Company of One with Dale Callahan Dale Callahan

What should you quit doing? As we move into a new year, I have found many of my clients planning to do more and add to an already busy schedule.



But I want to challenge you to think about what you should quit.

What should you quit doing?



* Relationships that are not productive



* Dating relationships

* Employees

* Employers

* Friends





* Habits that you have formed that are destructive

* Activities that are not getting results



* Work activities

* Workouts

* Marketing

* Nighttime habits





* Social media

* Watching/Listening to the News



Click here to listen now.

Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed to my Company of One? If you’re not, I encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!

If you like what you hear, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast. I also love reading them and connecting with you. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!

Links mentioned in this episode:





Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts – Becoming the Person You Want to Be

* EntreLeadership

* Get Clients Now! (TM): A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, and Coaches

* Five Signs That it’s Time to Quit Your Job

So, are you the burger flipper or the boss?



This is a question I ask my kids often.



* If you are a burger flipper, you do not have to think much. You just wait and do what you are told. You can be totally unengaged in your work.

* If you are the boss, you have 10,000 decisions to make. Everything hinges on you. You have to be self-driven and engaged else nothing happens.



It is all about ownership and engagement.



I hear a lot about engagement. Employers want to do everything they can to engage their employees. At the university, we want to engage our students. Why?



Engagement means money and productivity. Engaged customers and audiences are great for marketing. Engaged employees are great for morale and productivity.



Engagement is directly related to profit.



How to Create Engagement in Others and Me



The problem, according to Marshall Goldsmith in his book Triggers (Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be), is that engagement is not something we do to people. Engagement is something they do themselves.



Anyone who has ever done any coaching (of any kind) will tell you that the coach's job is easy and rewarding if the person being coached wants to learn.  You cannot make a person work harder or perform better if they do not want to do so. You have little control. This is why coaches only want to work with motivated people. (And I will say faculty only want motivated students.)



So how can we get people more engaged?



According to Marshall, we should stop asking passive questions and instead start asking active questions.



Passive Questions



To understand active questions, you need to understand passive questions and the human response they get.



We have all been asked to rate ourselves or our team. We often get questions like "Do you have clear goals."



That simplistic question is charged with meaning based on how we interpret the question.



First, if you read the question as "does my boss or company provide me clarity in what I should be doing from day to day", then your answer is likely to be negative. Most of us do not feel like we have clarity from above. So, when this question is put into employee surveys, the leadership of the company or team is often frustrated by the response. You will hear them (or you) saying all kinds of things like



* How much clearer do I need to be?

* We have discussed it over and over - what are they missing?



and similar ideas.



Active Questions



But Marshall pitches a second way to interpret the question that yields much better results and engagement. He suggests using active questions such as "Have you done your best to set clear goals."



This question turns active by using the "Have you done your best..." at the beginning. It is a powerful mindset shift that forces the reader to take responsibility for the goals as opposed to being passive and waiting on when to be told what to do.



This is why I ask my kids about being a burger flipper or a boss. One is passive, the other - the boss - is active and engaged. In other words - the boss is taking ownership.



Every employer (including you) wants self-driven people. We want people who are taking responsibility. Heck, even the manager of a fast-food restaurant would prefer self-driven burger flippers!



Using the active question with the "Have you done your best..." lead-in helps to drive the individual to think "Oh, this is my responsibility.".



 



Why Active Questions Work



Questions asked properly are powerful.

Quit being a pawn. Stand up and fight back.

As you might be noticing yourself, nobody is listening. We have quit talking and turned instead to yelling at each other.

And, if nobody is talking, who is controlling the conversation? I have been watching what is going on in our country (I am in the US) for some time. We fight. 

Nobody is talking anymore. Everything is charged. We all think we have opinions and are fighting for the truth -but we are just being used. They want us fighting against each other. They want division. We are stepping up and marching to their orders.



We fight about issues such as politics, global warming, abortion, the second amendment, etc.



But nobody is listening to me, or to you, or to anyone. We are just fighting.



On TV "news" shows we see the news as one-sided. Even when they talk about having a discussion - it turns into insults and yelling. In the printed media, it is all just opinion laced with a few facts to make their care.



And social media - that is the cesspool of it all.



They tell us to get along - but is that what they really want?



I do not think so. They want us to fight. They encourage it.



Truth is - not matter what the issue - you and I likely agree more than we think.



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Global warming is one issue.



Nobody wants dirty air or water or an out of control environment. We all would agree we need to be responsible. We might differ on what that means or who pays - but if we talked through it we would likely come up with something solid.



But we don't because they do not want us to.



They want us fighting.



Who are they? I do not know - but they are not the media or the politicians They are all pawns.



