People with good social skills can get along with almost anyone, and if you want to be successful in your career, you have to make people like you: Figure out what matters to them, what makes them tick, and then speak to that when you interact.
The key to being likeable is to be able to [...]

Just about every major business publication has run something about how diversity improves business performance. If you are on a diverse team, you'll probably have more success than if you're on a homogenous team. And, to some extent, we can each control the teams we're on.
For one thing, you should pick companies to work for [...]

Here's a piece in the Boston Globe about learning how to react constructively when someone makes offensive comments at work. In fact, the majority of people, it appears, will say nothing, even though a comment offends their sensibilities.
Decades of research into bystander apathy shows that people freeze when they are in a group. "In one [...]

I realized that managing Genertion Y requires a huge shift in thinking when I was giving career advice to my twenty-three year-old brother, Erik. He is a top recruit at a top investment-banking firm and he just got a promotion ahead of everyone else in his year.
And he's looking for a job. He fought very [...]

I had my baby last week. I’m tired. But not too tired to recognize management issues during labor. There were three management styles among the people who were in the delivery room:
1. The micromanager
That was me, ordering my husband around, even when the contractions were so strong that I couldn’t stand up. I’m sure he [...]

My brother Erik told me, "When I read one of your headlines that isn't about me, I don't read the column."
I usually think of Erik as a good example of my target audience: He loves the details of business, he's excited about his career, and he wants to be a billionaire. So for one, stupidity-filled [...]

First-time managers are generally nightmares to work for. They are people who got promoted by doing a non-management job well, and in fact they probably have little experience in management. Here are four of the mistakes that will undermine a new manager the fastest.
1. Focusing on tasks instead of people.
Before you were a manger, your [...]

I got a book deal. So this is, undoubtedly, the first of at least a hundred columns that will plug the book, which is not coming out until spring 2006. Far away, yes, but not too far for you to make a note in your planner: "Buy Penelope's book."
I got a big advance for the [...]

All managers have one, shared goal: Get a promotion. But many times, the job of a manger is so multifaceted and detail-laden that the manager loses site of that big picture. Here are five jobs of a manager that are often lost in the muddle of managing smaller, day-to-day issues.
1. Manage conflict
Avoiding conflict is for [...]

Your to do list is dragging you down. Why do tasks that do not inherently enhance the quality of your life when you could pay someone $10 and hour to do them? I learned this when my boss and I had our new computers set up at our homes. I stayed at home all day [...]

A meeting is a like a party. If you don’t plan it carefully you'll look incompetent and end up embarrassed. Forethought is necessary. You wouldn’t invite three ex-boyfriends to a game of Twister with your mom, and you wouldn’t plan a costume party without letting people know the theme in advance. While you might not [...]

Feeling stuck? Uninspired? As though your New Year’s resolutions have no spark? Maybe it’s time to start your own business. It's likely you intuitively know if you’re actually an entrepreneur stuffed in a corporate cubicle. The entrepreneurship bug isn't something that hits in middle age. It's something that’s inside you from day one – a [...]

Learning to be a good manager requires that you perform a wide range of tasks from delegating, to coaching, to planning. When none of these go well, you need to perform the final task: Firing. Letting someone go is very difficult for most people – our instinct is to want to help people, or at [...]

Couples therapy: My husband is slumped at the edge of the sofa, sulking. I sit in the center cushion, upright and animated, ranting about why he needs to get rid of his bike.
The therapist tells me to be quiet, but in a couples-therapist way: "Let's give him a chance to talk about the bike." He [...]

Success in the workplace depends on being a good time manager, because it doesn’t matter how good you are at your job if you never have time to do it. Here are the four most important steps you can take to end that feeling that you “can’t get everything done".
Prioritize ruthlessly
Most people who are too [...]

The current business climate encourages rule breakers. Not the kind at Enron – those are law breakers. Rule breakers break with convention. Sallie Krawcheck, for example, was a top stock analyst in the 90s. She could have gone to a big investment firm where the heavy-hitters gave stock advice that, in hindsight, seems to have [...]

Good decision-makers are good information-gatherers, but in the end, they trust their gut.
When a few people were infected with SARS from skinning frogs alive or working among chicken carcasses, China might have contained the problem. Instead, China made a very bad decision to cover up the disease.
In hindsight, it’s easy to say which problems are [...]

I get a lot of email from people who are 50 years old and older and never expected to be unemployed at this stage in their career. Many of these people are annoyed that they are not appreciated for how much they know. Others are bitter, angry or indignant. Often times, these complaints come down [...]

Here’s the worst performance review I ever received: “You were great." The review was via email, and when I commented on its brevity, my boss said the “outrageous Internet salary" he gave me was testament to how much he wanted to keep me.
Apparently he did not know that survey after survey has shown that salary [...]