Fred was livid with his performance appraisal. He had consistently been a strong project manager in his organization for several years, having received top-of-tier raises and bonuses from Gary, his previous manager. Earlier in the year he was reorganized into a new organization led by Janet, a seasoned and well-respected leader in the company. While Fred’s raise and bonus were respectable, he was not rated in the top tier of the organization. The two sat down to discuss his performance appraisal.

“Janet, this is the first time since working for this company I haven’t gotten an outstanding rating. I delivered everything on time, on budget, and within scope. Gary always gave me an outstanding rating and I did everything this year I’ve done in the past. What gives?”

“I’m glad we’re talking about this, Fred. Do you remember the discussion we had when you first joined my organization?”

“I do,” Fred said. “We talked about needing to be excellent in our delivery.”

“Yes, and what else did we talk about?”

“Thanks for meeting with me today,” Ann said as she sat down with Jim.

“Sure.”

“Jim, I’m starting up a new customer relationship management project and my boss suggested I talk to a couple of other project managers to get some lessons learned.”

“I’m happy to help. First off, on my last project we delivered our intended scope, came in under budget and ahead of schedule.”

“That’s impressive,” Ann said. “How did you do it?”

Jim went on for a about 30 minutes talking about what a success the project was, and how there was a lot Ann could learn from their project.

“That all sounds great,” Ann said. “If you had it to do all over again, would you do anything differently?”

Jim paused for a moment. “Well, our user representative wasn’t pulling his weight.” I would have demanded he be replaced.”

“So your lesson learned is about the user assigned to the project?”

“That’s right.”

“OK, thanks for the time, Jim,” Ann said as she got up and left.

“Something’s not quite right about this,” she thought as she went back to her desk. She decided to interview a couple of the leads on Jim’s project and got a different story. They told her how the project was in chaos from the beginning, how the claims of under-budget and ahead of schedule were only after management granted additional budget and schedule relief due to an unplanned overage and schedule slip, and that none of the leads would work with Jim again.

Brent was having a routine one-on-one with his boss Gail in her office. Over the six months since joining her organization, Brent noticed something different about Gail compared to his past bosses.

“Gail, can I ask you a question?” Brent asked.

“Certainly.”

“When you share your wisdom with others you are so transparent, even willing to admit when you were wrong about something. That’s very different from other bosses I’ve had. How did you get there?”

“Good question,” she said. “I learned a long time ago that wisdom is extremely valuable. Seeking and sharing it can make the difference between success and failure. Because I deeply care about not only my success but the success of others, I decided I needed to be willing to not just seek wisdom from others but candidly share my wisdom with others to improve their chances of success. I adopted what I call a wisdom steward mindset.”

“Wisdom steward?” he asked.

“Yes,” Gail said just as her phone beeped. She looked at the message. “Darn, I need to prep something for the board meeting in an hour. Can we continue the wisdom steward discussion at our one-on-one next week?”

“Sure,” Brent said.

“OK, see you later then.”

Brent got up and went back to his cubicle. “A wisdom steward?” he thought to himself as he sat in his chair.

This is part two of How an Autistic Child has Changed a Career…For the Better

In 2006 I wrote of Patty’s and my decision to homeschool our son Trevor to help provide a learning environment more conducive with his autism. It’s now twelve years later and time to write about how things worked out.

Trevor started seventh grade with a customized schooling plan. Patty focused on arts and language and I focused on math and science. He also attended a homeschool-assisted school which provided English and math classes and attended a science class at the middle school he would have normally attended. The curriculum plan was designed by Patty and me along with Trevor’s school counselor. It was a hybrid of homeschooling and traditional schooling which we felt gave Trevor the best likelihood of success. Trevor’s counselor was completely awesome in working with us and putting Trevor’s well-being first. The blended teaching worked very well in seventh grade, but we also noticed that Trevor wasn’t getting enough peer socialization. In eighth grade we decided to start the process of mainstreaming him back into the public-school system. Patty continued focus on arts and language and math and science topics were now being provided by Trevor’s middle school. I like to joke that I was fired as a homeschool teacher and that my wife and son did the firing. In reality the mainstreaming was the right answer because it allowed him to get needed socialization through spending more time at school while also giving him some additional 1:1 focus through homeschooling. In ninth grade we felt Trevor was ready to be fully mainstreamed into the public-school system. While we packed up our homeschool materials, our involvement with Trevor’s schooling and socialization growth was still strong.

In 7 Tips for Better 360-Feedback Evaluations, I discussed a situation where a non-profit leader whom I coached was reluctant to use 360-feedback evaluations due to an experience with a prior leader of the organization.

It was a textbook example of not only an unwillingness to improve based on feedback, but an unwillingness to even get feedback in the first place. The leader only underwent the 360 because the board he reported to required it. Those in the organization providing feedback insisted on it being anonymous, as they were concerned about retaliation from the leader.

