Why Leadership Coaching Pays Off For All Stakeholders? By: Nathanson | - What is the role of the leader?
It really depends on the perspective of different stakeholders, what role of the leader is going to be. In general, the board, shareholders, and top management expect the leader to maximize profit. The employees, who work for the leader, have a different view. They want someone who will support their growth, listen to them, be fair, and provide job security if possible. The leader though depending on the background, personal agenda, and experience might be c ... Tags:the best manager, people development, management, leadership
The Most Important Question To Ask After Forty! By: Nathanson | - Empty work
Have you ever had work which was empty? Perhaps you were successful as society might view. Perhaps you had a nice job title, made good money, owned lots of material things and even a good family and social life. Yet, deep inside when you went to sleep at night, you felt empty. You work didnt bring you joy or passion. This is true for many people. Many simply go through their work day like robots. Is this normal? If this is you, how do you go about unraveling this sense of fee ... Tags:the vocational coach, craig nathanson, mid-life, right work,
Ten Steps Which May Change Your Work And Your Life! By: Nathanson | - 1. No time
I hear from people many times that they don't have time to think about what they should do with regards to their work. My response is usually, they cannot afford to not take the time. It's your life. It only changes when you do.
2. Each new day brings a new perspective
When you wake up each day, what are the questions you ask yourself?
Here's a few that you might find useful;
What am I grateful for today?
Do you realize that?
Ask new questions ... Tags:right work, perfect work, vocation
How To Avoid The Most Common Mistakes Which Professionals Make In Their Presentations? By: Nathanson | - What the audience needs
Did you ever give a presentation to a professional audience and think to yourself, what a boring audience. They didnt ask questions, and they didnt show any visible response.
Well, it is probably not their fault. Most people come to professional or technical presentations because they want to be there. They either want to learn the most recent information in their field in order to solve some challenges, or just stay technically up to date. In many case ... Tags:the best manager, people development, management, leadership
The daily life of a manager is complex and requires a combination of skills and approaches. The important thing to remember is that action which a manager takes has a direct relationship to the whole system. When a manager plans a project, it impacts how the project will be organized. Who will be asked to lead and participate in the project. How the results will be measured. How all of this will be communicated. The Best manager knows that all actions a ... Tags:people development, management, leadership
Does your work align with your abilities and deepest interests? Is your work simply a way to earn a living? Do you enjoy your work so much you could do this work forever? Is Monday your best day of the week and Friday the worst because you have to wait until Monday to continue? Does your work only represent a small part of your life and not that important? As we age, especially after 40, the answers to these questions become more important. When work doe ... Tags:the vocational coach, craig nathanson, mid-life, right work, perfect work, vocation, life coaching, baby boomers, over 40, after 40, mid-life crisis,
How To Manage With Integrity And Why This Is Most Important By: Nathanson | - There are too many examples of the lack of integrity today in management. If you wish to be a manager who gets great results with people, focusing on your integrity is a good place to start.
What is integrity?
Many people discuss integrity but may not understand it completely.
Lets start with some definitions. To be a person of integrity means to be self-aware. Having integrity means being open and honest all the time. A person of integrity is a person who can ... Tags:the best manager, people development, management, leadership
First, because no one will ever walk up to you in your current job and ask you! Your family members wont ask you because change can be threatening. This is a question you must ask yourself. Work impacts our sense of self, our self-esteem and our happiness. It starts with asking the right questions.
Up until about 40, we spend our lives building, collecting, acquiring. We do our best despite in some cases our upbringing, society pressures and our economic conditions. Around 40, however, life starts to take on new meaning. Usually this is a result of some big change forced on from external sources or related major challenge in our life. For some people it may be a divorce, emotional or health issues, for others losing a job, gaining a new ... Tags:the vocational coach, craig nathanson, mid-life, right work,
Are people getting things done and on time? This is an important indicator to look at. Many factors will impact work quality. If work is not getting done on time step back and look at the management system in place or lack of one. Do you have a regular process for establishing goals, measuring progress, and getting feedback? Do people seem to be enjo ... Tags:people development, management
In the last ten years of working with mid-life adults on finding the right work which aligns interests and abilities, I have come to the conclusion that the criteria for the RIGHT work is very similar.
