Beware the Grammar Police

We all know those folks. The people who persistently point out where a comma was misplaced, where a word was misspelled, and where something wasn't properly capitalized. Mistakes happen, and spelling / grammar is definitely important.

But when a person takes it upon themselves to start correcting these minor mistakes, there is a much deeper problem going on.

It doesn't matter what position you work in, people will fight to remain relevant in any way that they can. Some go out of their way to devise excellent business strategies. These are folks who are constantly providing value to the organization.

The problem with grammar police is that they are seeking to provide value in one way because they cannot (or choose not) to provide value another way. Their way of "providing value" is correcting minor mistakes because as trivial as they are, they do need corrected. The second that "feedback" comes in the form of grammatical updates is when you know that person has nothing else to offer.

So avoid them if you can.

Comments

The Problem with Hierarchical Hiring

I browse LinkedIn pretty often, and the category of things that appears most on that main feed are inspirational quotes by inspirational leaders. Folks like Richard Branson and Simon Sinek appear most often. More specifically, the quotes have a central theme to them: companies need to hire good people. For example, one of the latest quotes I've seen on my feed include this one from Tina Fey: "In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and getting out of their way." That's a great sentiment, but is that really reinforced in reality?

Everybody is in Sales

For as much as I love the show The Office , there was one aspect of it that would make me cringe any time I thought about it too much: what business those folks were in. This fictional company, Dunder Mifflin, sold companies paper and paper-related products on a recurring basis via a customer relations salesperson. Yup, this is what your favorite characters Jim and Dwight did every single day. Because when I think about a titillating career in selling something I'm passionate about, paper and paper-related products are the first thing I think about. ...I'm clearly dripping with sarcasm.

Fear, Failure, Willpower, and Focus

My job. My wife and baby. My volunteering at the church. My management of two blogs. My graphic design. My personal development via books and online courses. My upkeep of stuff around the house. My sleep. My exercise routine. My eating habits. My "fun" life. My sanity. My life has gotten a little bit out of control lately, so I'm taking an intentional step back now to see what went "wrong" and re-orient where I'm going. My hope is that you can learn from my mistakes, so I'm segmenting this post around 4 central themes: fear, failure, willpower, and focus. Let's get into it.

Thoughts on the Frank Ocean Controversy

For those of you unaware, Frank Ocean dropped his new album, Blonde, independently, free from record labels as he has done in the past. Moreover, Ocean has made an agreement that the music streaming service Apple Music currently has the exclusive rights to stream the new album. As The Verge is now reporting , one of the most major record labels, Universal Media Group (UMG), is now reporting that they will no longer allow exclusive deals with any music streaming services. The Verge ends their article with a very appropriate question since it was one I was asking myself the entire time... Why do recording artists even need a label anymore?

Key Competencies #1: Gratitude

It's no secret that I think that the ultimate key to be successful in everything (especially business) is humility, but of course, humility is nothing if it stands alone. A person can be humble, but if they are quiet and introverted, people will walk all over them. Recently, I've been thinking a lot about my life as well as the lives of other super successful individuals to see other key competencies they all have in common. This post will be the first in a series God-knows-how-many posts where we'll take a look at some key competencies that you may or may not expect a leader to hold, and we'll start with one you might not expect: gratitude.

Search This Blog