior is intimated by the senior you need to help them get the support they need by setting up group chats with you the boss included or by having a regular meeting with you just as an observer. Give both parties clear expectations of how things should go and what their objective is. If the senior has to teach the junior so they can complete the objective give them milestones and tiny benchmarks to reach the end of that project. You can’t tell either party it’s their job and they have to get over it you have to support them in their needs. If the senior really doesn’t have time maybe you the boss need to step in from time to help the junior learn. Overall be a helping hand, not a distance authoritative figure. At the end of the day, you have to produce a winning team and the coach can’t make the winning shot. So you have to figure out a way to get your worker to make it happen. 

We have established this process is not fun but necessary. Nobody likes it but this is the same no matter where you go. Everyone has to remember that nobody is out for anyone we all just want to be successful workers. We can accomplish that goal by making these training processes work as we all have something to benefit career-wise if it does.