Career Tools

Got Email? Of course - who doesn’t? We know managers who get 200 (or more!) emails every day. Email is a necessary evil in the corporate world, and highly effective professionals know how to get the most out of their email WITHOUT spending too much time on it. In this podcast we talk about how to make your technology work for you, and how you can spend less time on email while getting more done.

Got Email? Of course - who doesn’t? We know managers who get 200 (or more!) emails every day. Email is a necessary evil in the corporate world, and highly effective professionals know how to get the most out of their email WITHOUT spending too much time on it. In this podcast we talk about how to make your technology work for you, and how you can spend less time on email while getting more done. Email is probably one of the most - if not THE most - widely used professional communication tools out there, and probably the most abused of all professional communication tools. It has the potential to have an incredibly positive impact on productivity, and communication, and even management, it is just horribly abused to the point where when people start talking about email, they just get irritated. There’s too much of it, it’s poorly done, it doesn’t serve its purpose, and people use it for all kinds of wrong reasons. Before email happened, people had a lot more face-to-face meetings. You have face-to-face meetings, you develop a relationship, based on a relationship there’s some trust, and when there’s trust you understand why somebody did something the way they did, and why something may be messed up. But if your “relationship” (if you can even call it that) exists only through email, it’s bound to be full of confusion, complexity, and misunderstanding.

Time management is a fallacy. Time doesn't need you to "manage" it - it's been getting along just fine without you for billions of years. We can't manage time. What we CAN manage is what we do with that time. And yet, the overwhelming evidence is that professionals and managers do NOT "manage what they do with that time." There's a shocking CHASM between our behavior in this area and our knowledge of what to do. Everyone always talks about how busy they are, but when you look at their calendars, there's often no EVIDENCE that they're busy. There are vast swaths of unscheduled time! So, the question is, how can we start to become more efficient about using the time that each of us has at our disposal? In fact, that's a great way to state it: STOP disposing of your time! It's not only your most precious resource, it's also your most perishable. Peter Drucker, in the first prescriptive chapter of his seminal work, The Effective Executive, says it best (of course): "The output limits of any process are set by the scarcest resource. In the process we call 'accomplishment', this is time. Of the other major resources, money is actually quite plentiful People one can hire. But one cannot rent, hire, buy or otherwise obtain more time." In the demanding, fast-paced professional world we live in, there's simply little room for error when it comes to managing our priorities. And, if you aren't spending your time on your key priorities, it's really hard to argue that you should be able to keep your job if you're not meeting your key deliverables. And one might say - but the major stuff seems to get done, in that we're not getting firedbut yet you're telling me we're way off base on how we're spending our time. How is that possible? Well, you are, in many cases, being saved by the fire drills. Every once in a while, what's really important becomes TIME-WISE important, and the boss tells everyone that for the next week, no one does anything but X, because it's the end of the quarter, or we have a big push on, or whatever. We make up for our overall inefficiencies by cramming, by "laser focusing," by sheer brute force at times. And it works, after a fashion. But enough is enough, what the heck do we DO about this problem? How can Manager Tools listeners take advantage of this opportunity to become more efficient and more effective?

Time management is a fallacy. Time doesn't need you to "manage" it - it's been getting along just fine without you for billions of years. We can't manage time. What we CAN manage is what we do with that time. And yet, the overwhelming evidence is that professionals and managers do NOT "manage what they do with that time." There's a shocking CHASM between our behavior in this area and our knowledge of what to do. Everyone always talks about how busy they are, but when you look at their calendars, there's often no EVIDENCE that they're busy. There are vast swaths of unscheduled time! So, the question is, how can we start to become more efficient about using the time that each of us has at our disposal? In fact, that's a great way to state it: STOP disposing of your time! It's not only your most precious resource, it's also your most perishable.

At least once in your career, and perhaps as many as five times, you're going to have to resign from a position. And this is one of those tasks or responsibilities that no one talks about, no one knows how to do, and therefore… many do it poorly. It's not hard to do well, and in this series of casts, we make it a simple step by step process. If you're thinking that you know how, consider that we recommend you need SIX WEEKS to do it well. The average person changes careers three to seven times in their working life, with some sources suggesting up to 10-15 career changes. The factors that influence the number of career changes can include individual circumstances, economic shifts, and generational differences. But what we know, no matter what, is that you're going to need to change your career at some point. We certainly don't want anyone thinking we "want" people to resign. We don't want that anymore than we want companies to fire employees, or lay people off. But the fact is, it's going to happen, and since doing it well makes one look like a professional, one ought to know how. It's that simple.

