The Corporate Middle

This is a special episode as it is the introduction to my new book "Surrounded by Insanity: How to Execute Bad Decisions" 

It is Available now on Amazon. It is a middle manager's guide on how to survive and thrive in large corporations.

The truth is we all feel like we are surrounded by Insanity.

Your career is often at the mercy of other people’s decisions. No matter how hard you work, it can feel like you’re fighting a losing battle when you’re tasked with implementing ideas you know are doomed to fail. While it’s true you can’t control the stupid people who force these decisions on you, you can execute their bad ideas without ruining your career.

Setting project deadlines is always a perilous task. In this short episode, I will give you a few quick tips that can help you navigate this difficult situation. 

1. Never open your mouth without all the details. 

2. Always have two timelines ready 

3. Over-communicate like crazy 

4. Don't sweat it too much, all deadlines are made up anyway. 

How to have work-life balance. Everyone seems to want to answer that question, but is there a consequence for pursuing work-life balance? Will your career be impacted? YES, but that's okay. 

The research keeps saying your team needs Psychological safety to be high performing.  Heres the problem, as a middle manager you don't have much control over the culture of your company. How do you make your team high performing without it? There are a few things you can do that we will talk about in this episode. 

Everyone likes to talk and boast about their company culture but the truth is only two things actually matter. What do you Measure and Reward? These two things actually determine what your company culture is like and determine what your team will focus on. 

How do you manage someone older than you? This is a tough question to answer when you are a new manager. You must learn to throw your stereotypes out the window and not worry about it. You probably care more about age than they do. Treating people like individuals is the only way to figure it out. 

On this short episode we will tackle how to give negative feedback to someone on your team. During performance reviews you have to give proper feedback that is both timely and corrective. 

The Harsh truth is your boss does not really care about you or your career. You have to learn how to understand what your boss does care about to be successful. 

Dont give in to workday inflation! Focus on working as few hours as possible and make those hours count. 

Middle Managers, Don't waste your time on low performers! The secret to management is spending your time effectively.