If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been captivated by the antics and misadventures of Murder, She Wrote’s protagonist, Jessica Fletcher. Dame Angela Lansbury, the actress behind the widowed bestselling mystery writer, keeps it real at every point of the series, which ran twelve seasons from 1984-1996. (So it’s just a littleRead… Read more »
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how to strike a good work-life balance, and a major part of that is effective time management. It’s important to understand that we can never manage time—there will always be 24 hours each day for you to accomplish everything you need to do. The real management technique comesRead… Read more »
We all have to work with other people in our careers and we’re never going to get along with every single person but we can definitely take an active role in attempting to. Conflicts exist in all work places and in the public sector there are some antagonists that can lead to additional strain onRead… Read more »
When you’re first starting out in your career, it’s easy to think that your job consists of “what my boss tells me to do,” followed closely by “how my boss tells me to do it.” But after fifteen years of study, practice and mostly observation, I’ve concluded that the most productive employees in the worldRead… Read more »
Frustration, Rage, Anxiety, Despair! These are the feelings I have heard from many federal government civilians who have endured hiring and pay freezes, furloughs, sequestration, and government shutdowns, as well as current and pending workforce drawdowns and budget reductions. Add to the mix, the front edge of the Baby Boomer generation became retirement eligible in… Read more »
Let’s admit it: we are all familiar with it from one source or another. Some get it from a demanding job and others from home. STRESS! It is a part of life and at times seems to consume us, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Once you learn how to control IT insteadRead… Read more »
Knowing what motivates you can lead you to do your job better and drive you to contribute more at work. Here are four ways to find out what drives you and use it to improve in your career.
More and more, managers are being encouraged to use positive reinforcement in their employee reviews, rather than focusing on weaknesses. The argument is that by doing this, employees are more productive and engaged in their work. Opponents of such a management technique say that discussing negatives, or ranking employees against each other, can actually encourageRead… Read more »
When I was early in my career I discovered the catch-22 of gaining leadership experience: to be selected for a leadership position I needed to show I already had some previous leadership experience. So I had to get creative to break the cycle and get my feet wet. If you find yourself facing the same situation,Read… Read more »
We’re making progress, but there’s more to be done. That’s the main takeaway from the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) recent report, Women in Federal Service: A Seat at Every Table, which used workforce data and Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) results to analyze that status of women in government. What I appreciate most about this reportRead… Read more »