At least once in your career, and perhaps as many as five times, you're going to have to resign from a position. And this is one of those tasks or responsibilities that no one talks about, no one knows how to do, and therefore… many do it poorly. It's not hard to do well, and in this series of casts, we make it a simple step by step process. If you're thinking that you know how, consider that we recommend you need SIX WEEKS to do it well. The average person changes careers three to seven times in their working life, with some sources suggesting up to 10-15 career changes. The factors that influence the number of career changes can include individual circumstances, economic shifts, and generational differences. But what we know, no matter what, is that you're going to need to change your career at some point. We certainly don't want anyone thinking we "want" people to resign. We don't want that anymore than we want companies to fire employees, or lay people off. But the fact is, it's going to happen, and since doing it well makes one look like a professional, one ought to know how. It's that simple.

No matter your role or stage of career, don't think for a moment that someone else is managing your career. Those days are long gone. YOU are managing your career. What you do - not only in job skills, but also in what we call "Transition Skills" - will be the primary determinant of your career success. You're not going to have the richest, most rewarding series of roles and opportunities by allowing someone in HR to know enough about you to get you where you need to be. And succession planning won't save you either. And one of the most important of the Transition Skills is Building And Maintaining Your Network. Most people are terrible at it. We know this because they have no network. Now, notice that we did NOT say that the skill was "networking". That term conjures up schmoozing, and cocktail parties, and too many people don't like it. So, we're not suggesting you do that. We're suggesting you Build and Maintain Your Network. It only takes THREE SIMPLE SKILLS, and we'll walk through them. Now, notice that we did NOT say that the skill was "networking". That term conjures up schmoozing, and cocktail parties, and too many people don't like it. So, we're not suggesting you do that. We're suggesting you Build and Maintain Your Network. It only takes THREE SIMPLE SKILLS, and we'll walk through them.

No matter your role or stage of career, don't think for a moment that someone else is managing your career. Those days are long gone. YOU are managing your career. What you do - not only in job skills, but also in what we call "Transition Skills" - will be the primary determinant of your career success. You're not going to have the richest, most rewarding series of roles and opportunities by allowing someone in HR to know enough about you to get you where you need to be. And succession planning won't save you either. And one of the most important of the Transition Skills is Building And Maintaining Your Network. Most people are terrible at it. We know this because they have no network. Now, notice that we did NOT say that the skill was "networking". That term conjures up schmoozing, and cocktail parties, and too many people don't like it. So, we're not suggesting you do that. We're suggesting you Build and Maintain Your Network. It only takes THREE SIMPLE SKILLS, and we'll walk through them. Now, notice that we did NOT say that the skill was "networking". That term conjures up schmoozing, and cocktail parties, and too many people don't like it. So, we're not suggesting you do that. We're suggesting you Build and Maintain Your Network. It only takes THREE SIMPLE SKILLS, and we'll walk through them.

Your resume, regardless of the baggage associated with it, is probably your most critical career management document. While it's not something you ought to leave lying around on your desk for others to see, that doesn't mean you ought to treat it like something you dust off only when you really need it. It needs to be reviewed quarterly, believe it or not. So, in this cast we'll teach you how to prepare it, and how to maintain it. We won't talk about cover letters, or how resumes are used in the job search, because job search is only one use of your resume. Today we're going to talk about preparing your own resume. This is a topic we covered WAY back in 2005, and today we're dusting it off, refreshing it, and re-recording it for our listeners. Now folks, we are not suggesting that you leave your current company. And if you're thinking that your resume is something that needs to stay off your desk, you're right. There's still the old adage that the resume is a thing to be heard but not seen. You talk about your resume in an interview but you don't actually show it to anybody at your company. That's true. Resumes still have a stigma. If somebody sees your resume on a desk, they're going to assume that you're job hunting. And that's a negative. Even if you have a very enlightened boss, they're going to perceive that as a negative. If nothing else, they're going to be frustrated by it. The point though is that in the last 40 years companies have turned over the responsibility of managing people's career to the employee. You need a document to capture your career success. And the document that's perfect for that is a resume. So if you change your thinking to see your resume as a career history, you're going to be fine. And you just need to keep it off your desk. Do it at home, do it after hours when everybody is gone. You must keep your resume current. Fully 70% of the resumes we get have errors in them. The vast majority of the errors are on the most current jobs. This is what happens when someone prepares their resume on short notice. If you see it as a career maintenance and management tool where you capture things that you would forget two years later (because you can't go back and recreate things two years after the fact) it's a very powerful tool and you have to do it. We've found that when we needed a resume it was when we least expected to need one. The opportunities of a lifetime are those things where a target of opportunity shows up.  Those are the good jobs, generally. And that's where you're least prepared to do it. If you don't know how to put it together and then you rush something, it's just not going to look professional. And the really good jobs are going to be interviewed by or are going to be screened by people who really know what a good resume is like. If you want to impress people, you need to have it done in advance.

