Liz Trocchio Smith
Certified Executive Business Coach
and Trusted Advisor
Get “Monday Morning Coffee with Liz”
direct to your in-box every Monday Morning with tips on what it takes to be a great leader
You can’t do deep, creative work when meetings constantly disrupt your flow and hurt your productivity. To give yourself time and space to focus, have one day a week when nothing can interrupt you — no texts, no emails, no phone calls, and absolutely no meetings. Block this day off on your calendar, and tell colleagues that you’ll be unreachable because you’re working on critical projects. Of course, something urgent…
Everyone knows it’s important to build a network. But once you’ve made a connection with someone, how do you maintain it over the long haul so that you can call the person when you need a job reference or a professional favor? The first step is to determine whom you want to stay in touch with based on their professional value and relevance to your career. Look for current and…
Managing egos, the over and under-inflated, the forceful and the fragile – is one of the great challenges facing any leader. It is a crucial task, however, if a group is going to have a fighting chance to succeed, to become a true team rather than a collection of individuals – lone wolves – each looking out for him or herself rather than the “pack”, leadership must get those individuals…
Many leaders have a fatal flaw: a weakness so pronounced that it can hamper their career progress. But this type of flaw is hard to see because it’s usually connected to what you don’t do — it’s the listening you didn’t make time for, or the strategic vision it never occurred to you to describe. To figure out your fatal flaw, find someone who will tell you the unvarnished truth….
No one likes to make a bad decision. Maybe you hired the wrong person, took a job that wasn’t a good fit, or launched a new product that no one seems to want. When you realize that you made a mistake, act fast. It’s far better for your career to accept the loss now, rather than dragging it out and wasting even more resources. Think carefully about how you might…
Whether they happen weekly, monthly, or quarterly (or even daily), recurring meetings are often a waste of time. To know whether yours are worth keeping, consider a few factors. First, make sure the meeting has a clearly articulated reason to exist. Ask yourself, “If we canceled this meeting, who besides me would care?” Second, determine the right cadence. It may seem obvious, but a meeting’s frequency and length must align…
Don’t you think it’s about time we get back to allowing conversation to occur? Texting, emailing, browsing, Tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming (I’d include Snapchat, but I really just don’t get it!) is all good and well, but can we just talk? The bigger need is just for more live conversations to occur, period. This is especially true when people are trying to resolve a conflict or communicate an important business…
When you’re trying to come up with a creative solution to a problem, you might be tempted to buckle down and focus until you solve it. But recent research shows that taking breaks at regular intervals leads to better outcomes. Set a timer for a certain amount of time, say, 30 minutes. When it goes off, switch tasks: Organize your reimbursement receipts, check your email, or clean your desk, and…
It’s important to encourage your employees to take time off. Make it clear to them that this is a business issue — not just a personal one. Use a few minutes in a team meeting to share some of the research on the benefits of vacation, such as higher productivity and less stress. Then keep track of how many vacation days employees have taken, and periodically update the team so…
As a manager, one of your greatest concerns is how to motivate your employees to do their best work. But how often do you think about what makes you excited to come to work every day? Take a moment to check in with how you’re feeling about your job. When do you feel proud of leading your team? What aspects of your role do you enjoy? How can you increase…
Many of us know the benefits of delegation: It helps teams share the workload so that managers focus on the work only they can do. But in reality, you (like most managers) probably hoard tasks and become a bottleneck. To fix that, start with baby steps. Ask yourself regularly, even daily: “What can I, and only I, do?” If a certain task could be done by someone else, maybe it…