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Category: coaching

It’s Not This Or That, It’s This AND That

January 27, 2011
| 1 Comment
| Categories: coaching, Reflection, thoughts

Came across a tweet by a respected TV journalist today:r day should be a celebration of creative genius of india, not of armed forces might. fewer tanks, more music. gnightI have heard people cribbing and providing their alternatives in the past also. “We should not spend money on games, the same could be used for the poor”, “why do film stars get awards, they should be given to intellectuals” and so on.Mostly we rant about why we shouldn’t do the things that are happening and why we should shift our…

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5 Reasons Why You are Not Being Promoted

October 20, 2009
| 13 Comments
| Categories: Career, Change management, coaching, HR, Jobs, Leadership, performance management, Promotion, Supervisor, Tips, Work

I came across Dan McCarthy’s blog recently. Dan is a practitioner in the field of leadership development for over 20 years and is currently the Manager of Leadership and Management Development at a Fortune "Great Place to Work", "Training Top 125", and "High Impact Learning" (HILO 80) company. He has a great blog on leadership that I would encourage you to subscribe to. Dan wrote a great post Head’s Up – You are About to be Promoted or Fired where he shares why you might get promoted or fired. I…

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10 Tips for Better Meetings

October 16, 2009
| 5 Comments
| Categories: coaching, Management, Meetings, Productivity, Tips

A question was asked on Twitter for some tips on running better meetings. I sent out a series of tweets and then added a few more to make this blog post.Here are my tips for better meetings: Question the need: Ask yourself, do you even need the meeting? Do what you can over email to avoid meetings.Have an agenda: Not points to discuss but decisions to be made. If the meeting is to review progress, make sure you have status against goals.Keep'em short: Schedule shorter meetings. Force participants to take…

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Analysis Paralysis and Lizard Brain

October 14, 2009
| 1 Comment
| Categories: Analysis Paralysis, coaching, Lizard Brain, perspective

Seth Godin talks about quieting the lizard brain within us and finishing what we started. He says thrash the ideas up front, don’t get scared about shiping the product and start thrashing the idea later in the development stage. Of course, we also have the analysis praralysis syndrome where we might spend too much time in analyzing the idea without ever starting it. You don’t finish what you don’t start, right. Okay, so basically what everyone is saying is move your blooming part-of-your-anatomy and get on with delivering on your…

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How to be a Successful Technical Writer

September 19, 2009
| 2 Comments
| Categories: Career, coaching, Content Development, Jobs, technical writer, technical writing, Tips

Swaminathan Moothy of Society for Technical Communication (STC) invited me to speak at their regional conference in Chennai. I shared what I think is needed to be a successful writer. I spoke about skills companies are looking for in a technical writer, tips on how to manage technical writing projects, and career options for a technical writer. It was quite a learning experience. The audience was a group of technical writers with varied experience and I got to learn new things. Here’s my presentation on being a successful technical writer.How…

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Control vs. Influence

August 17, 2009
| 5 Comments
| Categories: coaching, control, influence, Management

This is a guest post by S Ranganathan. I got a chance to interact with Ranganathan during a leadership development program that I attended at ISB. Ranga, as he would like to be called, is a regular Executive Coach at ISB where he partners with different trainers in their Global Leadership Program. Ranga holds a Post Graduate degree in Management from IIM Bangalore preceded by a Post Graduate degree in Mathematics from IIT Chennai. Ranga is the Founder-Director of SymIndia Training and Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.—an organization based in Bangalore that…

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Why an Updated LinkedIn Profile is Important

July 24, 2009
| 1 Comment
| Categories: Career, coaching, HR, Jobs, LinkedIn, Professional Networking, Recruitment, Tips

I recently discovered how I can effectively use LinkedIn to find potential candidates for recruitment. I simply update my status message with what I am looking for and get responses from interested candidates. Okay, I know this isn’t really new but hey, it’s new for me. Anyway this post isn’t about this discovery of mine. I received a few responses to my status updates. These were from people I know and have worked with in the past. Unfortunately, a few of the people who responded did not have an updated…

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Great Work is not Recognized

July 22, 2009
| 8 Comments
| Categories: Career, coaching, Life, Management, performance, recognition, Work

I recently read this in one of the blogs that I follow (which unfortunately I can’t remember, apologies). Great work is not recognized by managers, exceptional work is. Great work is expected from you anyway. This is so true. I have heard many people complain that they got no recognition for the work they did. In some cases they said they got no recognition for the great work they did. So how can we do exceptional work that will be noticed and recognized? Well, to start with stop focusing on…

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Staying Up to Date with Instructional Design Skills

July 20, 2009
| 3 Comments
| Categories: Career, coaching, eCube, eLearning, Instructional Design, Jobs, Learning, Learning professionals, skills

I recently came across a question posted on the eCube LinkedIn forum that I responded to. While the question was how a person in between jobs could keep their instructional design skills up to date, I think it is important even for those with the jobs to keep their skills up to date. How can an experienced Instructional Designer with very limited experience in current instructional design software tools update their skills in order to be recognized and considered as a candidate for e-Learning positions? How does a person in…

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