Your resume, regardless of the baggage associated with it, is probably your most critical career management document. While it's not something you ought to leave lying around on your desk for others to see, that doesn't mean you ought to treat it like something you dust off only when you really need it. It needs to be reviewed quarterly, believe it or not. So, in this cast we'll teach you how to prepare it, and how to maintain it. We won't talk about cover letters, or how resumes are used in the job search, because job search is only one use of your resume. Today we're going to talk about preparing your own resume. This is a topic we covered WAY back in 2005, and today we're dusting it off, refreshing it, and re-recording it for our listeners. Now folks, we are not suggesting that you leave your current company. And if you're thinking that your resume is something that needs to stay off your desk, you're right. There's still the old adage that the resume is a thing to be heard but not seen. You talk about your resume in an interview but you don't actually show it to anybody at your company. That's true. Resumes still have a stigma. If somebody sees your resume on a desk, they're going to assume that you're job hunting. And that's a negative. Even if you have a very enlightened boss, they're going to perceive that as a negative. If nothing else, they're going to be frustrated by it. The point though is that in the last 40 years companies have turned over the responsibility of managing people's career to the employee. You need a document to capture your career success. And the document that's perfect for that is a resume. So if you change your thinking to see your resume as a career history, you're going to be fine. And you just need to keep it off your desk. Do it at home, do it after hours when everybody is gone. You must keep your resume current. Fully 70% of the resumes we get have errors in them. The vast majority of the errors are on the most current jobs. This is what happens when someone prepares their resume on short notice. If you see it as a career maintenance and management tool where you capture things that you would forget two years later (because you can't go back and recreate things two years after the fact) it's a very powerful tool and you have to do it. We've found that when we needed a resume it was when we least expected to need one. The opportunities of a lifetime are those things where a target of opportunity shows up.  Those are the good jobs, generally. And that's where you're least prepared to do it. If you don't know how to put it together and then you rush something, it's just not going to look professional. And the really good jobs are going to be interviewed by or are going to be screened by people who really know what a good resume is like. If you want to impress people, you need to have it done in advance.

Your resume, regardless of the baggage associated with it, is probably your most critical career management document. While it's not something you ought to leave lying around on your desk for others to see, that doesn't mean you ought to treat it like something you dust off only when you really need it. It needs to be reviewed quarterly, believe it or not. So, in this cast we'll teach you how to prepare it, and how to maintain it. We won't talk about cover letters, or how resumes are used in the job search, because job search is only one use of your resume. Today we're going to talk about preparing your own resume. This is a topic we covered WAY back in 2005, and today we're dusting it off, refreshing it, and re-recording it for our listeners. Now folks, we are not suggesting that you leave your current company. And if you're thinking that your resume is something that needs to stay off your desk, you're right. There's still the old adage that the resume is a thing to be heard but not seen. You talk about your resume in an interview but you don't actually show it to anybody at your company. That's true. Resumes still have a stigma. If somebody sees your resume on a desk, they're going to assume that you're job hunting. And that's a negative. Even if you have a very enlightened boss, they're going to perceive that as a negative. If nothing else, they're going to be frustrated by it. The point though is that in the last 40 years companies have turned over the responsibility of managing people's career to the employee. You need a document to capture your career success. And the document that's perfect for that is a resume. So if you change your thinking to see your resume as a career history, you're going to be fine. And you just need to keep it off your desk. Do it at home, do it after hours when everybody is gone. You must keep your resume current. Fully 70% of the resumes we get have errors in them. The vast majority of the errors are on the most current jobs. This is what happens when someone prepares their resume on short notice. If you see it as a career maintenance and management tool where you capture things that you would forget two years later (because you can't go back and recreate things two years after the fact) it's a very powerful tool and you have to do it. We've found that when we needed a resume it was when we least expected to need one. The opportunities of a lifetime are those things where a target of opportunity shows up. Those are the good jobs, generally. And that's where you're least prepared to do it. If you don't know how to put it together and then you rush something, it's just not going to look professional. And the really good jobs are going to be interviewed by or are going to be screened by people who really know what a good resume is like. If you want to impress people, you need to have it done in advance.