Make a living and make it interesting
People need to provide an income for themselves and this is a priority. But I have discovered as people approach 40, they are no longer willing to make the trade-off between just making money and n ... Tags:the vocational coach, craig nathanson, mid-life, right work
2. Give people challenging assignments when they dont have the skills for the work
(This will lead to burn-out and poor morale after the thrill of the new assignment wears off)
3. Evaluate all work all the time
(Measuring all work and giving immediate feedback will lead to people taking short-cuts just to get good scores and will sub-optimize the whole system) ... Tags:organizing, scheduling, prioritization
1. Decide what you want and then define and take the biggest risk you can think of which will move you closer to your goal. (Taking action towards doing what you wanto do is not a risk)
2. Make a step by step plan towards an important goal and define risks you MUST take to move forward. (Living a status quo life will not change any situation for which you are stuck )
Great leaders are creative, decisive, and charismatic. Strong leaders understand what is important to them. They are strong at persuading and communicating the vision, which they want others to have. Great leaders display personal mastery and passion for what they lead. They are creating team learning while keeping everyone moving towards a similar vision. Great leaders are system thinkers. They understand the implications of their decisions and actions on the ov ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, management training, management education, human resources, business management, leadership training
This happens to many of us. This can be a result of many factors such as a job loss, a death in the family, a divorce, a financial crisis, or just a sense of feeling empty and unsure what to do next with your life. During this time, it is important to get clear about what is most important for you and what new goals should be moved forward without delay. Life transition brings you to a new perspective, new way of living in the world, and an ov ... Tags:mid-life coaching, vocational coach, career change, baby boomer, right work, craig nathanson, over 40, afer 40
Failure in communication is the biggest problem of management. When this occurs, it affects everything. Overall performance of people decreases, goals are not clear, people build incorrect assumptions, and relationships at work suffer. Especially during challenging times, its critical to be more effective when communicating. Employees want to know what is going on during times of change. This is when the breakdown usually occurs. Many managers fail t ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, planning system, management training, management education, human resources, supervision education, development of p
10 Steps To A More Fulfilling Life After 40! By: Nathanson | -
I get asked a lot what it is like to live a self-described authentic life filled with happiness, joy, fulfillment, and a sense of making a contribution. So with this article I decided to share what I do. Try out these steps for yourself and you will also see an emerging life which works better for you!
Think of the best coach you ever had, either at work or outside of work. What did the coach do that was effective? How did the coach interact with you? What kinds of things did the coach help you to achieve? Now think of the best manager you ever had at work? What did he or she help you to achieve? How did this manager interact with you and treat you? What differences did you notice between your best coach and manager?
First let's define the difference between right work and wrong work. Wrong work is work which you don't enjoy. The work feels stifling and constraining. Having wrong work you don't look forward to going there every day. You secretly hope some crisis occurs so you don't have to go because any alternative seems better then another wasted day at the office. Wrong work causes stress, anxiety, health problems, and relationship problems. Wrong work leaves ... Tags:mid-life coaching, vocational coach, career change, right work, craig nathanson, over 40, passion
A system is comprised of many processes. These processes have ins and outs. Processes have starts and stops. They can be mature, or developing. Some of them work smooth and some have multiple broken links. It can be helpful to look upon management work as running a complex system. For example, lets say, you manage a call center, which takes hundreds of calls a day from customers. One day 4 employees call in sick. As a manager this shortage of 4 people wil ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, planning system, management training, management education, human resources, supervision education, development of p
Almost everywhere you turn there seems to be another rewards based incentive program to motivate people. This approach can work short term only for people who don't like their work. But with the time these people will only demand larger rewards to gain the same satisfaction. And for people who actually enjoy their work, their performance and motivation will most likely decrease short and long term since they are the ones who don't require external factors to ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, manager, management training, management education, human resources
Good. Then you won't need permission from your parents to read this article. If you are under 40, I give you permission now! I would guess if you are over 40 you have begun to question your life and your work. Good. This is normal and healthy. Perhaps you have also started to question your contributions to society. Perhaps your accomplishments for this period of your life have not reached up to your internal or external expectations. Thats ok. Life tends to get i ... Tags:mid-life coaching, vocational coach, leadership, career change, baby boomer, career transition, craig nathanson, over-40
This is unknown territory for many. In school we are seldom taught to do deep reflection. As we get older and become adults we get caught in the cycle of productivity and consumption. As a result self reflection becomes something to be avoided so as not to slow one down. Self-awareness means knowing ones self at a deep level. This includes as Jung suggested the shadow side which is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped, and denied. Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, leadership, management training, management education, people development
