Once again, Mark and Mike at Manager Tools hit a very important pet peeve of mine, how to use voice mail effectively. It amazes me that we still have to educate people about this, but anyone who has received voice mail knows that there is a problem.

My favorite tip from this show, "Move the conversation forward!" For me, this is the main issue. No more "Call Me" voice mails would be top of the list for Christmas this year. (SMILE)

How to Leave a Voicemail

This cast describes how to leave an effective voicemail.

If you’ve ever gotten a voicemail which sounded like, “[your name], this is [their name], call me,” you know why we’re doing this cast.

Phone manners have been steadily decreasing for decades. When boys used to call for Mark’s daughter Kate, they would slouch verbally through, “Is Kate there?” and Mark would answer, “Yes,” and hang up. He safely assumed that any person who asked that question was a boy, and not enough of a gentleman to be allowed to speak with her. (At first she rolled her eyes, but later she liked the hurdle that Mark’s demand created: those boys that never got it ended up being…well, boys.)

What about at work? The “Bob this is Joe call me” is only one example. It ranks right up there with “saw that you called, what’s up?” answered with, “did you, errrrr…listen to my voicemail?”

In this cast, we have recommendations for how to leave a voicemail. We think of this as the first cast on phone skills…out of several hundred to come.

(Via Manager Tools.)

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On a bit of a Manager Tools kick lately, but as I mentioned in the interview with Steve Holden, there is so much useful content in the podcast it deserves to be highlighted.

I was listening to this show while making dinner tonight and I had to stop everything to go and get my journal in order to take some notes.

While the podcast is directed at helping managers make good hiring decisions, it is always useful to see how managers could (or should) be arriving at their decision. Hopefully, you can make it even easier for them and ge the job you both want and deserve.

Effective Hiring: Set the Bar High!

This cast shares our most important principle in The Manager Tools Effective Hiring Process: Set the Bar HIGH.

We believe that the biggest invisible organizational personnel failing is hiring poorly. It’s that simple: the vast majority of companies do a terrible job - compared to what they COULD DO EASILY - in hiring the right people. (Continues)

(Via Manager Tools.)

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In this interview, fellow Friends in Tech member, Steve Holden, host of Tech News Radio, gives us a re-cap of the Manager Tools Effective Manager Conference. Steve attended this conference in Washington, DC last week and has some interesting thoughts to share.



Next Friday: April 27, 2007: Change -- one small step at a time

Enter Dancing with Elephants "Let Them Hear You!" Contest

Win an iPod Shuffle!

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Manager Tools is an excellent podcast on how to become an effective manager and I have highlighted it here in Career Opportunities in the past.

Hosts, Michael Auzenne and Mark Horstman offer this description of the show on their web site...

"Manager Tools is a weekly podcast focused on helping you become a more effective manager and leader. Each week we’ll be talking about new tools and easy techniques you can use to help achieve your management and career objectives. If you’re tired of a lot of management theory and would rather learn specific actions you can take TODAY to improve your management performance, we think you’ll enjoy the manager tools podcast."

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