Weekly Posts and Insights

Dealing With A Bully Boss
People Matthew Harrington People Matthew Harrington

Dealing With A Bully Boss

What makes a boss a bully?  I believe that bully bosses think very highly of themselves, in fact to a certain degree they believe they are the only ones with the correct answers.  Interestingly, this often shows up in mid-process, not in the beginning. Some will allow people to get started on a project or task, because they don’t fully know how to do it themselves.  They will often not participate in the development of ideas, but focus instead on critiquing ideas once they are generated. Others will berate staff for not having answers early enough in a project and will supply all the answers from the start.

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Crush Your Next Presentation With These 40 Tips
Leadership, People Matthew Harrington Leadership, People Matthew Harrington

Crush Your Next Presentation With These 40 Tips

You probably aren’t going to have to do a TED talk anytime soon in your near future.  However, we all have to present, communicate and convince other people. Asking for that salary raise? Discussing the new project with your team?  Needing to get buy in from stakeholders? Speaking in front of your board? This all requires crushing it during the presentation. Presentation skills, I believe, are one of the most undervalued, least taught, and difficult skill for many leaders to master. Here are 40 tips, hints and facts that I practice, use routinely and hope you find some help with: crushing your next presentation…

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I'm not always the best at being assertive, here are 7 Steps I learned to become more assertive
Leadership, People Matthew Harrington Leadership, People Matthew Harrington

I'm not always the best at being assertive, here are 7 Steps I learned to become more assertive

I have to be honest, and you may not believe me, but this is one of the hardest skills I am in the works of learning.  Perhaps it's my 8-person family, puritan upbringing, and as a middle child I just went along with what the group wanted, but assertiveness has never been a strength of mine.  I believe in a give, give, give, ask method of forward movement (in marketing, sales, strategy, people, etc.), however sometimes I recognize the ask has to come a little bit sooner.   Assertiveness is not being tough or arrogant.  It’s actually a very humble and thoughtful dance.  It is recognizing that we have value and we sometimes need to put up boundaries for others to recognize our value.  

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Stop Talking about Generations and Start Talking About Better People-Skills!
Leadership, People Matthew Harrington Leadership, People Matthew Harrington

Stop Talking about Generations and Start Talking About Better People-Skills!

My punch line at the end of most of my talks is, “we don’t have a Millennial problem, or even a generation problem, we have a people to people problem.” As the generation guy, I’m saying we need to stop talking about generations and start talking about empowering our workers (Boomers, Xers, Yers, all) to better handle people!

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Millennials with Matt Episode 7: Being the Right Cultural Fit for Millennials
Leadership, People Matthew Harrington Leadership, People Matthew Harrington

Millennials with Matt Episode 7: Being the Right Cultural Fit for Millennials

The workplace is needing to reimagine their organizational culture as the Millennial generation come with different expectations, approaches and lifestyles then previous generations.  Learn from generations specialist Matt Harrington about 3 areas to focus on when looking for the right cultural fit for your Millennial workers.

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XPollination (Ep. 18) - Special Guest Dan Schawbel LIVE from the #VTSHRM15 Conference
Culture, Leadership, People Matthew Harrington Culture, Leadership, People Matthew Harrington

XPollination (Ep. 18) - Special Guest Dan Schawbel LIVE from the #VTSHRM15 Conference

XPollination was asked by the conference committee at #VTSHRM15 to do an exclusive interview with nationally-renowned Millennial speaker, Dan Schawbel. Dan Schawbel is the Founder of WorkplaceTrends.com, a research and advisory membership service for forward-thinking HR professionals, as well as the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. Dan is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press) and the #1 international bestselling book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future

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XPollination (Ep. 17) - Millennial Women
Leadership, People, Culture Matthew Harrington Leadership, People, Culture Matthew Harrington

XPollination (Ep. 17) - Millennial Women

XPollination was live from the 15th Annual SHRM Vermont State Conference for this special edition of the podcast.  This year the conference is titled, HRevolution: Change Tomorrow Today.  What better way to talk about changing tomorrow today then to discuss the young, game-changing professionals themselves, the Millennials.  I’ll be presenting at this conference shortly after the podcast at 3pm, but I also noticed another group of individuals presenting on Millennials with a unique twist – and this obviously peaked my interest!  The two women I have joining me for XPollination are Jessica Sabick of Vermont Energy Investment Corp. and Lindsey Lathrop-Ryan of Change the Story VT, and both have just finished their presentation on Attracting and Retaining Millennial Women to Your Company. We'll take a deeper dive into their presentation and the topic of Millennial women.

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Millennials with Matt Episode 3: Growing Millennials' Careers With a Leadership Lattice
Leadership, People Matthew Harrington Leadership, People Matthew Harrington

Millennials with Matt Episode 3: Growing Millennials' Careers With a Leadership Lattice

A leadership lattice, unlike a leadership ladder, looks to expand a young professional's leadership capability by using a cross-section of many leadership opportunities both in and outside of work. Millennial expert Matt Harrington talks about how a good coach or manager is constantly building a leadership lattice with their Millennial workers to provide maximum retention and growth potential.

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