Articles for category: Leadership

February 19, 2016

Greg Thomas

Waiting to be asked is an Excuse

“But you didn’t ask me about THAT.” To which my answer always is – “Did I ask you how you got here?” No. The best updates in any meeting, on any project are the ones that come voluntarily and don’t wait for the meeting to happen to volunteer them.  They are the ones that provide the most impact and make you think – “huh we probably don’t need that meeting, so let’s cancel it and keep going”. But the meetings where people are only willing to offer up information when asked about a certain subject?  Yeah, those are the ones,

February 18, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Doomsayer

I love the Doomsayer. This will never work. Nope, when this goes out to the customer it will blow up in their faces. You can’t do that, the API doesn’t work that way. We will have to update everything if you make that change. This is going to blow up in our faces. Everything is always a mountain instead of a mole hill, everything is always going to be so hard that it’ll bring the world to its knees.  No matter what we do will fail. I love it, love it – pushes me to try even harder and prove

February 16, 2016

Greg Thomas

Do you want to break out?

Looking for that next pay hike? Want to make a leap into a new position? Doing what you’ve always done for the last few years? Still don’t see where I’m going with this? Look around at the people that have taken a leap and gone past you.   Was their skillset so different than yours?  (You’re in the same organization, so doubtful) Were they that much more likeable than you? (I can’t answer that) Did they sit back and wait for something to happen? (Apparently not) So how did they break out? If I was to hazard a quick guess,

February 15, 2016

Greg Thomas

Leadership when the Waters are Rough

It is very easy to Lead when costs are low, profits are high, everyone’s happy, the world is a glorious place to live in, etc, etc. It is a whole other “thing” to Lead when everyone is unhappy, costs are on the rise, uncertainty is at a record high and nothing is going your way. The really, really good leaders, can lead the same way in times of good and in times of bad.  They can lead as if the bad times ARE the good and no one should be the wiser. They don’t make excuses for what is going wrong

February 11, 2016

Greg Thomas

It’s not the Tools

I can’t do this without new Tool x. If only we had this software everything would be perfect. After a practice, where I felt like I fell 10 times on the ice, I went to get changed thinking my skates MUST be dull – it can’t be me – I could not have been THAT bad. Turns out the skates were fine, both edges were sharp, but the skater was dull 🙂 It’s so easy to go to a conference or watch a video on YouTube and think “YES” – the answer to our problems, by that piece of software

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