Mentoring gone bad!

Have you ever been in the situation when mentored was the last thing you needed?  When the person mentoring you felt they needed to break you down before they can mentor you up or  they felt mentoring meant telling you what to do?

Mentoring gone bad!

• micro-manager==mask their standing over you guidance under mentoring.
• nothing sticks to me-manager==mask their lack of responsibility under mentoring because they are teaching.
• grandiose-manager==mask their big ideas under mentoring.
• political-manager==mask their telling you who to say what to under mentoring.

Mentoring is a responsibility.

Mentoring to grow together.

How to handle situations:

• Ask to be mentored by a particular person that you feel comfortable with.  Use the excuse of ‘knowing’ them better.
• Just act as if you are engaged than forget everything they said.
• Cancel meetings with your mentor using the excuse of your workload.
• Ask a lot of questions about nothing to redirect them.
• Avoid them at all cost!

I know none of these suggestions will truly work as I only provided them as a laughable moment.

When you are in a ‘Mentoring gone bad’ situation there is very little you can do.  It is a wave that you just have to ride out.  Perhaps seek guidance from a senior advisor or from HR.

One last thing, your mentor’s lack of skills is not a reflection on you.  Their dysfunction, their problem.  Take what ever you can from the experience and turn it into a positive by learning what not to do when you are mentoring.

Are we a team?

Working together as a team

Developing good team dynamics is work.  It doesn’t just happen because you want it to.  Most teams are thrown together and are just expected to work it out.  The longer they are together without team guidance the more dysfunctional they can become.

There is a lot of discussion as to whether team building is important.  In fact some believe it is a waste of time and those some can be on your team.  The moment you mention a “team building exercise” a long moan will be released by the group.

Just move through the moans and laugh it off.  Over time the group will adjust.

A team that knows one another will work harder for each other.

You can bring your team together in many ways and for the most part you will let your experience guide you as to what excercise to run through.  One of the easier ones is to have them answer some questions about themselves.

Call an importune meeting.  Hand out the list of questions.  Give them 5 minutes to fill it out during the meeting.   If you are still getting to know your team, you will learn a lot as to how they deal with filling out the questions.

Once the questions are answered you collect the papers.  Then read the questions and answers aloud to have the group guess who wrote it.  Keep the tone light and let the group have fun with each other.  Don’t let it become a “make fun of someone” session.

examples of questions:

1. What motivates you?
2. What would you like to be doing in 1 year & in 5 years?
3. What is your passion?
4. Favorite food?
5. What to you do well?
6. What do you want to improve?

The questions can be a mixture of anything that may break the ice with your team.  If you make exercises light and amusing  you will get light and funny responses which is what you are aiming for.  People let their guard down when they are laughing.

You can learn that a team member has aspirations to move into management or they make beer or they want to learn to improve their time management or their passion is their work.  But the biggest difference you will see will be your team interacting with each other on a different level.

What’s going on today?

Are you ready if next week you don’t have a job?  Are you so deeply into your job that you are not looking around for the signs?  Don’t be caught off guard.  At least prepared what you can for the change if it happens.

• Change you e-mail address on subscritions, blogs, memberships & such to your personal account.
• Slowly remove anything from your that desk that will not fit into a small box.
• Remove all personal passwords and/or web sites from company computer.
• Copy all contact information for networking.
• Remove any personal files from company computer.
• Make copies of any documents that you will need for reference.
• Carry all files on a USB stick.
• Start building your profile on LinkedIn. Ask co-workers to write references for you and you do the same from them.
• Pay attention to the company dynamics.
• Do not complain to co-workers if your contract is ending.
• Network, network and network!

It would be nice if this was not a concern but it is.  When you work for someone you never know when the business has changed.  Don’t be surprised if it does happen and don’t take it personal.  Even if you feel it was personal it is out of your control.  You can not fit into every environment!

What does Marvin Gaye have to do with it?

Mercy, mercy me!

2009 was a big year of growth yet full of disappointment.

Those of you that know me know that I am a big fan of Marvin Gaye.  ’Mercy, mercy me’ is a song that I pay attention to.  I loose things, I gain things or things change.  Which ever it is mercy is needed to understand and learn.

Moving past a year full of struggle is only tough when you aren’t ready to let it go.  This thought applies to everything I do!

My gains of the year are more than my disappointment but what is amazing is that I did not realize that until I started to write this.  I learned new lessons and skills, read great books, met amazing people, grew bonds that are very strong,  and gained another year of insight.

