Coaching as a profession has been gaining more traction in recent years but professional coaching in the business space is still a concept that is a bit nebulous and poorly understood. Would you be surprised that some of the top business executives in the world consistently say ‘everyone needs a coach?’...
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Conventional wisdom says that using an offer from a new job to negotiate a counter offer with your current employee is a dangerous task. Most advice I see on the topic suggests that you avoid this technique all together. I disagree. Here’s my thinking....
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Have you ever been told ‘this is the most you can make here unless you start to manage people’? What would it look like if IT professionals had a middle ground option that didn’t force them to up and quit their current W2 job but allowed them to continue refining their craft and skills while being paid fairly at the end of the year? I call it permanent part time. It’s a career management concept for service professionals that I’ve been talking about for close to a decade and it’s especially well-suited for IT professionals. ...
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Treating everyone the same is rarely fair or what’s best for them. This is a topic that new leaders, and sometimes very mature leaders, often struggle with. I speak from experience. I still struggle with this topic from time to time. Earlier in my leadership I typically tried much to hard to be ‘fair’ which led to situations where I was trying to treat everyone on team in the same way. Eventually I learned that treating everyone the same isn’t actually fair and it’s rarely what is best for the person you’re trying to be fair to in the first place. ...
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A recent US News and World Report headline caught my eye. The title was “8 Ideal Jobs for M.B.A. Grads”. I was curious and read it. The top job shocked me. The report says that the #1 ideal job for a recent MBA grad is DBA. The second and third most ideal jobs shocked me as well. #2 was ‘web developer’ and #3 was ‘computer systems analyst’. Those rankings shocked me as well and made me consider the following three questions. First, is being a DBA really and truly the #1 ideal job for an MBA? Second, is getting an MBA truly beneficial to a DBA who wants to hone their craft and stay in the profession? And third, what is the relative value of getting an MBA for a technology person in general from a career path perspective. These are complicated topics, and I can’t address them in full in a single blog post. But, I’ll share some perhaps contrarian thoughts and promise to revisit this topic again soon....
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I’ve been in business for myself for more than a decade and have used a CPA to assist me with my taxes for much of that time. However, over the years I’ve come to realize two important facts about doing my taxes. First, I will never know as much about accounting and taxes as a good CPA. Second, my CPA will never know as much about my life and business as I do, and knowing those facts is important to ensure I can save the most money on taxes while legally and safely taking advantage of as many tax breaks and deductions as I can. A little time and research on your part can easily save you hundreds or perhaps thousands of dollars per year if you are small technology consultant. And remember to focus on deductions you can legally take, not just filling out tax forms. ...
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What happens if you are a manager or leader when someone on your team comes to you seeking a solution a problem? Do you solve it or help them to come up with a solution. Consistently solving problems for members of your team does not develop their leadership skills and creates a cycle of upward delegation that makes it hard for you to be effective as a leader. ...
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I’ve been an independent consultant (IC) in one way or another for more than a decade. I’ve been fortunate to have had a fabulous assistant and book keeper from day one. I’m married to her. Recently, I’ve come to believe that every full time IC can benefit from a good assistant and bookkeeper and you should hire one very early in the formative stages of your business, even while you think you might be able to get by without one. In fact, I think that many times someone who might otherwise success as an IC (which is pretty popular in the technology space) ends up failing for lack of a good assistant and bookkeeper. Having this help is a business necessity if you want to be as successful as you can be. Here are some reasons I’ve come to believe this is true....
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Are you an entrepreneur who sells your time as a service provider in some capacity? Maybe a billable consultant in the IT space? Here is some simple rate setting advice that I’ve learned over the years. ...
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Successful people spend lots of time doing #2. No; not that kind. Yes; I did just make a potty joke in my blog on professional development. My 8 year old son will be so proud of me. But, it’s true. In many ways the key to professional success involves investing much more time doing #2 as described by Stephen Covey in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. ...
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