The money and upward mobility may be better in your organization if you are a manager BUT DO YOU REALLY WANT TO MANAGE OTHER PEOPLE DOING THE ACTUAL SERVICE, PRODUCT, OR ANALYTIC WORK of your company, business, agency, department, etc?????? This… Read More ›
Managing & Leading
CHANGE AND A SENSE OF LOSS
A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop conducted by the current chairman emeritus and founder of the Levinson Institute — Psychologist Harry Levinson, Ph.D. — focused on the topic of organizational change. Early in my… Read More ›
CAN ALL OF US BE RIGHT?
In a discussion where the parties have strongly held views, can everybody be right? Of course not, many of you will quickly respond. There is only one right view on the matter at hand some will say, and if you… Read More ›
BAD MANAGEMENT REVISITED
Recently I posted an article entitled “The Price of Bad Management”. In it I focused on the impact bad management practices have on the productivity of an organization and on those who work for and must interact with a bad… Read More ›
THE PROFESSIONAL MID-LIFE CRISIS
Let’s say you’re 44 and have been in you profession for over a decade. You have risen to the management ranks and by most reasonable standards are a professional success. You and your partner have a family, a home, a… Read More ›
HEEDING CRITICAL FEEDBACK AND ADVICE
Throughout our professional careers, we are given plenty of casual advice by well-meaning colleagues, friends, and those we currently call our boss; “do this, don’t do that, consider this, I suggest that”. In most cases, the stakes involved in heeding… Read More ›
A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT
Yesterday morning while having breakfast in one of my favorite business travel hotels, I could not help but overhear a conversation between the two individuals seated not more than three feet from me. The gist of the conversation involved workplace… Read More ›
EVALUATING SOMEBODY’S PERFORMANCE
I have touched on this subject at various times in this blog. But I continue to have rather serious discussions with both managers and non-managers about how to evaluate somebody effectively and how to avoid creating a victim of ham-handedness… Read More ›
THE MANAGEMENT-STAFF RELATIONSHIP
My motivation for writing this particular article comes from years of observing — and personally experiencing — both the good and the bad elements of the management-staff relationship. I begin with the players and note that the distinction between them… Read More ›
THE PRICE OF BAD MANAGEMENT
There are quite a few professions where the consequences of mistakes, bad professional practices, or serious errors in judgment are quite easy for us to imagine. Air line pilots, surgeons, dentists, criminal lawyers, structural engineers, cruise line captains, and school… Read More ›