Category: Family
As a longtime business consultant, I talk to business owners each day. Key ideas for remaining vital come up all the time when I am conversing with clients and employees. Here are just five I would like to share as we prepare for falls traditional uptick in the marketplace.
Host an Event
Open your office for a networking opportunity, a business briefing or a breakfast. Get clients and prospects through the door. If your budget is lean, partner with a complementing business. For example, if you are a real estate broker hosting first-time home buyers, allow a mortgage company to provide catered food and coffee.
Meet with Advisors in Person
Ask your A-Team (think your lawyer, CPA, benefits consultant) to meet face-to-face. Discuss changes in your operations, ask for discounted fees or propose performance-based billing in exchange for a renewed commitment to do business together.
Conduct Informational Interviews
Some genuine stars, the best and brightest managers, salespeople, financial planners and artistic professionals are seeking work right now. So, too, are high-energy college graduates. Meet with themeven if you do not have a job opening. Fifteen minutes may inspire a job seeker to share industry insights. It also may inspire you to bring on a consultant until a full-time position is available.
Sharpen Your Sword
So you have sold widgets for 15 years by doing X, Y and Z for five hours a day. You are still doing X, Y and Z, but your sales are down by 50 percent. Stay sharp. Take classes online, listen to training experts and shake off old habits that no longer yield results. A new economy requires fresh tactics in every industry. Moreover, what worked during exponential growth in the Valley may not guarantee success in todays conditions.
Target International Clients
Our city is on the map, so think globally. Equip your office with web conferencing technology, attend seminars on international outreach and etiquette, discuss foreign currency billing with your aforementioned A-Team and track headlines. Create a customized approach for non-U.S. markets seeking a presence here. If you do not, your competitor down the street will.
Even adult children returning home to a blended family benefit from some rules and boundaries. Adult stepchildren graduating from college today face a tough job market in which to succeed. College kids are returning home, for a place to stay until they can launch their careers. Even tougher, are the kids who return to a blended family, one with a new step parent and step siblings.
Boundaries and rules established and agreed upon, before adult stepchildren return to the nest, are essential for the successful blended family. Adult stepchildren can function well living at home with stepparents when presented with clear expectations.
Focus on the positive in your blended family
Focus on the positive when adult children ask to return home. Adult children, in most cases, don’t want to ask biological parents if they can move in with a stepfamily, and you might consider it a compliment to your successful remarriage when they do. Clearly, your adult child feels comfortable living with the stepparent, and that is flattering. Stepmom or stepdad needs to acknowledge the compliment, and make sure to let the adult stepchild know you are eager to spend more time with him.
As well, after the biological parent and stepparent agree upon a set of rules and boundaries, biological parents should lead a discussion about them with the adult stepchild in advance of the move-in date. Adult stepchildren are often willing to comply with rules when they know biological parents and stepparents are happy to have them around.
Rules and boundaries should be reasonable and consistent
Adult stepchildren are, technically, adults, and should be treated as such. However, the adult stepchild who has returned home and is dependent upon the biological parent and stepmom or stepdad, should obey and respect parental authority. Rules and boundaries agreed upon in advance could include guidelines for
o dining and laundry
o a discussion of career plans
o an agreement to actively search and find a job by within a set period
o housekeeping chores
o an agreement to pay rent after six months
o an agreement to a raise in rent after 12 months
o guidelines for guests
o an expectation of quiet after a designated time or else a curfew will be established
o and an expectation that adults will be treated with respect.
Other discussion topics could include the use of an auto as well as guidelines for gas, insurance, and upkeep; smoking, drinking and girlfriend or boyfriend visits; as well as private time for parent and stepparent. Adult stepchildren who bend or even break established rules should be held accountable with another scheduled family meeting.
Road to independence should be paved with love and encouragement for your adult child
Adult stepchildren moving home is not unusual in light of the job market, and he or she should not be made to feel as if they have failed at adulthood. This won’t help a stepchild and it certainly won’t bode well for the blended family. Once rules and boundaries have been agreed upon in a stepfamily, welcome and encourage your adult stepchild into the remarriage. Make sure he spends individual time with his biological parent and offer positive support in his job search.
Stepchildren, especially adult stepchildren, need their own space, and should be afforded privacy and respect of their belongings by other stepkids. Adult stepchildren who return to the home may need extra help on the road to independence; stepmoms and stepdads who are part of that journey pave the way to a smooth stepfamily existence.
Adult stepchildren who return home are an unfortunate result of the economic downturn, but it doesn’t have to be a miserable experience. Biological and stepparents have to discuss and agree upon rules, before the adult stepchild moves in. An adult stepchild is usually amenable to parental guidelines when the discussion is led by the biological parent and assisted by the stepparent.
Adult children who return home to a blended family can find success and independence within a remarriage when expectations are clear and rules are well planned.
Supervising friends and family has the potential to be one of the most productive work relationships that exists in the workplace. Sadly, this is not always the case. Whether supervising a long time friend, managing a family member, or being promoted to supervising your peers, it is critical that all new managers learn to overcome these four pitfalls.
Poor Performance.
One of the most amazing dynamics when supervising friends is that they often will take you for granted, assuming that you will accept their poor performance because of your relationship. In fact, it often occurs that when the new manager is a friend, the employee begins to lessen their own standards of performance. Whether this is done intentionally or not, you must address it.. The greater problem is in the response you receive when poor performance is addressed. Often, new managers feel that their requests are ignored by friends they supervise. If this is a new supervisory relationship it is absolutely critical that you have a meeting in which you clearly lay out the expectations in this relationship. They need to know that for their sake (so others wont gossip about them) and for your sake (so your team will not lose respect for you and your authority) that you must treat them the same as every other member of your team, and that the performance standards as well as the disciplinary standards will remain consistent. If youve already begun to experience this, you must confront the problem directly. You can have an informal discussion about it at first, but if that does not change the situation, then you must address this in a serious manner. Follow your companys procedure for handling performance issues. Make sure that you clearly communicate that these are not just requests, they are directions given by their supervisor. Remember, everyone else is watching you.
