I’ve often heard managers say to employees that they expect them to go above and beyond their job descriptions.  Even most performance review forms have a category labeled “Exceeds Expectations.” As managers, we all know that the standout employee does just that; not content to just satisfy requirements these people see wider or dig deeper or broaden the context of an assignment creatively.  As I became a new manager, we looked for employees who “took initiative.”  I was great at taking initiative, seeing ways to expand assignments that allowed for a better execution or for the results to have a more far-reaching impact.  As I grew in business knowledge and managerial experience, I got better at making the decisions that allowed…

I write this essay to honor my friend Dan, another friend who died recently, and another friend whom I met at work.  To describe my friendship with Dan I first have to describe my relationship with myself at that time of my life: I was self-conscious, believed I was not good enough, acutely aware that I was the first person in my family to go to college and every day felt unworthy.  And Dan was part of the family who controlled The New York Times.  He scared me.  To be truthful everybody scared me, but few more than Dan.  He was brash and direct and funny and biting and quick-witted and I could not keep up. We were assigned to a…

Can you stand ANOTHER essay on work-life balance? The phrase is one of the most written about and studied over the last four decades as post-Feminine Mystique women entered the professional ranks in unprecedented numbers. But I think it is still a jumbled up topic that is too often focused on workingwomen and not often enough on workingmen; too often focused on children and not often enough on the other aspects of a full and a fulfilling life that we’d all like to have. As recently as June 2016 The Wall Street Journal ran an article in their Management column titled, “Male CEOs Detail Their Work-Life Rules.” The article acknowledges that male executives traditionally haven’t been expected to feel conflicted about…