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Ask the “best hopes” question. By Rory Henry The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management Go PRO for members-only access to more Rory Henry. View the full article

Leaders face pressure to choose paths. Accounting Influencers With Rob Brown Go PRO for members-only access to more Rob Brown. View the full article

Leaders face pressure to choose paths. Accounting Influencers With Rob Brown Go PRO for members-only access to more Rob Brown. View the full article

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. Here are the rules for the weekend posts. Book recommendation of the week: Sisters of Fortune, by Esther Chehebar, who’s been called “a Jewish Jane Austen.” Three sisters in the insular Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn try to figure out their relationships to men and to each other, as one begins to question her engagement. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – September 13-14, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Many of you have been asking me about the assassination of the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk earlier this week during a campus event at Utah Valley University. At the time of this writing, little is yet known about the shooter’s motives, but there have been enough cases of political violence over the past year that I think I can say what I’m about to with conviction… Those of us who study online culture like to use the phrase, “Twitter is not real life.” But as we saw yet again this week, when the digital discourses fostered on services like Twitter (and Bluesky, and TikTok) do intersect with the real world, whether they originate from the left or the right, the results are often horrific. This should tell us all we need to know about these platforms: they are toxic and dehumanizing. They are responsible, as much as any other force, for the unravelling of civil society that seems to be accelerating. We know these platforms are bad for us, so why are they still so widely used? They tell a compelling story: that all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time. But this, for the most part, is an illusion. In reality, you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory, while billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths. After troubling national events, there’s often a public conversation about the appropriate way to respond. Here’s one option to consider: Quit using these social platforms. Find other ways to keep up with the news, or spread ideas, or be entertained. Be a responsible grown-up who does useful things; someone who serves real people in the real world. To save civil society, we need to end our decade-long experiment with global social platforms. We tried them. They became dark and awful. It’s time to move on. Enough is enough. The post On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

Many of you have been asking me about the assassination of the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk earlier this week during a campus event at Utah Valley University. At the time of this writing, little is yet known about the shooter’s motives, but there have been enough cases of political violence over the past year that I think I can say what I’m about to with conviction… Those of us who study online culture like to use the phrase, “Twitter is not real life.” But as we saw yet again this week, when the digital discourses fostered on services like Twitter (and Bluesky, and TikTok) do intersect with the real world, whether they originate from the left or the right, the results are often horrific. This should tell us all we need to know about these platforms: they are toxic and dehumanizing. They are responsible, as much as any other force, for the unravelling of civil society that seems to be accelerating. We know these platforms are bad for us, so why are they still so widely used? They tell a compelling story: that all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time. But this, for the most part, is an illusion. In reality, you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory, while billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths. After troubling national events, there’s often a public conversation about the appropriate way to respond. Here’s one option to consider: Quit using these social platforms. Find other ways to keep up with the news, or spread ideas, or be entertained. Be a responsible grown-up who does useful things; someone who serves real people in the real world. To save civil society, we need to end our decade-long experiment with global social platforms. We tried them. They became dark and awful. It’s time to move on. Enough is enough. The post On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

Don’t just buy technology; strategically activate it. By Hitendra Patil Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide Go PRO for members-only access to more Hitendra Patil. View the full article

Don’t just buy technology; strategically activate it. By Hitendra Patil Client Accounting Services: The Definitive Success Guide Go PRO for members-only access to more Hitendra Patil. View the full article

Shift from serving clients to serving and developing leaders. By Jody Grunden Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Grunden. View the full article

Shift from serving clients to serving and developing leaders. By Jody Grunden Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Grunden. View the full article

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers. * If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer. The post open thread – September 12, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Trust and values fuel the rise of one of the newest Top 50 firms. Gear Up for Growth With Jean Caragher For CPA Trendlines Go PRO for members-only access to more Jean Marie Caragher. View the full article

Trust and values fuel the rise of one of the newest Top 50 firms. Gear Up for Growth With Jean Caragher For CPA Trendlines Go PRO for members-only access to more Jean Marie Caragher. View the full article

Assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity don’t show fixed results—they generate answers that vary with every run, every model, and every user. “AI rank tracking” is a misnomer—you can’t track AI like you do traditional search. But that doesn’t mean…Read more ›View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My client “befriended” me and now isn’t paying for my work I am a self-employed home manager. I gained a new client via referral a few months ago. She is very nice and friendly, and I am a friendly “relationship building” type of professional. This has served me well in getting and keeping clients and in sales previously. I admit, I do struggle with crossing the line — oversharing too much personal info, experiences, etc. — and with this particular client, it has backfired. After working with her for a few weeks, I offered to help with one task at no charge to help her out during a very difficult time in her personal life. She was so appreciative and touched. We had a payment arrangement set up so when she did not pay the next time I worked, it wasn’t concerning. She then gave me a gift to thank me for the free help. She was over the top grateful. It was a generous gift equal in worth to about two days work. The next time I visited, she gushed about how great I was. She’s been treating me like a friend, wanting to chat over lunch/drinks, asking a lot about my personal life, etc., which is nice of course, but I’ve started realizing that she may have turned this into a “we’re friends now, you don’t charge friends, right?” kind of thing. She didn’t pay me for that time and I thought perhaps since the gift was so generous, it was rude of me to ask for payment. I’ll accept that gift as payment for the last round, but now it’s even and going forward I’m not sure how to tell her she has to pay me without hurting her feelings, since she thinks she’s gained a friend. On the other hand, she’s offering to tell everyone how great I am, like she wants me to work for exposure. I can’t tell if I’ve been had, taken advantage of, or she just can’t afford it. I’m worried I may not be cut out for self-employment if I can’t find the line between business and friendliness. When the next round of work starts getting discussed, be explicit about payment before you do anything. For example: “I’ll plan to invoice this at $X — does that work for you?” If she expresses surprise or pushes back, you can say, “I was able to do X at no cost as a one-time favor, but it’s not something I can do more than that one time.” Don’t beat around the bush about this; be warmly matter-of-fact. Of course you charge for the labor that you perform as your livelihood, and you don’t need to feel awkward about that. Even if she’s thinking she’s gained a friend, gaining a friend is not the same thing as gaining an unpaid laborer. If she’s growing unclear on that, it’ll be far less awkward to clarify it now than down the road. 2. My employee is disputing feedback in her review I was directed to put in by someone else I am a first-time manager doing employee reviews for the first time. While finishing up my reviews, my manager asked to look over them. She wanted me to include some feedback that I was completely blind to and have never heard about. I pushed back enough to get something more concrete. (The original feedback was similar to, “The VP feels like the employee doesn’t make enough teacups.” I pushed and got the goal, “Employee should be making one teacup an hour.”) I went ahead and included it in my review. In the meeting, I did note that this was from above me and not my personal feedback. Because the info was last-second, I really did not have time to determine if this was a bona fide issue or not. Now the employee has noted she is going to dispute that section of the review. According to her, she actually has been meeting the goal that I had them settle on. She asked if it’s okay and I’m not going to tell her she can’t disagree with something in her review. What should I do now? Should I just play a neutral body? If HR asks, is it okay for me to say that my manager wanted me to include this info and I wasn’t aware of this beforehand? What’s the best way to handle this? You should take an active role in navigating it. Is it true that she’s meeting the goal that the review said she was failing at? If so, your job as her manager is to go back to the VP and say that, and jointly figure out where the disconnect is — why does the VP have one impression and the employee has a different one? Is there some other way in which her work is falling short and the VP didn’t have enough details to accurately capture it on the first attempt, but there’s a genuine issue there if you look more closely? Or is the VP just mistaken, in which case their impression needs to be corrected? What you should not do is just be a neutral bystander; as her manager, you’re ultimately responsible for what’s in her review, and if it isn’t correct, you do have a responsibility to sort through it and get it fixed. Ideally, too, when the VP first raised the feedback, you would have dug in to get more details — not just about the VP’s impressions, but about what was actually going on with the employee’s work. You were right to push for something concrete, but when they came back with “she should make one teacup an hour,” the right next move was for you to (a) decide if you agreed with that goal and raise it if you didn’t, (b) look at what the employee’s output actually was (so that you could see if there was an issue or not, and be better prepared to work with the employee on it if there was, and (c) go into the review prepared to own the feedback if at all possible. There are times when you might need to pass along feedback from above that you disagree with and therefore can’t own, but before you do that you really need to dig into what’s going on and where the lack of alignment is coming from. You don’t want to see your job as just passing messages along without getting more involved. 3. Is disorganized interview scheduling a red flag? I have a low-stakes question. I’m writing this while waiting for an online interview to start, though I’m pretty sure I’m being stood up. I saw a job ad online, applied, and had my first interview with an external recruiter. It went well and she asked if I would be available for another interview on Friday at 9 am with the hiring manager. I said yes, and was told the hiring manager would send the invite. That’s when things started to get a bit .. not great. On Friday, at around 7 am, I get a text from the hiring manager asking if I’d be available for an interview and offering four different time options for that same day — including the 9 am slot. It seemed like there was some miscommunication between the recruiter and the hiring manager, but these things happen, right? So I asked if we could talk at 3 pm, since the afternoon would work better for me, and … nothing. No acknowledgment of my reply, no response at all. At 3 pm, I messaged her again asking if she still wanted to talk that day. She apologized, said she had an emergency, and suggested Monday at the same time. Great, right? Later, she changed the meeting time to 2 pm without asking me, but I accepted anyway. At 2 pm today, I joined the Teams meeting — and I’ve now been waiting for over an hour, with no response from the hiring manager. These are red flags, right? I mean, one or two of these things would be understandable, but all of them? Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Yes-ish. At a minimum, it’s an indicator that the hiring manager might not be super organized, in ways that will be annoying or frustrating if you work for her. But the word “might” is important there. It’s possible that she had a crisis blowing up that week and this was out of character. It’s also possible she is kind of scattered but she’s good enough at other things that you’d still be able to happily work for her. Or, yes, she might be a chaotic mess. It’s hard to know with such a limited data sample — but you also can’t ignore that all the data you have so far has the same theme. It’s just that it’s a really small amount of data. (On the other hand, hiring managers draw conclusions on similarly small amount of data all the time! But they’re also in a different position; they might have loads of candidates to choose from, while you might not feel you have loads of jobs to choose from.) So I’d say that if it’s a job you’re otherwise interested in, proceed in their process and watch for what other clues you see. If it keeps happening, that’s much more definitive. 4. Is it reasonable to wait 60 days to be paid? I am getting laid off as of next Friday. I’ve been offered a contracting position for 20 hours per week for the next few months. I’m going over the consulting agreement, and it says that they will pay invoices within 60 days of receiving the invoice. Is that reasonable? Can I try to get them to agree to do it faster? That money will be my only income, and it will be tricky paying bills if I won’t get paid for two months after I’ve done the work. You can try. It’s reasonable to say, “Can we change the payment terms to 30 days rather than 60 days?” That said, they may or may not agree. Particularly if it’s a big company, this might just be the way they handle accounts payable and you might not have the leverage to get them to change it. The smaller the company, the more open they might be to altering that. The larger the company, the less likely it is. Related: customers with ridiculously long payment times The post client “befriended” me and now isn’t paying, employee is disputing her review, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Colin Fisher on group dynamics: “Being a member of a group changes how people see reality. Two groups can see the same event but believe wildly different things about it. Groups are a lens through which members view what is true. When a situation is new and uncertain, norms emerge quickly and most people fall in line rather than sticking up for their own (weakly held) points of view. In fact, many people adopt group norms so quickly, they don’t even realize they changed their own views.” Source: The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups II. Margaret Andrews on self-understanding: “Self-understanding is the foundation of effective leadership. However, society doesn’t emphasize self-understanding. With advertisers telling us what we should want and how we should measure success (usually money and the things money can buy), the power of influencers, the desire for ‘likes’ on our social media posts, and often families that push us to ‘succeed,’ we’re taught to chase what others have, to want what others want, and to care more about status and approval than self-understanding, personal growth, or living a meaningful life. Looking externally rather than internally leads to a lack of clarity about who we are and what we want, and this lack of clarity can lead us to make bad decisions.” Source: Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding * * * Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index. * * * Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas. View the full article

