How to Manage Different Work Personality Types
Work personality types: there are a lot of them. I’m going to tell you a story about a young engineer. Once upon a time, this young engineer spent his work hours in an enclosed cubicle at an office where personal computers and scientific calculators were designed. He liked to work alone, preferring solitude over committees […]
5 Ways Effective Teams Run Daily Slack Standups
The massive popularity of Slack has turned daily Slack standup meetings into a must for teams who use the tool as their primary synchronous or asynchronous communication platform. It sounds easy enough, everyone gets on and updates Slack once a day to let the team know what they are working on. But, if you’ve done this for a […]
Daily Scrum: The Tools, Methods, and Tips To Pull Them Off Successfully
Wondering how to hold your daily scrum? What tool should you use? What method should you follow? There are a lot of options on the market; from email and messaging to video, and in-person meetings. Along with these options, you can find tools that are free, paid, or used for other needs in your business. […]
This Is How Managers Can Avoid Conflict In The Workplace
No one enjoys conflict in the workplace, least of all the managers who have to deal with it. Naturally, the best way to clean up the mess is through conflict prevention. As the saying goes “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” and prevention is the solution to workplace conflict. It’s a […]
The Biggest Time Wasters in Standup Meetings
I’ve been in some pretty lame standup meetings in my day. When I think back to what made them so ineffective, I can see one common denominator—wasting time. That’s really what most things come down to, isn’t it? “Am I gaining any value by being here?” If the answer is yes, we stay. If the […]
How to Manage Poor Work Performance & How To Improve It
One of my favorite things about what I do is having the opportunity to lead and manage others. I get to build teams, develop individuals, connect with people one-on-one, and coach them through key moments in their careers. But with the good comes the bad—and as a manager, it’s up to me to seek out […]
How To Manage Employee Burnout
It’s important to look for employee burnout signs. When employees get overstressed, all kinds of bad things can happen. They are more prone to make mistakes, become actively disengaged, and even face increased risks of serious health problems ranging from high blood pressure to depression. We know from the American Institute of Stress that 80% […]
Managing Remote Employees: 3 Steps to Improving Communication
The latest Gallup analysis is in, and it tells a rather interesting story for those managing remote employees. The State of the American Workplace study is filled with insights that indicate the benefits of remote work may be even greater than previously reported. “Gallup consistently has found that flexible scheduling and work-from-home opportunities play a […]
How To Avoid The Common Mistakes Of First-Time Managers
There are few things more overwhelming than the first time you experience the sudden responsibility of a group of employees. Whether you’re being promoted among your peers, entering a new organization in a leadership position or moving over to another department to lead a team, your first crack at this new level of authority is […]
Your Poor Communication Is Probably Killing Employee Productivity
Your communication strategy has a measurable impact on productivity. Do you have a plan for improvement in place? It’s easy to pay lip service to the importance of employee communication. The C-level suite and department heads can preach the virtues of keeping teams aligned with little effort, but eventually every organization faces the same question: is […]
How to Hold Better One-on-One Meetings: Tips from Respected Managers
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about managing teams, it’s this: For an entire team to succeed, the productivity and happiness of every individual matters. A lot. In fact, when it comes to reaching goals, many managers will tell you that an effective one-on-one meeting is far more important than daily status updates and water cooler conversations. […]
28 One-on-One Meeting Questions to Improve Communication in the Workplace
When successful, one-on-one meetings contribute to development opportunities for employees, building trust, and fostering important communication. So, we came up with “The List” of great one-on-one meeting questions. We have something for every situation. Some are best for pre-meeting questionnaires and others for the actual meeting. All of them are best kept in your back […]
How We Jell at Rackspace [Interview with Juan Montemayor]
The first thing you see on Rackspace’s website says everything you need to know about who the company is and what it offers. Trusted by the majority of the Fortune 100. A leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for cloud-enabled managed hosting. The largest managed cloud provider, offering you expertise across the world’s leading clouds. […]
The One-on-One Meeting: What Every Manager Should Know
Did you know that the top tech teams utilize one-on-one meetings? The senior manager of software development at Rackspace regularly blocks off time to sit down with each member of his team and see how things are going. So do managers at Dropbox, LinkedIn, and Atlassian. So does Ben Horowitz. Do you know which companies […]
How We Jell at Growthwise [Interview with Steph Hinds]
It’s not easy being accessible. Just ask Steph Hinds. As the Head Ninja at Growthwise, she’s built a successful company by making sure an entire team of accountants, advisors and administrators is consistently approachable and available—at all times, for every client, at virtually any hour and from any location. (Growthwise employees work in a flexible […]
Introducing Jell Reports: The Easy Way to Track Team Progress
One of the most important jobs of a manager is gathering information to better understand what’s happening inside the business. Jell’s been successful at helping teams improve their daily standups, but most companies are still mired in inefficient meetings and email threads — we know there’s a better way. Today we’re taking Jell a giant […]
How We Jell at Chargify [Interview with Adam Feber]
In our first installment of How We Jell, we talked to Jacob Krall of Fog Creek Software. Today we bring you more communication and collaboration insights from a team leader at another fast-growing company: Chargify… Adam Feber is an inspiration. O.K., so we might be a little biased. We’ve had a relationship with Chargify—first through […]
3 Slack Tips To Strengthen Team Communication
Gone are the days when you come back to work after a week-long vacation only to find your email’s inbox blown up. Fast forward to now; you log in to your Slack account, and you have dozens of @ mentions, thread replies, and private messages to catch up on. Slack replaced email because of its […]
How We Jell at Fog Creek [Interview with Jacob Krall]
If you follow today’s fastest-growing startups, you’ve probably read about Fog Creek Software in coveted media clips like this one from Fast Company. The most impressive part? The company is being featured not only for the success of its software, but also because of the practices and policies behind its development. Fog Creek, where tools […]