Today we’ll be talking about the questions that can be useful during a first meeting with a boss. This is your chance to determine what your boss’s expectations of you are, what criteria he will use to measure your success, and what is most important to your boss. This is also the perfect time to clarify job responsibilities, as well as things like work hours, dress code, and expense reporting. For the boss, this is an opportunity to understand how to motivate and communicate with the new hire.

Today’s guest is Bruce Tulgan of Rainmaker Thinking. Today we talk about how to be indispensable at work. Bruce defines indispensability: to whom should you seek to be indispensable, and how to be indispensable while maintaining a work/life balance (or, as I like to call it, work/life blend). Bruce talks about his extensive research in this area, and the key takeaways you can use to become indispensable at work.

This week, I have return guest Bruce Tulgan with me. We are talking about the unique challenges of managing, and being managed, remotely. With so many companies working from home at least part of the time, this is a particularly relevant topic.

Today’s podcast is based heavily on the getlighthouse.com blog, specifically the blog titled “18 Questions to Ask Your Manager to Improve Your Relationship and Better Manage Up.” Whether you are trying to improve your relationship with your manager from bad to okay, okay to good, or good to great, you can work with your manager to improve your relationship and make work much more enjoyable for both of you.

For this episode, I leaned heavily on the article “7 Essential Tips for Effective 1 on 1 Meetings with Your Manager” from the getlighthouse.com blog. In a perfect world, 1:1 meetings with your boss should be something you have regularly, and actually look forward to. Done well, effective 1:1 meetings are an opportunity for feedback, coaching, relationship-building, & goal-setting. Here are some tips on how to have a more successful 1:1 with your boss.

Today, my guest is Carson Tate of workingsimply.com, and we’re talking about our work relationships. Carson is an employee engagement expert, and we talk about why relationships at work are so important. She also gives us tips for re-engaging with our coworkers now that many of us are going back in the office.

Through various groups I belong to and sites I visit regularly, there is a lot of talk about being in a “toxic work environment.” Today, I want to drill down on what actually constitutes a toxic work environment and what to do if you are in one. I also want to talk about what isn’t a toxic work environment and how to manage these situations.

My guest this week is Mark Herschberg, and we’re talking about How to Manage People You Don’t Manage. This is a particularly important topic in light of the changes we’re seeing as corporations respond to COVID. Mark talks about the unique challenges of managing people you don’t manage and gives us tips for leading by influence.

My guest today is Marina Kirik, and we’re talking about stress and fatigue around the changes to our work environments due to the pandemic. Marina explains some of the unique challenges of work-from-home, work-in-office, and hybrid arrangements, and gives us strategies for coping with the stress around each. Marina also shares ideas for keeping the healthy habits many of us have adopted during the pandemic as we return to work or see other changes in our work situations.