Dear Madeleine, I am the GM for a small brewery that has been shut down during the COVID-19 crisis as non-essential. However, the owner believes it is still worthwhile to stay open to serve take-out customers, which is allowed according to the shutdown rules. Because I am the GM, I have been designated as the…
Do you ever wonder why you reach some goals easily and struggle with others? In her latest book, Master Your Motivation, Susan Fowler explains the three scientific truths behind motivation that will help you achieve your goals. Distilling many years of research, Fowler fashioned a condensed description of three basic needs we must create in…
Dear Madeleine, I run a very lean team and one of my people is a hypochondriac. Every week there is a new reason he needs to go to the doctor. Any cold that comes through he gets, and it is worse for him than for anybody else. He gets the flu every year. It is…
Dear Madeleine, I am smart, I work hard, and I am a pleaser. These qualities have made me very successful. I am now a senior manager in a fast-paced, high-pressure service business. My problem is that I have created a monster in my boss. She is so used to my pleasing perfection that she pretty…
Dear Madeleine, I work in a very matrixed organization. My actual boss works remotely and I seldom interact with him one-on-one, but we have a team lead on every project. In my work group, we all work on different projects as they come in. One of my peers in another group is causing real problems…
Hi Madeleine, I have been working for over 15 years in my field and have moved up the ranks. In my last role I was a manager. Six months ago, I left my old job and moved to a company that had a small team where I was given a supervisor/team lead title that was…
Dear Madeleine, I work as a training manager in a large organization. Two years ago my boss was let go. Since then, I have been doing both her job and my old job. I like my current boss (formerly my boss’s boss) but it’s obvious that he is fine with the existing situation. I’m not—and…
Dear Madeleine, I got a new boss about six months ago and I have been watching and waiting to see how he is going to pan out. So far, so good, I think—except for one thing that is really burning my toast. Literally the first thing he did was to put a stop to all…
Dear Madeleine, I am a university student who moved to the U.S. from India about 7 years ago. I recently completed an internship for a 1500-person company in which the CEO wanted to have more diversity. In retrospect, I can see the company offered me the internship in part to show that they were focused…
Dear Madeleine, I work with a large team and I am getting overwhelmed by the number of requests to donate to different causes. I am one of the few people on the team without kids, and I have never asked my coworkers to donate to causes I support. But I am barraged by requests to…