A reader writes: I’m in the middle of a pretty bleak job search, involving lots of form rejection emails. The first few times I got one, I wrote back a succinct note to the effect of “thank you for letting me know” before realizing how depressing this would be for all of the rejections that would soon start rolling in. I figure most places don’t care, so I’ve stopped responding to those rejections, but I’m wondering: is it worth ever sending something polite but more personal, hoping that maybe they’d change their mind, or am I living in the job-search equivalent of a 90’s rom-com? “Gosh, we usually get crazy people who yell at us, but this person is so nice and that gosh darn it we should hire her instead!” (Career success, happiness, and extraordinary riches ensue, etc. Sandra Bullock has a cameo.) They’re very unlikely to change their mind, even if you send an incredibly gracious and personable response back. That said, there are times when it can make sense to do that anyway. Specifically, if you progressed to the interview stage and seemed to really click with your interviewer, it can be a good investment to send a gracious note thanking them for their time, referencing something valuable you took away from the discussion, and otherwise building on the rapport that you began in the interview. Not because you’re expecting them to change their mind, but because it might solidify you in their head as someone to think of the next time a job opens up that you might be well-matched with (or if you were a top candidate for this one and then their final choice falls through, or they want to refer you to an opening at a partner organization, or so forth). To be clear, this wouldn’t just be a perfunctory “thanks for letting me know.” This would be a note that builds the connection in some way. (Also, if the form rejection comes from a general hiring email rather than the hiring manager’s own email, don’t just reply to that — send your message directly to the manager so they actually see it.) It doesn’t make sense to do it if you didn’t progress to the interview stage, since in that case there’s no rapport to build on. It’s still unlikely to result in anything, particularly a Sandra Bullock appearance, but sometimes job searching is about scattering little seeds around and seeing which ones sprout into something, and this can be one of those seeds. The post is it ever worth it to respond to rejection emails? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

