The Dreaded Rejection

We all hate being rejected, but at one time or another (or many times) we will be faced with rejection in our personal and professional lives.  Recently, I had the experience of having to let people know they were not selected for a position on my team, which completed changed my perspective of rejection.

Remember that feeling after an interview, waiting and wondering if you’d receive that call or if you’d simply be forgotten as if the interview never even happened?  Always that hopeful (and nervous) feeling when the companies’ number actually pops up on the screen, but when the person on the other end gives the bad news those feelings quickly turn to disappointment.

Are Disciplinary Write-Ups Really Effective?

Something happened recently that really made me evaluate my values as a leader and how I view the relationship between job performance and disciplinary action.  While I believe there are cases where disciplinary action is necessary (e.g. stealing, violence, etc.), I question the validity of using disciplinary write-ups as a way to address poor job performance.  In fact, it reminds me of being back in second grade where teachers used to give you demerits for talking while they’re talking or not raising your hand before calling out the answer.

So do write-ups actually improve job performance?  Maybe temporarily because employees fear they
will lose their job, but are the effects long-term? 

What’s Growth Got To Do With It?

I strongly believe in promoting growth amongst your employees.  I think it is one of those things that separates managers from leaders.  It’s not enough for leaders to just talk about the importance of growth, they must actually act on it by helping their employees grow.

Recently I was involved in a situation with another manager regarding the growth of one of their employees that infuriated me and served as my inspiration for this post.  I have an open position on my team that an employee from another team reached out to me to find out about applying for.  It is company policy that all internal applicants speak with their manager before applying to more or less give them a heads up to prepare for their possible departure from the team.  I told this employee that the position was still open, but that they needed to apply through the proper process (i.e. talk to their manager).  To make a long story short, their management is making the application approval way more difficult than it needs to be.  This got me thinking about reasons why managers would make it hard on employees to move into other opportunities where they can continue to grow by learning new skills.