Voicing Your Own Negative Feelings About the Organization or Your Supervisor.
Whether you are at work, a company function or hanging out at friends house, when you become a supervisor, there is a part of you that is always on. This means that there are now subjects you dont get into, and boundaries you dont cross. Even though you may have a legitimate issue with the organization, or your supervisor, never express them to the people you manage. First, it can negatively affect them as employees, especially if they have similar concerns, and cause severe future consequences. Second, it puts them in a very uncomfortable position, if they dont agree with all of your concerns. Third, it creates an environment that causes employees to vent and voice negative feelings even when youre not around, and sometimes about you. Fourth, it could very easily get to the wrong person and now affect your reputation. The key to this is you must find a new sounding board, someone who is at arms distance away from your job. Ideally this is someone who doesnt work with you and doesnt have any type of relationship with any one from your job, like a neighbor or a relative. In some instances it can be a co-worker in another department or a mentor, but use caution when thats the case. The two of you need to agree that he or she should function as a dead end (some you can tell delicate information to and it ends with them). Thus when you voice your feelings, there is no chance of it getting to the wrong person or negatively affecting someone involved in the organization.
Manipulation.
Of all the pitfalls that must be overcome, manipulation is often the most challenging. Manipulation occurs when the other person leverages their friendship against you to get what they want. First, do not let this affect you emotionally. Do not be fooled. This is rarely just a normal conversation that leaves you feeling guilty. This is almost always being done to you intentionally. More importantly, it is also a sign of disrespect. This person believes that you are weak and will succumb to emotional terrorism. Second, address this as early as possible. The more it occurs, the more it becomes a pattern. This also keeps you from building resentment. Third, dont beat around the bush. Subtlety is not effective in this situation. If you feel someone is leveraging your friendship against you, address it head on. One of the most common phrases new managers hear as they are being manipulated is, I thought we were friends! a great response to this is, In reality, if we were the friends I thought we were, you wouldnt put me in this situation in the first place. This helps to express that true friendship is not one sided and should not be used for the purpose of manipulation.
Favoritism or Perceptions of Favoritism.
You should expect to be accused of favoritism when you manage a friend. Avoiding the previous four pitfalls, will help to minimize any legitimate complaints a worker could have regarding favoritism. But in reality, even when you do your absolute best to make certain that all associates are treated based on their work, you must realize that not every accusation of favoritism is accurate. Many people dont take responsibility for their own performance. When was the last time you heard someone say, I didnt get that promotion because I wasnt qualified? Most would rather find someone else to blame or misapply a statement like Its not what you know but who you know. Dont let it get to you. This is just a combination of blame shifting and manipulation. Address the issue by letting the other members of the team know that there is no favoritism here and that every one is being held to the same standard.
Although these techniques may seem simple it doesnt mean they are easy, but when you overcome the emotional challenge of the friend-supervisor dynamic, success is assured.
This best way to demonstrate the difference between hard core rap and horror rap groups would be to compare different lyrical samplings of each side by side. However, its smarter to start with the difference in backgrounds and mentalities of hard core rap groups like Dayton Family and horror rap groups like Dark Lotus.
Dayton Family is a hard core rap group from Flint, Michigan, who named their group after one of the most crime-ridden streets in their crime-ridden city, Dayton street. That should say enough about the attitude of these hard core rappers. Its not often that an environment such as the one Dayton Family originates from breeds anything other than gritty, honest, street-heavy rap. You wont hear anything lighthearted in Dayton Familys rhymes, and when they talk tough, theyre not kidding around.
If there was ever any doubt about Dayton Familys cred, said doubt vanished once founding members Bootleg (Ira Dorsey) and Backstabba (Matt Hinkle) were each incarcerated separately during the turning point in the bands short career. These two imprisonments undoubtedly hindered the quality and quantity Dayton Family was able to produce as a hard core rap group throughout its career.
Now Dark Lotus, on the other hand, is different in many respects. For one, Dark Lotus is a horror rap super group, so each one of Dark Lotuss members was an established horror rap artist in his own right before joining up with Dark Lotus. That said, the themes present in Dark Lotuss horror rap music really is not far off each of its individual members own horror rap music.
For those unfamiliar, horror rap themes usually include but are not limited to death, suicide, murder, violence, Satanism, and other terrifying themes. Unlike Dayton Family, you will not see Dark Lotus rapping about the hood, drug dealing on street corners, or about cops in a derogatory fashion (at least not often).
Dark Lotuss horror rap, in contrary, is much more personal, introspective, and spiritual. Often times you can find Dark Lotuss horror rap artists bemoaning the fact that they are still alive and wishing to die, thoughts that often travel into the supernatural with talk of souls traveling to different destinations.
One common link between Dayton Familys hard core rap music and Dark Lotuss horror rap music is their origin. Members in both groups come from impoverished, street-centric adolescences, and thus have much of the same fodder for their rhymes. Though they may approach these topics from two different angles in horror rap and hard core rap, when you boil it down, Dark Lotus and Dayton Family are the way they are for very similar reasons!
Resource Box
The Dayton Family, one of hard core raps most notorious Midwestern groups, and Dark Lotus, arguably the largest horror rap super group of its kind in the world (definitely in the Midwest), may write different styles of music, but they come from similar backgrounds. To learn more about Dark Lotus and their music, please visit http://hatchetgear.com/bands/darklotus.html.