Now with remembering all that I have gained I don’t have a reason to write about the struggles.  Those struggles are gone!  Just like a project that crashed and burned.  Move on!

Who am I?

It is time to sit down and write.  It never ceases to amaze me how I struggle with my blog post.  That is until I sit down and start to write.  It just comes out.  I write a title and somehow the words find me!

My last two weeks have been hard because I have been sick with the flu and my wisdom teeth are moving.  Bad combination.  It has been hard to stay on top of everything but it does remind me that being out of work is a blessing.

Next week will mark the end of my third month without a job and I am fine with that.  A year ago I would not have been but times are different now.  Who I am is not my job.  I have been working on that statement for years and now I think I can say it and  mean it.

I am a Project Manager but it isn’t my only “title”.  I organize, I facilitate, I empower, and I am whatever I need to be.  I can adjust to what is needed to do a job.   For pay or not.

This is what I do….

1. develop processes
2. work with people
3. observe people
4. team leadership
5. yoga therapist
6. crazy reader of everything
7. shooting instructor
8. social media
9. mange projects & programs
10. soccer coach
11. youth soccer club organizer
12. trainer
13. mentor
14. dog trainer
15. cook
16. etc

This is not a complete list of what I do but do you see how hard it would be to describe myself to a potential employer?  Especially with these job boards.  You are to put down the title of the job you are looking for?  Am I the only one that see this to be an issue?  How can I say the industry that I want to work in when the options are so open?  How do you market yourself?  How do you make sure that the “right” people see you?

Your thoughts?

Heard what through the grapevine?

Here I am sitting in Vienna, VA.  How did I get here?  First off I can tell you that it took me 3.5 hours to get here but it is worth it!

I have been leveraging my recent funemployment and offering myself at varies conferences.  This way I get to go for free! I help with registration or set-up or anything.  It is a win/win situation!

So back to why I am here…Mark Amtower is having a “Social Networking for B2G” and it sounded interesting to me.  I asked him if I could help and here I am.

Networking has been my focus and this conference can offer me a few more as well as some new information.

Linkedin Panel

First, panel is discussing the use of Linkedin.  The panel consist of Kim Nelson, Ed Steinberg and Mark Amtower.

Linkedin has so much to offer to individuals and companies.

Put your profile together and make sure it is 100% complete.  Try to write your summary to be easily read and clearly stated.  Don’t try to put everything into one large paragraph.

Make connections with those you have something in common with.  Ask yourself why you are connecting and should you be connected.

Linkedin is very broad and it offers many different ways to build your profile.

I like using updates in Linkedin because it marks what I am doing in my career.  My resume is only one dimensional but when you add the value of my Linkedin profile to my resume you see a larger picture of me and my skills.

Blogging Panel

Debbie Weil is the moderator and Chris Dorobek and Mark Drapeau.

Why should we blog and can we? There are many different ways to blog.  Company blogs, multi author blogs, personal blog, etc.  Have a reason to blog and start writing!

How can your business have success with blogging? How can you get past the fear of writing something wrong?  Read your company guide on social media or write one.  Discuss why and what does the company want from blogging.  Then using those guideline start writing.

Your company strategy must include blogging. If the company does not make it a priority it will not work.

Recommended reading by Debbie Weil @debbieweil Air Force Releases ‘Counter-Blog’ Marching Orders http://bit.ly/8KwDw2

Recommeded reading by Mark Drapeau @cheeky_geek Using Lethal Generosity in Social Media  http://bit.ly/8B0sxm

Side note: I can’t keep up with this live blogging!

And we are back!!!!

Twitter Panel

Mark Drapeau, Debbie Weil, & Kim Nelson

Why use Twitter? Why ask an old school question. Why do you have a phone?Mark put it right to where it needs to be. You decide how to use Twitter.

Do you need a content strategy for you company? Yes, decide why and build your relationships with your community.

Tweet simply. “I am meeting a client in Tyson’s Corner” or “We are working on this project”.

@ClearedJobsNet One of the gr8t cheekyisms “It is not who you know, but who knows you” from @cheeky_geeky #b2gAmtower

@timgre At a twitter conf #b2gamtower I agree w/guy saying use technology that ur audience uses(the book Groundswell calls it technographic profile)

@ClearedJobsNet The secrets of a gr8t Twitter account aggregation filtering attitude #b2gAmtower http://bit.ly/89I5G4

Use twitter to achieve your company goals.