Teaching and speaking for 2 weeks in China brought me to an epiphany. America is losing ground quickly with having no clear strategy on what to do to regain a strong economy. It was amazing for me to discover that in China growth is everywhere. Most people have health care and money left over. It's cheap to eat, affordable to buy apartments and cars are not really necessary because taxi is so cheap. Even more amazing I was feeling safer in the city of 7 mill ... Tags:mid-life coaching, vocational coach, leadership, career change, baby boomer, career transition, craig nathanson, over-40
Just take a look at the economic crash of 2009 and one will see the impact of greed on the economic system. Nowadays it seems enough is not enough. The organizational drive to increase margins, lower costs, improve productivity continues to be the main emphasis in business. After all this is what our schools teach. What gets lost is the balance between the drive for just making money and making work enjoyable. When people find joy in their work, they want to h ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, leadership, management training, management education, people development
It can be easy as a manager to label people as bad or good performers. This performance labeling tends to be a convenient way to quickly categorize people. It is efficient for human resources. Once labeled, people can be given promotions or demotions, merit or punitive action, more money or less money. Management and Human resources can now implement programs of the month such as succession planning, employee of the month and so on. This approach seems to have come f ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, leadership, management training, management education, people development
In this economy the idea of having just one job doesn't make sense. First there is much competition for a single job. Second, once committed to just one job, independence and flexibility is taken away. The best strategy in this economy especially for those over 40 is to have multiple streams of income. This gives one the best sense of security. If one stream of income doesn't work out, there are many others to turn to. I suggest the number five as a t ... Tags:mid-life coaching, vocational coach, leadership, career change, baby boomer, career transition, craig nathanson, over-40
A system is comprised of processes, some important, some not so important. A process has a start and a stop, an in and an out. You know you have a process when you can flow chart it on a piece of paper. A process has a certain state. It is mature and working well or could be embryonic and very immature. A process can be broken if some pieces are not working well together. The system then represents the state of all of its processes. The idea of a system is to focus ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, leadership, management training, management education, people development
In many ways happiness is very subjective and judged differently by each person. My observation is that people are most happy when they feel in control of their life. Much of ones life occurs at work thus happiness at work is an important factor to consider. Many factors can contribute to happiness at work. As a manager it is important to be aware of these factors. Most important is to make sure that each person is aligning challenging work and high skills to p ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, leadership, management training, management education, people development
Many management systems are anything but a system. These organizations are a collection of people, habits, different behaviors and expectations. Management is driven largely by external behavior (The bigger boss) and motivation (One's own). At work you often find too much competition between people which gets in the way of teamwork and collaboration.
Does this sound familiar? It's a Friday and another day at the office. Today is employee recognition day. As usual once a month the department manager gathers the whole group for a one hour meeting. Employees come to the faceless conference room and await the monthly employee recognition celebration. A committee of managers and a human resources representative meet monthly to decide which employees will be given the award. The group selects 5 people around ... Tags:the best manager, craig nathanson, manager, management
There is no consistency today in the way we educate managers. Larger organizations tend to have more comprehensive programs. If we look at the business results of the past year it will show that these programs have not been very successful. In the US over 99.9% of all organizations have less than 500 workers. Many of these organizations have little to non-existent management education. There is a great opportunity now to improve. Most of the big compan ... Tags:the best mananger, craig nathanson, management training, management education, human resources, supervision education, development of people
I see it everywhere - people working in jobs which carry little meaning and provide little support for personal development. Worst, the culture treats people as commodities. Performance review systems, manager-employee meetings, and even rewards are set only on recent performance. The recent performance is everything that matters. As a result people feel like they are treading water in their jobs.
Right now millions of Americans are either out of work, recently laid off, or afraid of being laid off. There are millions more, who simply work at jobs, which provide no meaning. They work only in order to get a paycheck.
After 40, we start having less tolerance for an empty life. The routine starts to drag on us and we start thinking of what we should do with our life. This is a good thing. The most questioning starts with our work where we spend the most of our time. We admit our work no longer fits us but we feel trapped, trapped by our bills, society and even our loved ones, who feel threatened every time we discuss our unhappiness.
This is a year of financial turmoil in which millions of people around the world have seen their retirement nest eggs shrink, and their houses decrease in value. For many, a generalized anxiety about their future keeps them up at night.
Probably not the first piece of advice you would expect to get!
