New episodes every Monday.

Episodes

Nov. 27, 2023

Progress Report - MAC022 - MAC027

As always, it's good to periodically look back and review your accomplishments and progress. So, every few episodes, we take a look back and call out the highlights of the recent episodes. In I cover how I evaluate candidates for...

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Nov. 20, 2023

Knowing Your Worth - MAC027

When most people think about providing a status on their work, they usually think in terms of completed tasks. At some level, this is relevant to ensure that projects remain on time. But if you'd like to set yourself apart …

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Nov. 13, 2023

Should you be promoted? - MAC026

As we approach the end of the calendar year, it's the time of year when many employees are evaluated against their goals and considered for merit increases and potentially promotions. Have you positioned yourself to be one of the ones …

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Nov. 6, 2023

Who is driving your career? - MAC025

Today, we're tackling a question that's crucial for everyone navigating the professional landscape: how much faster does your career progress if you actively own it instead of waiting for your career to happen to you? To truly grasp the impact...

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Oct. 30, 2023

Preparing for the end of the year - MAC024

For many companies, the end of the year is a time when employees have their annual reviews. Today, we'll talk about the things you can do with what's left of the year to prepare. Review your incomplete goals. Start by …

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Oct. 23, 2023

Can you be successful working remotely? - MAC023

During a recent one-on-one with a member of my team, the question came up as to whether someone can be successful when working remote. I'll start with the answer. Yes…..assuming your work can actually be done somewhere other than the...

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Oct. 16, 2023

Interviewing Candidates - MAC022

If you are in any of the LinkedIn groups related to your profession, you've likely come across posts that list questions and answers that are core to your field. These are the types of questions I would expect to see …

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Oct. 9, 2023

Progress Report - MAC015 to MAC020

These past six episodes have covered a lot of good content. Have you spent any time implementing the ideas in your career? was about how some people default to Ask mode where they will ask for everything expecting to get …

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Oct. 2, 2023

Reorganizations - MAC020

If you're listening to this podcast in real time, the calendar has just flipped to October. This is often when discussions begin within a company that a reorganization (often shortened to "reorg") might be necessary. Many reorgs take...

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Sept. 25, 2023

Work / Life Balance - MAC019

This week, we take a break from looking at career advancement and we focus on the "life" side of the work/life balance equation. While everyone has a different idea of what their non-work life should look like, ensuring that you …

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Sept. 18, 2023

Selling Yourself - MAC018

As I covered in last week's episode on the , you may eventually reach a point in your career where the next rung has a limited number of opportunities to progress. In , I talked about how luck is when …

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Sept. 11, 2023

The Corporate Ladder - MAC017

For the majority of people, their career is going to last somewhere in the ballpark of forty years depending on when they start and when they decide to retire. While there are no hard and fast rules about how your …

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Sept. 4, 2023

What does it mean to be a leader? - MAC016

When your career begins, your key responsibilities are to do your tasks and to grow your skills. With enough time, this is often sufficient to justify a promotion. However, as you reach higher career levels, there comes with it, the...

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Aug. 28, 2023

Ask vs Guess - MAC015

The other day, I was reading a series of articles by on Substack (link to ). These articles outline how ask-culture and guess-culture can clash at work and how to navigate the differences. Ask Culture is when members of the …

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Aug. 21, 2023

Progress report MAC008-MAC013

As with any career, it's important to periodically check your progress. Since this podcast started you should have held at least two career development discussions with your leader. Hopefully you're making the most of these session and...

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Aug. 14, 2023

A Little Bit of Luck - MAC013

The Roman philosopher Seneca has a quote about how luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. When it comes to your career, this is so very true. If you spend your time waiting for an advancement to fall into your lap, …

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Aug. 7, 2023

Receiving Effective Feedback - MAC012

I was inspired to cover this topic by a post that I saw on LinkedIn by . In that post, she listed . This was a good follow-up to my previous episode on how to structure your one-on-one. One topic …

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July 31, 2023

How to structure your one-on-ones - MAC011

An important aspect of managing your career is having regular conversations with your manager about your career goals and performance. What does a GOOD career development one-on-one look like? First, when discussing timing, I think that...

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July 24, 2023

What sort of leader are you? - MAC010

If you imagine a medieval battlefield there were four main groups involved in the fighting. There were the mele fighters who were the front lines -- the men carrying swords and spears or other similar weapons. There was also the …

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July 17, 2023

Should I transition to management - MAC009

So, the answer on how to choose a future career path is…..it depends. It depends on you and your desires and it depends on the company you work for. So, obviously, "it depends" isn't a very useful answer. So let's …

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July 10, 2023

The Five Recognition Languages - MAC008

So, the company I work for has an annual employee survey and my results recently came out. In most areas, I score well, over 90% positive. But one question that I have consistently scored between 80 and 85% favorable (for …

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July 3, 2023

Progress Report - MAC001 to MAC006

In , I talked about how you should be looking for opportunities to increase the scope and impact of the work that you perform. Delegating and automating process driven tasks and soliciting for work that involves more discretion and judgement. …

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June 26, 2023

Is your work Important? Is it Urgent? - MAC006

Based on the lead quote, Stephen Covey popularized the concept of the "Eisenhower Decisions Matrix" in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The basic premise is that you should rank the things you need to do based …

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June 19, 2023

Documenting Your Work - MAC005

One of the things that I often tell my team is "if you're the only one who can, you're the one who always will". What I mean by that is that if you're a single point of knowledge, as a …

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