I have been with my business insurance broker for eight years. Recently, the brokerage changed owners and, as I discovered last Saturday, I had been assigned a new account manager.
The premium for one of my insurances is due next month. My “new” account manager sent me an email on Saturday morning. Here’s what the email said (names and specific details have been removed, to protect the innocent).
February 2007 was when I first started working from home. At the time I had three children aged seven, four and two. Later that year my fourth child was born, and another was born in September 2010.
Since then, I have continued to work from home as my wife and I have raised our five children and I have successfully operated my business. I’ve learned what works, and what doesn’t work and below are 15 lessons for successfully working from home.
Successful people regularly report they are lifelong learners. I want to think that I am a lifelong learner too.
Shayne Elliott, CEO of the ANZ Bank recently shared in a LinkedIn video post that he is “#always learning“. In it, he speaks about a book that has provided great value over many years, Execution – The discipline of getting things done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. It is a terrific book and worth the read.
The ability to learn is essential for success. I argue that today, oxygen and learning are equally important for humans. Without them you are physically dead, or your career is dead. However, are followers tolerant of leaders who are learning? I’m not sure they are, which creates a significant problem for leaders.
One of the most significant challenges that staff struggle with is how to “live” their organisation’s values and behaviours. People often say to me, “I’m sick of ‘hearing’ about the values. No one does anything about them.” I then ask, “Do you believe in the values and behaviours yourself?”
A typical response begins with, “Yeah, but…”.
This pattern indicates that the real challenge that staff face is that they don’t know ‘how’ to have conversations about the values with their peers and managers. This article will share five actions of which you can use one or more to increase your contribution to your organisation’s values in a positive, constructive manner.
Continue reading Five actions for living your organisation’s values
You know how it works. You are good at what you do, so more people keep being ‘given’ to you to lead. Not only that, but you are relocated to corporate headquarters and most of the people you lead aren’t co-located with you anymore. You have more meetings than ever to attend, yet you genuinely care for the people you lead but don’t have anywhere near the time you used to to lead them.
What do you do?
This dynamic is very common for the people I coach. Flatter organisations means higher spans of control, which means more direct reports to lead. Below are three tips for leading a growing team that isn’t co-located.