When you are laid off, the range of emotions you feel can be overwhelming. You become your own worst critic, and you start coming up with all the reasons why you lost the job. At home, you hear more of this from your family members, although maybe not so directly.
I know easier said than done. Most of us go through our lives never really getting to know ourselves. After all, life offers us many distractions. Who has time for self-reflection? The only way to to be happy after 40 is to get to know yourself really well. This includes accepting and loving who you are. This includes accepting and loving the nervous habits that only you know about, those annoying addictions, and that little pot belly or ... Tags:The Vocational Coach, Craig Nathanson, mid-life, career, vocation, life coaching, baby boomers, job, mid-life crisis
Over 40? Don't Wait Until Someday!! By: Nathanson | - Its easy to put off things that you want to do. There is no limit to the excuses too tired, no time, what will others think?, no money - the list goes on and on. When it comes to doing the work you really like to do, the list becomes longer. Ill wait till I retire. I need to pay the bills now! Thats another popular excuse, and another favorite My spouse will get mad at me!
But did you know? This is good news for those over 40!
Sometimes we need a crisis to finally make positive changes in our lives. When it comes to changing our work, the crisis could be a layoff, a financial calamity, a divorce, or an illness.
Over 40? Economic Crisis: What To Do About It Right Now!! By: Nathanson | - Not since the great depression of 1929 have we seen such a financial crisis, and frankly, the lack of national leadership that we are experiencing now. Banks are failing overnight, Wall Street greed and the chase after quick money has finally caused this country to grind to a financial halt. All Americans are worried now from those with money, wondering how much their nest eggs will shrink, to those who need the money in their bank account just to live each month. My guess is that a maj ... Tags:The Vocational Coach, Craig Nathanson, mid-life, career, vocation, life coaching, baby boomers, job, mid-life crisis
Deep inside, we all want to be happy, especially in the middle part of our lives. We also seek a simple process, and a new secret to reach this lifelong goal.
Well, I have a simple answer and, of course, a longer answer.
When you arrive at 50, those around you will expect you to slow down and retire. They will ask what you are planning to do when you stop working. The marketing messages you see are pushing youth and beauty and the pursuit of material goods. You suddenly realize you dont have an answer or a plan for what you will do. So instead you work harder, but its the same career youve been working in for many yearsand you never really enjoyed it in the first ... Tags:The Vocational Coach, Craig Nathanson, mid-life, career, vocation, life coaching, baby boomers, job, mid-life crisis
Good; that was the point. No one should have just a job after 40. Before 40, it is necessary to build your ego in the world. It is critical for self-development, self-esteem, and to get a sense of your place in the world. Naturally, it would be perfect to do the work you love before 40, but this is not always possible. Before 40, it makes sense to align your interests and abilities with the work you love. After 40, it is an absolute requirement for an aut ... Tags:The Vocational Coach, Craig Nathanson, mid-life, career, vocation, life coaching, baby boomers, job, mid-life crisis
What exactly do you want to contribute to most now? What issues concern you the most? Where do you feel your natural gifts and talents can make the most difference in the world? Do you want to help children learn, feed the elderly, or help others with their financial problems?
The choice is yours. There are countless opportunities and choices to make in how well spend our time during the second half of our lives.
This is a question rarely asked before 40, but its so important after 40.
Most of our work lives have been about accepting the views of others and working to the plans of others. We had jobs and we were expected to meet the requirements of our jobs. While this is a good and important ego building and development part of life before 40, after 40, it destroys the soul.
What does work coherence mean?
It seems to me that many people tend to ignore their needs in mid-life. We tend to be very good at reacting to a crisis, but terrible at planning for one. I think this is the root of the problem. For example, many people stay in mundane, unfulfilling jobs because, in many ways, this is easier than confronting the unhappiness of a work life that is empty. Only when a crisis hits and it usually will after 40 (a divorce, a layoff ... Tags:Craig Nathanson, Vocational Coach, Mid-Life, P is for Perfect, Career Development, Coaching, Self Developmentf
What is life about? How will you make a difference in the world? Your purpose drives your behavior and can provide you with daily energy and happiness. What is the purpose of your life? Think deeply about where you most want to make a contribution in the world.
This can be hard to do. The daily pressures of a thankless job, a demanding commute, and mounting bills all lead to stress. Worst of all is the nagging feeling that your life is out of your control, and slowly slipping away.