They are not the voices on social media - they too are pawns.



They are not even many of the world leaders - they are pawns.



People like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are with them - which is why the "system" turns against both. Both men have far different views of things - but both hated by them equally because neither man plays by the rules.



Quit being a pawn



How? Start talking to one another. Get off the social media, sit down, care about others, and talk. We are more alike than we are different.



 

Click here to listen now.

Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed to my Company of One? If you’re not, I encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!

If you like what you hear, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast. I also love reading them and connecting with you. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!

A conversation I often have with parents is something like this:  

"College? There Has Got to Be a Better Way".

College is like a money pit and does not offer such a powerful tool to create wealth and security as perhaps it did. In fact, if chosen poorly, it generates the opposite.



So today, I want to dive into the issue a little deeper and explore some thoughts.

College? There Has Got to Be a Better Way

The college experience has some issues that often go with it.



* massive debt

* wasted time

* opportunity cost

* converting good thinking kids into - well, something else (garbage in and reprogramming)



Yet as parents, we only hear of a few alternatives



* Military

* Trade school

* Living in the  basement forever



The truth is, we want for our kids the same thing that the college experience used to really offer. We want



* Opportunity to do anything they like

* Ability to earn and prosper

* Success on their own terms



So to think about this, let's start by unpacking what college does still offer



* A plan - course plan to get a degree that maps to some career

* Measures of success - classes and grades

* Accountability - timelines, deadlines

* Credentials - diplomas showing success



Now the question is, how do we get this without college?

Click here to listen now.

Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed to my Company of One? If you’re not, I encourage you to do that today, so you don’t miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!

If you like what you hear, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast. I also love reading them and connecting with you. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review,” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!

Links mentioned in this episode:





148: Can You Become an Engineer (or anything else) without a College Degree [Podcast]

* 016: How to Measure the Value of a College Education – A Do-Over! [PODCAST]

* 145: Does it Matter Where You Go to School? [Podcast]

Moving from tech expert to leader in your organization can be tricky. Scientists, engineers, developers, architects, and many other experts move into leadership positions every day. Many companies expect this transition to take place. But other companies do not see tech experts as leaders - just as tech experts. It is kind of a new "blue-collar" thinking. Either way, the transition is not always easy.



Leadership positions come in many flavors, but the first moves are often as team leaders - where you are still on the technical side of things but you lead the activity of your peers. Project management or product management is another common path toward higher leadership positions.



Over the last 20 years, I have been coaching people into leadership - usually out of tech positions. Most go rather smoothly once the new leader to-be understands the game. But too often, the tech leader resists the change and new responsibilities and fails to grow.



So in today's podcast, I am going to provide some observations from coaches who have helped tech experts makes the cut in leadership.

Moving from Tech Expert to Leader

Steps to move from tech exert to the leader.



* Make a decision

* Make it known

* Begin to learn

* Think like the leader now

* Be willing to let go



Click here to listen now.

Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed to my Company of One? If you’re not, I encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!

If you like what you hear, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast. I also love reading them and connecting with you. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!

Links mentioned in this episode:





156: How to Lead at Work When There is a Leadership Void

My Most Popular Podcast Episodes tell a story. The story is not about me, but more about you.

What topics catch your attention?

What are you most interested in hearing from me?

What are you struggling with?

Where do you want answers or insight?



My Most Popular Podcast Episodes

Below is a list of my most popular episodes. When I put them together by category I get this...



Topic #1 - Getting a job - 3 posts



Topic #2 - Excelling at work - 3 posts



Topic #3 - Productivity - 1 posts



Topic #4 - Starting a company - 2 posts



While this meets the Company of One mindset (you are all of these things) it is interesting that the tops are still about getting a job and some of the less popular are others about starting a company.



So where do we go from here? Email me at dale@dalecallahn.com or post to my Facebook. Would love to hear your thoughts?



http://www.dalecallahan.com/reverse-interview-questions/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/overcoming-the-fear-of-making-mistakes-at-work/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/how-to-conduct-a-reverse-interviewe-interview-a-guaranteed-method-to-find-a-job/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/115-need-business-license-podcast/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/how-to-read-a-book-in-30-minutes-or-less/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/064-4-common-mistakes-made-in-the-informational-interview-podcast/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/do-i-need-a-business-license-or-llc/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/067-how-to-be-happy-at-work-even-if-you-hate-your-job-podcast/



http://www.dalecallahan.com/059-five-ways-to-deal-with-office-politics-podcast/

Click here to listen now.

Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed to my Company of One? If you’re not, I encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!

If you like what you hear, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast. I also love reading them and connecting with you. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!