Growth at Work is a coaching practice based on the work and life experience of Yousuf Siddiqui. Yousuf is  an Executive & Organizational Coach. He coaches individuals and groups in-person and online. His areas of specialty, otherwise called "sweet spots", are:
Sweet Spots for Work
-Enable leaders to shift focus from day-to-day crisis management to strategic leadership
-Facilitate goal and direction alignment in teams
-Partner with organizations to sharpen their Employee Performance Management process
Sweet Spots for Life
-Help people discover and do work that they have a passion for
-Enable people to manage their priorities and time by using Project Management skills
-Facilitate authentic dialogue between people

Happy Employees Mean Happy Customers

Southwest Airlines is known as the company that loves its employees – and their customers. But, how is this achieved? How can they have such happy people working for them and flying with them? It starts with their mission statement Mission: The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. To Our Employees: We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment... [Read more]

LinkedIn to Find Your Next Paycheck

In 2007, Guy Kawasaki did a great article on the top 10 reasons why you need to be on LinkedIn, Here are two of the reasons he stated why you need to care (and remember, this was way back in 2007, but the reasons are even stronger now!): -        People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five. -        All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented... [Read more]

Waiter, Waiter!

Most of us go to a restaurant for a transcendental experience. That is transcendental with a small “t”. We want a pleasant experience. Yes, good food is an essential ingredient of the experience. However, the chemistry between the waiter and the customer determines if the experience will be transactional or transcendental. I believe that by far the biggest determinant in a waiter’s ability to create the right environment for his customer is the waiter’s ability to exude pride and confidence... [Read more]

Job Seeker: Show Me the Money

The salary discussion for a job seeker can be nerve racking, but if you wait until the employer offers, you may be feel the hurt in your wallet. The interviewer may know the starting rate of a person in your industry and doesn’t know the current salaries for someone with your experience or expertise. Once the price has been stated, however, it can be difficult to restart the compensation conversation. Before one starts the salary conversation, the savvy job seeker will have already done their... [Read more]

Leaders that Listen

What behaviors define leaders that listen? They do not cut off people in the middle of sentences. They do not look at their blackberry or computer when someone is talking to them. They do not ridicule people in public or private. This action almost insures that people will assume that you are not a good listener. These are just some of the observations I have made in my experience in working with high-powered leaders. The best leaders have been able to balance these behaviors with the amount of... [Read more]

The Goal Alignment Matrix

Recently, I created a tool called the Goal Alignment Matrix (GAM). It is a listing of company goals aligned with departmental goals aligned with a roadmap to achieve each department goal. In using the GAM with a current client, I realized that most of the managers that used the tool put down lofty goals. When they sat down to make a roadmap of how they were going to reach the goals, the goals seemed detached from the reality of what they were working on day to day. This realization prompted them... [Read more]

Leaders without clarity

What is the right level of clarity when communicating a message? I want to be understood but I don’t want to oversimplify things. What is the right level of detail to communicate at? The answers to these questions make or break a message. I have come across geniuses in a variety of fields. Many of them have been very poor communicators. Specifically, they jump from topic to topic without closing the loop on any one thought.  Many leaders suffer from the same issue. They don’t have the... [Read more]

Leaders who are too good at many functions in the company can stagnate the people that they lead

Leaders of small to medium sized companies are often better at performing almost all of the functions in their company than their employees. Many times, this is due to the fact that the leader has more “skin in the game” than anyone who works for him or her.  Furthermore, they often expect the people that they hire to carry out the functions to be just like them in terms of process and thinking.  This leads to increased dissatisfaction and frustration of the leaders with their employees. Often,... [Read more]