Dear Madeleine, I work for a scrappy startup that offers a system for weight loss and coaching. It’s for folks who need extra help losing and maintaining their weight and who want a healthier lifestyle. All of the interaction is over text, with some notes being automated to offer specific messages at different points in…
Dear Madeleine, I am sixty years old and really love my work. I have had a long and varied career and had hoped to get another decade in before retiring. The institution I worked for closed down for good last year because of COVID. Since then, I have sent out 72 cover letters and resumes.…
Dear Madeleine, I am a client services manager at a new cancer center in Lagos, Nigeria. I have just had my six-month appraisal with the CEO. Along with my responsibilities, I have been helping my CEO with her calendar and all other duties. During the appraisal, she said she wants me to be her executive…
Dear Madeleine, I just started what is probably the last decade of my career. I am settling into a new role after being promoted to an EVP spot that reports directly to the CEO. Sometimes I sit in my office at home—although at some point it will be a nice office on the executive floor—and…
Dear Madeleine, I am a director in a small company. My boss (a boomer) keeps mentioning that I need to develop my brand. I really don’t understand what she means. The more I learn about personal branding, the more it feels like something that can limit me. It also feels like kind of an old,…
Dear Madeleine, I manage a small team in a fast-growing area of a giant information security company. There is so much opportunity for my industry right now (have you seen the stuff about “Zoom-bombing” in the news? We stop that kind of thing). I have always been ambitious—and right now, during this crisis, I am…
Dear Madeleine, I am what’s called a “people leader”—I lead individual contributors at a global software giant. I am also a technical contributor as a subject matter expert in a specific application. I don’t love managing people. I am quite reserved and I find it tiring—but it is the only way to get ahead in…
During my time as a coach, I have often utilized SWOT analyses to help teams analyze their organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is a simple, user-friendly method to help a team or a board focus on key issues affecting their business. This type of analysis often can be used as a precursor to…
Dear Madeleine, I started my career in marketing and had some great jobs, but I really became interested in the people side of things after being trained in communication and working in teams. My graduate studies were in Organizational Development. I am still at the first job I was offered—in HR as a trainer—but I…
Hi Madeleine, Earlier this year I joined a consulting firm that works with companies in my previous industry. I had taken a break to get a management degree and got a taste of consulting doing an internship that was part of my program. I believed consulting would be a different world where I would learn…