Keeping an open mind

Microscope

One of the most important lessons I learned from working for Dr. P. Michael Conn for nearly two decades was the value of pursuing a goal while being open to opportunities outside of that goal.

Dr. Conn was a scientist who performed basic (vs. clinical research) which means he looked at science on a cellular level. He studied the literature, developed hypotheses and his lab performed experiments to test these hypotheses. Every morning he met with his primary collaborator, the woman who ran his lab, to discuss the lab’s previous day’s work and what the day’s focus would be. Every day he reviewed and analyzed information. Continue reading

What does it mean to be a connector?

Stack of open booksWhile I didn’t realize it at the time, I began my career as a connector when I started working as manuscript coordinator for Endocrinology and later as the managing editor for international peer-review medical journal, Endocrine. In order for scientific discovery to move forward, scientists perform experiments, write up the results which they submit to a peer-review journal so that other people in the same field of study can review their work. Continue reading

Your clients don’t care

Keep cool and keep clients happyYour clients don’t care if…

…you’re having a bad day.

…you don’t feel well.

…your car breaks down.

…your computer is acting up.

…you don’t feel like working.

Your clients hired you to do a job. They only care about the outcome. Do the job you said you would do in the timeframe you said you’d do it. 

Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses. You signed up for this.

Shake off everything else and hunker down and get it done.

No excuses.

How do you know if your clients are happy?

smiley face with thumb's upThe answer is pretty easy, really. Ask them.

A lot of business owners, freelancers, executives and consultants make the mistake of assuming that if they don’t hear anything to the contrary, that people they are working with are happy with the status quo. That’s not necessarily true.

People don’t speak up for many reasons: Continue reading

Setting the atmosphere for conversations

folded pink robeToday I made my annual trek to the Ruth J. Spear Breast Center for my mammogram to have my chicken cutlets compressed to the width of my iPad. While I understand it’s a first world problem, I wonder, as I do every year, why the sum total diagnosis of a woman’s health is settled by reviewing photographs of her smashed breasts and cells scraped from her vagina. But I digress.

While waiting for my technician I made two observations: Continue reading

There are no shortcuts to relationships

Cover of "The Slight Edge"

Cover of The Slight Edge

Over the past two weeks I’ve twice offered to connect people to individuals they could have benefitted from knowing. And who could have benefitted from knowing them. But, alas, it didn’t happen.

Let me explain why.

In both cases I offered to facilitate an introduction. I next reached out to the person with whom I was connecting them via email or Facebook message to ask permission to make the introduction. But, get this: before I had time to send the email requesting permission, the other people’s agent / hired gun marketer forged ahead and contacted my friend. And not in a gentle way. More like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

Needless to say, this didn’t go over well. Or, as the Germans say, didn’t go down well. The pushy, demanding emails were ignored and both individuals have, mostly likely, indefinitely burned bridges. Continue reading

What I learned about indirect communication at the Main Cafe

Ours was the third booth from the back on the left. A young widow with two preschoolers, my young mother had no propensity for preparing balanced dinners for toddlers at home. The chicken fried steak and meatloaf meals that Harold prepared were so generous–and at $1.29, so well priced–that my thrifty mother ordered a single meal which we shared. My earliest memories of dinner were served by Harold’s brother Jim or Jim’s wife Ruth at the Main Cafe. Continue reading

Your customers are going to lie to you

White crafty flowersThere are two reasons I didn’t go out on a date until I was 20. 1. My parents wouldn’t allow it and 2. The pool of eligible men was miniscule. But make no mistake: reason number one trumped reason number two, rendering it null and void.

Of course, that didn’t stop guys from asking me out. Not many, but there were a few. And do you know what I told them? Continue reading

Coaching 101: Guidelines for working with new clients

Jack of diamondsI’ll never forget the first time I sat down at my future in-laws’ kitchen table intent on learning how to play euchre. My (future) husband launched into a monologue about a new world order in the land of playing cards where jacks, renamed bowers, were the highest-ranking cards. The “right” bower was the jack of trump. The “left” was the other jack of the same color…

And he lost me. If I am to be perfectly honest, I contemplated feigning food poisoning after the second sentence.

You can change the order of cards?! The highest card changes depending on trump?! {whatever that is} So how often and when does trump change? Continue reading

It’s gotta make sense

Breaking NewsYou’ve seen it. The recent U of O journalism grad reporting “breaking news” at 11:00 from remote, long-since-deserted shooting locations. Shattered glass was swept up hours ago. Since the witnesses have tucked into their dinners, and probably even their beds, there’s no one to interview. Even the reporter appears clueless as to why she’s here.

Viewers aren’t fooled. Reporting from a location long after the fact doesn’t give credence to a news report. It’s just gimmicky reporting.

On the other hand, Today’s Savannah Guthrie reported from Charlotte this morning because reporting from this location, vs. the studio in New York City, is relevant. She’s in Charlotte to prepare for tonight’s opening of the Democrat’s Convention. Her producer wisely used Guthrie’s early arrival as an opportunity for her to interview Democratic contender Elizabeth Warren on the state of the economy.