If you don't get the planning phase of your project right, you're setting yourself up for failure. Here are the key components of planning, what outputs you'll have at the end, and my best practices so you can plan and execute a successful project. The post Expert Guide To The Project Planning Phase appeared first on The Digital Project Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: I interviewed a student today who is interested in doing an internship at my organization. I love working with interns so I was happy to meet with him (virtually), but I am wondering if my expectations are off in terms of how a student interviews. He was late, his wifi was bad, the background was messy (dorm room with flags hung on the wall), he was wearing a hoodie and ear buds, and he didn’t have any questions for me. He seems smart and he has some interesting and relevant experience, but I know that’s not how I would have shown up to an interview, even at his age. Are my expectations too high? Is it unreasonable to expect that programs that require internships will prepare their students for every part of an internship? Is it weird that he’s not on LinkedIn? Is it ever valuable to offer this kind of feedback? I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. Other questions I’m answering there today include: We’re sending mixed messages to our laid-off employees Wondering if a coworker is okay over Zoom The post am I expecting too much when interviewing students? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Do you see yourself in either of these two businesses? By Anthony Zecca Leading from the Edge Go PRO for members-only access to more Anthony Zecca. View the full article

Do you see yourself in either of these two businesses? By Anthony Zecca Leading from the Edge Go PRO for members-only access to more Anthony Zecca. View the full article

How to bring it all together. By Jackie Meyer Go PRO for members-only access to more Jackie Meyer. View the full article

How to bring it all together. By Jackie Meyer Go PRO for members-only access to more Jackie Meyer. View the full article

Today's Bissett Bullet: Partner: “We tried this before and it didn’t work.” By Martin Bissett See more Bissett Bullets here Go PRO for members-only access to more Martin Bissett. View the full article

Today's Bissett Bullet: Partner: “We tried this before and it didn’t work.” By Martin Bissett See more Bissett Bullets here Go PRO for members-only access to more Martin Bissett. View the full article