What you can do to help your manager when they get their engagement survey results. You might think that your manager's engagement survey is just that their survey and their problem. After all, when you answered the question, 'I know what is expected of me at work,' you communicated whether you have sufficient clarity (and let's face it, no one ever wants less information). But these answers in aggregate from your team aren't particularly helpful to your boss. Since your success ultimately depends on their success, getting involved in helping them improve their scores is a worthwhile endeavor. Here's how.

What you can do to help your manager when they get their engagement survey results. You might think that your manager's engagement survey is just that their survey and their problem. After all, when you answered the question, 'I know what is expected of me at work,' you communicated whether you have sufficient clarity (and let's face it, no one ever wants less information). But these answers in aggregate from your team aren't particularly helpful to your boss. Since your success ultimately depends on their success, getting involved in helping them improve their scores is a worthwhile endeavor. Here's how.

Building a network in a digital world - a 2025 update to "Building A Network". Second Life may never have been the "virtual world" it was hyped to become, and the Metaverse didn't come to fruition either, but a digital universe in which our corporeal and career bodies live did come to pass. The digital universe does offer us a new opportunity - expanding our network of professional contacts, potentially in ways we would have not been able to before. In this guidance, how to apply our timeless relationship-building principles to the new spaces in the digital world.

Our guidance on the benefits of pursuing financial security instead of job security. "Stop worrying about job security." Sounds crazy, right? But of course, it isn't. 99% of us do not want or really even need job security. What we want is financial security. We want to be able to pay our bills, save for retirement, and send our kids to college. Most of us would say that if we could have financial security without a job, we'd be fine with that. But if you told us we would have job security WITHOUT financial security, we would NOT take that deal. What is the benefit of reorienting our focus, and what do we do once we have?

Our guidance on identifying, tracking, and communicating the metrics that reflect your true professional value—so you can improve performance, support your resume, and demonstrate impact to your organization. Data-driven strategies and changes are the hallmark of successful organizations - and resumes which show successful contributions. However, as individual contributorsespecially those new to the workforcewe typically aren't aware of how to identify which aspects of our performance to measure, how to track relevant data, or how to improve our metrics over time. Many professionals resort to focusing on productivity metrics - tasks completed, deadlines met, hours workedwithout connecting these activities to their impact within the organization. Yet it's the bigger-picture accomplishmentshow your work moved the needle for the organizationthat demonstrate your value and belong on your resume. Understanding both your immediate productivity metrics and your broader contribution to organizational goals is a crucial career skill. Understanding this distinctionbetween daily activities and meaningful outputsis one you can start developing from day one in any role.

Our guidance on career growth strategies for High C’s Career growth comes from leveraging your strengths and at the same time managing and mitigating your weaknesses. We all have a wide array of strengths, but choosing which ones to use first for career growth can be overwhelming, so in this podcast, we’re going to suggest just four targeted strategies that work with your natural tendencies as a High C to accelerate your growth.

Welcome to a special episode of Manager Tools. Today, you're listening to the live recording of our 20th anniversary podcast, captured in front of a fantastic audience of managers and leaders just like you. We're celebrating two decades of practical, actionable guidance Whether you've been with us since the beginning or just joined the community, we're grateful you're here. Now, join Mark Horstman, Mike Auzenne, Sarah Horstman, and Kate Braun as we look back, look forward, and keep doing what we've always done: support you, our audience.

Our guidance on career growth strategies for High S’s Career growth comes from leveraging your strengths and at the same time managing and mitigating your weaknesses. We all have a wide array of strengths, but choosing which ones to use first for career growth can be overwhelming, so in this podcast, we’re going to suggest just four targeted strategies that work with your natural tendencies as a High S to accelerate your growth.

Our guidance on career growth strategies for High I's Career growth comes from leveraging your strengths and at the same time managing and mitigating your weaknesses. We all have a wide array of strengths, but choosing which ones to use first for career growth can be overwhelming, so in this podcast, we're going to suggest just four targeted strategies that work with your natural tendencies as a High I to accelerate your growth.