Thinking for a Living
I’m currently reading Thinking for a Living by Thomas H. Davenport. Excellent book for those who want to improve their work environment and their own productivity. Focus is on where processes and knowledge meet.
Posts Tagged: management
Rule # 5: Correcting a subordinate’s work product can either be demeaning or educational based on style and number of occurrences.
Rule number 5 is closely related to rule number 4 both having to do with empowering employees. While rule 4 has to with decision-making, rule 5 deals with written work products. All large organizations are document driven (they may be paperless but they still have electronic documents) which have a number of purposes, most importantlyRead… Read more »
Rule #4: Little Transfer of skills or knowledge occurs when the boss makes all the decisions.
Most individuals’ rise within an organization based on their proven track record; that is after all the basis of “merit promotion”. Therefore, most first line managers are selected based on their technical skill and often succeed in their first management position by exercising their superior technical knowledge rather then developing management skills. My own experienceRead… Read more »
Rule# 3: On a Personal Level, never ask a subordinate to do anything you wouldn’t ask of a peer or boss
In the past, most managers above a certain level had a secretary who performed a variety of tasks such as typing, taking dictation, controlling access and calendar, making travel arrangements, and a variety of other mundane tasks that improved the efficiency of the manager. In the best of situations the boss and secretary became aRead… Read more »
Rule #2: “Honesty is measured by telling the boss what he/she needs to hear not by whether you keep your hand out of the cookie jar”
Rule #2: “Honesty is measured by telling the boss what he/she needs to hear not by whether you keep your hand out of the cookie jar” The vast majority of employees in the workplace can be trusted to deal honestly with money and materials (yes I know everyone has the experience of someone constantly violatingRead… Read more »
Rule #1: The test of ethical behavior is always “would your mother approve?”
Back in the 1980”s (you remember the 80’s-the “me generation”, big hair, bad rock and roll), institutions began to develop courses on ethical behavior in response to a perceived lack of ethical behavior in the workplace (venerable Harvard Law School placed an ethics course in their curriculum which generated more then a modest amount ofRead… Read more »
Wisdom From a Retired Fed: A Practical Guide to Management
Management is (to paraphrase Casey Stengal) :”75% art and the other half is science” . To individuals entering the profession, managing can appear to be an endless minefield with potential disasters lurking at each step. Yet veteran managers often appear to subordinates as magicians able to generate optimum performance effortlessly. Over the next several weeksRead… Read more »
Dealing with Failure
When you are early in your career, mentors have often told me “you should take risks” and “if you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying.” While I understand their advice, it is still really hard to fail for the perfectionists out there. One of the best talks I’ve been to recently was Karen Evans from OMBRead… Read more »