By Alice Waagen, PhD

Over the years, my goals have provided focus and direction to my management training business.

For instance, last July, I wrote in my newsletter about attending Penland School of Crafts for a two-week drawing course. Entitled, The Benefits of Taking a Break, it struck a chord with many of my colleagues, who called after reading it.

They were eager to learn how on earth I stumbled onto that experience—and how I was able to make the big decision to check out and go into the woods to draw for two weeks.

I told them that this trip was actually one of my goals—30 years ago when I was in graduate school and learned about these wonderful summer art schools.

Yes, I made a goal, more of a commitment to myself than a fixed goal, that someday I would attend one of these schools.

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By Alice Waagen
Workforce Learning

When it comes to setting goals, no one is better at helping us all get on task than a life coach. I recently met Amy Steindler of Annapolis, whose company, InsightOut Life, is helping dozens of professionals get on track so they can have the lives they want in 2012 and beyond.

We talked to her about how she came to become a life coach, how she sets goals, and how she helps others set and stick to theirs.

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By Dr. Alice Waagen

In my experience, career discussions are onerous for managers because many of these talks become contentious. The reasons why are complex, but essentially the conflict arises from misguided expectations and poor communication from both the employee and manager. I believe there are three reasons for the disconnect.

The Fallacies:

1. Career success means continuous vertical progression with advancement occurring every few years.

2. Employees believe it is the managers’ job to find the next opportunity for each member of the staff.

3. Managers are responsible for advancing all members of their staff to the next level.

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Alice Waagen: Chris, you are an entrepreneur who left the corporate world to found a meeting and event planning firm. As a person who finds planning an annual family vacation overwhelming, I have to ask: why do you love this work?

Chris Noyes: Quite honestly, I love the adrenaline rush. I love spending months working out the details of every aspect of a conference, big meeting, or convention. Then, after two or three days of intense craziness, it is all over. The thrill of it never gets old.

Alice Waagen: It sounds like to be good in your business, you need to be great at focusing on the little details and the big picture.

Chris Noyes: You bet. When I describe what I do, I say that to be good at this business you need to be part lawyer to understand dense and complicated contracts, and part stage manager, because you are constantly pulling together a variety of players to make the event work. And honestly, any event planner who says their conferences go off without a hitch is lying. What you really are doing is trying to get everything to flow as best as you can so that at the end of the day the client is happy.

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To the right, you’ll see a photo of Susan Nichols, the Lunder Education Chair at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She uses videoconferencing equipment to connect with students around the country and the world.

The work that she and others at SAAM do was so intriguing to me that I gave up much of my time this fall to become a docent. It wasn’t easy. Having been a management-skills teacher for so many years and being used to teaching an adult audience, I was pretty rusty on the ins and outs of art appreciation.

Mind you, I have not participated in a semester-long learning program in more years than I can remember. The experience of intensive learning this fall really opened my eyes to some fundamental issues of being a lifelong learner.

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When organizational leaders are looking to fill a staff vacancy, I suggest that they start by creating an organizational staffing or resource plan.

I prefer to call this plan an “organizational resource strategy,” because many organizations are achieving work goals by using a wide variety of staffing options, including full-time staff, temporary workers, contractors, vendors, consultants, interns, fellows — the list goes on.

Certain tasks may be better performed by outsourcing to other providers, while other needs should clearly be handled by internal staff members. Successful businesses can achieve their mission by taking an analytical, yet creative, approach to achieving their goals. The key is to maximize flexibility and efficiency.

Click inside to learn the six essential steps for creating an organizational resource strategy for your business.

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I recently had the privilege of interviewing entrepreneur Gina Schaefer, the owner of a chain of ACE Hardware stores throughout Washington, DC.

She and her husband, Marc Friedman, stand at the helm of an $11 million company. They opened their seventh store last spring — a 7,500-square-foot space at 7001 Carroll Avenue in Takoma Park, Maryland, just outside DC.

How did Schaefer get into the hardware business, and why does she hope her employees will move on? Click “Read More” to find out.

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I have been teaching management skills for most of my professional career, and I consider it the most difficult job any professional can undertake. Here’s why:

1. Half a century ago, most of the work being done inside a corporation or government organization was routine and predictable. Peter Drucker’s 1954 hit, The Practice of Management, was the seminal book of the era, and in it he coined the term management by objectives (MBO). Despite considerable change in the workforce, nearly six decades later, we are still creating performance management systems that are based on MBO philosophy.

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Author of The Essential Performance Review Handbook

Although performance reviews are actually less popular than a trip to the dentist for most supervisors (see that study below), it’s not supposed to be this way. That’s why HR expert Sharon Armstrong wrote, The Essential Performance Review Handbook, published last month by Career Press.

Sharon’s goal is to help take the pain out of the performance review process, and as any manager and business owner knows — that’s a wonderful idea. Below you’ll find a Q&A with Sharon, where you’ll find ideas on how to master this important task.

Alice Waagen: Tell us about your new book and what you hope readers will take away from it.

Sharon Armstrong: I do my best in the book to provide advice on how to make the performance review process productive, painless, and effective.

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The 1990’s love affair with Total Quality Management (TQM) empowered work teams, process improvement, and other business buzzwords killed the professional manager.

Organizations flattened themselves, removing layers of managers, while distributing their responsibilities to key individual contributors.

This new breed of manager retained its full individual contributor duties while picking up the job of overseeing the work of staff.

This concept of “working managers” permeates organizations today and has resulted, in my humble opinion, in a poorly run, overly stressed mess.

Nearly two decades later, we are still reaping the fruits of this flawed logic.

In most organizations, managers have a full plate of their own work to produce, while overseeing the work and assignments of staff.

And how does this really work? It is quite simple: The performance plans which guide a manager’s personal allocation of time and attention are chock full of his or her individual goals with scant mention of the management responsibilities.

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“Ladies, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — we’ve come a long way and at this point, there is nothing standing in your way,” says recruiter Paige Rhodes of the DC firm Rhodes & Weinstock. “Forget the glass ceiling — the sky is the limit.”

I couldn’t agree more. See my Q&A with Paige below.

Alice Waagen: Does June Cleaver still exist?

Paige Rhodes: Yes, June Cleaver may still exist, and that role model is great for those who choose to follow it. But from my experience placing women in positions from CEO and chief financial officer to president of the board, I’m here to tell you that opportunities abound for smart, driven women.

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In my work and in life I am a huge proponent of strategically planning personal development. By planning, I mean more than just attending a sporadic conference or seminar. I advocate writing a clear and succinct development goal, which should be future oriented and closely linked with your business goals.

Consider Caroline Lucas (pictured right). Caroline is the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, and a Member of the European Parliament for the South East England region. Along with Jean Lambert she is one of two Green MEPs from the UK, a post she has held since 1999.

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