"Have a Kleenex & Get Back to Work"

I had a very interesting conversation with the (female) head of a client's HR department. We were having breakfast with a group of #2s discussing the specific challenge of leading clever employees (bright, boundary-crossers, easily bored, can be great contributors; Goffee, R. and Gareth Jones, G. March 2007. "Leading Clever People". Harvard Business Review.).

This person told the group that she was practicing a new skill, reducing the time that some people spent in her office hoping that she would be an ear or their den mother.

She said that her new favorite phrase was "Have a kleenex & get back to work". This phrase was her new defense against time-wasters. She is a very compassionate person, and this phrase was a departure from past practice for her. I know her well enough to know that this is not bitterness or an inappropriate glib response, just a new tack to take when the issue at hand does not deserve as much time as the time-waster wants to spend on it.


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