Life Back West

March 28, 2013June 3, 2019

Paging Sue Leeson: “You Can Do Better”

Sometimes the best thing you can do to help someone is a firm tap and playing a bit of a noodge.

The fact of the matter is that people seldom improve without some sort of feedback, and if you don’t help them with it, who do you think will?

I thought of noodge (or nudge) as I sent a note back to a coaching client asking them to rework their “lighthouse letter” – a product that asks exec coaching clients to put down in one page the conversation their grandkids/grandnieces – nephews would have if the now 100-year old client overhead them describing the client’s life.… Read the rest

March 25, 2013February 22, 2021

[Life Back West] March 2013 – Lessons from Uncle Ben

It’s been a bad calendar quarter for funerals (two too many) but a good 90 days for learning.

The metaphorical coin that carries what you’d like to keep on one side has something that you’d like to avoid on the other; learning from others while they’re living and learning from others after they’ve passed on seems like no exception.… Read the rest

March 21, 2013June 3, 2019

Job Hunting? Avoid that Job Title (Unless It’s a Really Good One)

The prospective client I met yesterday had a great set of skills, and an accomplished career.

The problem? Their type of job – and many of the ones like it – were going away as the industry contracted.

If you hang your hat on your job title, there’s not much left to hold on to when that type of job goes away, either due to technological change (think data entry specialists) or an industry consolidates and you’re trying to move to another sector where your skills are transferable..… Read the rest

March 12, 2013June 3, 2019

What’s the Secret to Being the “Right Candidate for the Job?”

It can be tough being a candidate, whether it be for a job or even one of those roles of a more public political variety.

Even if you’re seen as a slam dunk pick (think Hillary Clinton as the “inevitable choice” during the 2008 presidential campaign), things derail. The same is true of job candidates.

A client recently was being wooed by a firm until he thought they’d gone frosty on him; his hunch was that they’d decided he was really a “generalist” in background when they’d figured out they really wanted a “specialist.… Read the rest

February 21, 2013June 3, 2019

[RIP Scott Mader] The Life Well-Lived

We don’t usually get to pick how or when we die.

We can, with some work, grit and luck, pick the sort of life we live.

Scott Mader, who passed away this week at the age of 57, sure did; his story has lessons for all of us.

Earnest is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Scott; while he had lots of qualities (a dry sense of humor, funny smart, a real moral compass, etc.)… Read the rest

February 16, 2013June 3, 2019

Home of the Vikings

Going home can sometimes be “interesting,” even when it’s somebody else’s home you’re visiting.

That legacy visit was my treat as I caught an annual dose of Tigard High School boys basketball as the Tigers visited the Forest Grove Vikings last week. While I don’t think history books show Vikings making it to the Pacific Northwest (nor tigers either, but a least the alliterative play off the founding forefather Wilson Tigard in 1852 makes sense), it’s a fun moniker in the land of 9 months of gray, cold and rain.… Read the rest