An executive coach (not me) was assigned to administer the 360 process, gather the feedback through interviews, help distill the feedback, then present the feedback to the leader. The leader refused to accept the feedback and would not participate in any corrective action discussions.

The experience was so bad that even long after the leader had left the organization, those who remembered the process didn’t want to do it again with any other execs. Everyone lost, and the organization suffered as a result.
As someone who develops content intended for mass consumption, I am no stranger to feedback. Some feedback is positive, some more constructive. Some is helpful for taking action, while some falls into a vague “this stinks” bucket.

I get feedback from anonymous sources, as well as those as close to me (like my editor/wife, Patty). While I’ve learned to be better at accepting constructive feedback, sometimes it still hurts—particularly if it’s something that I’ve tried to address previously.

This part three of a three-part series on Mastering Credibility.  Part one is It's What You Know and part two is It's The Relationships You Build.

Bert was an associate at a premier management consulting firm.
Over the years he specialized in providing advice to senior management in information technology organizations.  Generally he had some pretty insightful ideas that many of the rank and file in the client organization viewed as a bit theoretical.  His advice was typically accompanied by general implementation timelines which client organizations rarely took verbatim.  Bert's advice usually culminated in some type of a Powerpoint presentation to the senior client management; then it was off to the next assignment.

For years Bert had been trying to get a foot into the door of Laner Robotics. 

This part two of a three-part series on Mastering Credibility.  Part one is It's What You Know and part three is It's How You Deliver Results.  

Ever since childhood, Mark had been known as an in-your-face competitor...

Whether it be in sports, in the classroom, or in relationships, he wasn't happy unless he beat someone else at whatever he was doing.  Being in competition to Mark meant that he was going to do whatever he could to ensure he won and that his competitor lost.  Those on his team loved his competitive spirit and encouraged it; those not on his team feared him.  His behavior was validated through the number of trophies and medals he received while growing up.

As an adult his competitive spirit didn't wane.  He became a feared negotiator in his company's purchasing organization and became known as a pompous ass who would stop at nothing to ensure that his suppliers were giving up as much as possible so his company could get a better deal.  Suppliers hated to deal with him, but his company was too big to ignore so they put up with him.

This is part one of a three-part series on Mastering Credibility.  Part two is It's The Relationships You Build and part three is It's How You Deliver Results.

Jeff was the quintessential schmoozer.
He was one of those guys who was the life of the party.  He could walk into any room and instantly be the one that everyone else focused on.  His charm, wit, and charisma was the envy of his friends and colleagues.  Being in his senior year of college, Jeff saw huge dollar signs in his future as a salesperson. Though he was an average student with average grades, Jeff felt that his ability to wine and dine customers was going to be his ticket to being a big-money salesperson. With his wit and charm, how could customers resist?

I recently stumbled upon a leadership trend called “conscious unbossing.” It caught my attention, not because I knew what it was and wanted to learn more, but because it was such an odd phrase that I couldn’t unsee it and had to find out what in the dickens it was.

Claude and Copilot gave me very similar definitions:

Conscious unbossing is the deliberate choice by talented professionals to opt out of—or step back from—leadership roles in favor of career paths that better align with their personal wellbeing, values, and definition of success.

Okay, I can buy this; a professional makes a conscious choice to not climb the ladder and organizationally lead others. Some were meant to be a thought leader and are more sustainably content than in a people-leader role.

Chasing a promotion because a professional thinks that’s what they’re supposed to do as opposed to what fits into their life doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen many professionals who opted to move into individual contributor (IC) roles because they wanted to have thought leader impact without the stress of being a people leader. The Claude/Copilot definition holds water in my book.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

I recently stumbled across Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report. One statistic jumped out to me: Global manager engagement has been consistently dropping from 31 percent in 2022, 30 percent in 2023, 27 percent in 2024, to 22 percent in 2025.

In plain English, this means in 2025, only 22 percent of managers surveyed were genuinely enthusiastic and invested in their work. The other 73 percent were coasting or entirely checked out. Individual contributor (IC) engagement has been roughly flat—20 percent in 2022, 18 percent in 2023 and 2024, and 19 percent in 2025.

Think about this for a minute. Less than 25 percent of managers and ICs jump out of bed each day fired up about their job. It’s also interesting to note that the engagement gap between managers and ICs has narrowed from a 10-percentage point difference in 2022 to just a three-percentage point difference in 2025.

On the bright side, among U.S. organizations, the 2025 manager engagement number is 36 percent, and in best practice organizations the number jumps to 79 percent. While these numbers are encouraging, it doesn’t mean there’s not a problem. Managers (including project managers) are responsible for translating an exec’s why and what into how. If managers aren’t engaged, then driving the how becomes more risky.

Taking the position that a professional, whether a manager or IC, needs to do whatever is in their power to improve their engagement, I’d like to give you five things to consider to improve engagement for both you and your team:

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.