Books to read Twitterville, Groundswell, The Twitter Book.

Losing my steam! Need Cake!

Happy 25th to Amtower! Let us eat CAKE!

@debbieweil “Twitter democratizes access to the media world, to the ability to publish” – from Microsoft’s @kimnels15 at #b2gamtower#b2g

I’m a leader now?

Normally trees don't grow out of rocks. Leadership & Management don't always belong together either, but they can be good & strong together.

Management is making sure others do their jobs.

Leadership is inspiring other to do more than their jobs.

 

A person does not become a manager or a leader just because you tell them to “step-up”.  It takes years of experience and education.

Most of us have had bad experiences with managers and we know why they were bad managers.  They just didn’t get it, they were out of touch, they expected to much, they were crazy, on and on!  When we have had a good experience we say that manager understood us and the job.

We are not born with the talent to be a good manager or leader.  It is cultivated through years of experience.  A leader can be born with charisma but that is only one quality of a leader.   Can a good leader also be a good manager?  Sometimes, but it is rare.

A good leader knows their own weaknesses and surrounds themselves with quality managers.  A good leader listens to their quality managers and trust them.  That is what makes a truly good leader.

A leader must also grow as their ideas grow.  By understanding that process a truly talented leader emerges.

What are the three Es?

Engage–bring your team into the fold.  Let them know what the vision is so they can participate.

Empower–the tools are there.  Support the environment and give them room to breath.

Educate–your teams needs to know that you want them to pursue knowledge.

 

Make it your responsibility to remove the barriers for your people to succeed.

Whose wearing the dress now?

I was participating in a Linkedin conversation about technical PMs.  The summary of the discussion was can a non-technical PM run a technical project and if so how do you handle a techie that is being an alpha male. This discussion interested me because I am a non-technical PM that runs technical projects.  I also have the added benefit of  being a woman and with that comes dealings with a lot of alpha males!  One person responded to my remarks as taking the “soft”  approach and he felt the person needed to be fired.  In fact I felt most of the responses was to fire the problem person and the rest of the team would fall into line.  They felt it was important to come in strong and hard.  Now I get that because we were discussing an existing team that a non-technical PM was assigned to and yes that does bring some different problems.  I just feel firing should be the last resort and not the first response.  Now don’t get me wrong, I haven’t always been this way.  I have fired more people than most have hired.  With that being said I have learned how to use my skills to offer the alpha male a different role.

I will map it out for you…

Ok, you have this techie that just needs to show how important he is and you have just been assigned this project.  He sees you as competition but there is no competition because you are the PM and he isn’t.  Now if you crush him and keep him on the team he will do anything he can to work behind your back.  Not a good thing.  Now if you fire him you only create fear and not respect.  So let’s try a different approach.  Give him a place to be so he won’t have to lose face with the team.  Let him keep his dignity and he will be faithful to you for life.  Recognize his contributions to the team, give him a leadership position, allow him to discuss possible solutions to you on a one-to-one.  To be a true “alpha dog” you don’t have to kill every strong dog in the pack.  Just know how to channel the energy.

 

Do I have to do just that?

Do we have to know what we want to be when we grow up? When are we grown up?

Padawan (@mgharavi) use to work for me. He was fresh out of college with a wealth of knowledge. He felt he “should” be going in one direction but he felt the lure of other interest.  He joined my team being confused and hungry for some guidance.  I felt he wanted me to tell him what he should be doing. I wanted him to tell me what he wanted to be doing.  Needless to say I won.

Just because we hire someone to do a particular job doesn’t mean that is the only thing they should pursue.  In understanding your people you can find the talents that inspire them.  And yes it may be more than one!

My parents did the same thing for their whole working life and I did not.  It still drives my father crazy to watch how many times I have recreated myself.  Read my Linkedin profile and you can see for yourself.  I have worked in many different industries doing many different jobs but that is what I like.  Why should I conform just because a few think I should?  Most interviewers have been impressed with my ability to recreate successfully.

Try new things and think outside of the box. Just because many do it a certain way doesn’t mean it is the best way.  The path of least resistance isn’t always the best for you.  If you are trying to convince yourself to adjust then you need to stop.  Follow you path even though it is different.  You may be forging a new path for many!

This blog post was inspired by @saraburson who thinks she can only start a blog if she decides on just one topic to write on!  I am hopeful that I have inspired her to forge a new path that many can follow!