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What do you know about your employees?

January 5, 2012
What do you know about your employees?

  Charley Charley, a new retiree-greeter at Wal-Mart, just couldn’t seem to get to work on time.    Every day he was 5, 10, 15 minutes late. But he was a good worker, really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp minded and a real credit to the company; obviously demonstrating their “Older Person Friendly” policies.  One day the boss called him into the office for a talk. “Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang up job. But, being late so often is quite bothersome.” “I know boss, and I am working on it.” ”Well good, you are a team player. That’s what I like to hear. It’s odd though your coming in late.   I know you’re retired from the Armed Forces. So, what did they say if you came in late back then?”  ‘‘They said, ‘Good morning, Admiral, can I get you coffee, sir?”’ What do you know about your employees?  Some of them have skills and talents that are far beyond what you see of them day in and day out. The Problem Several years ago, I had an opening for a computer programmer.  One of the computer operators approached me with an

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Move, I’ll just do it myself!

November 1, 2011
Move, I’ll just do it myself!

Over the years, I have observed many organizations that were just basically dysfunctional.  There were many reasons, but what I saw was normally a lack of leadership and a very poor understanding of what it took to get a job done. Jobs, all jobs are broken into three parts: 1) Mechanical 2) Analytical 3) Creative. To effectively perform a task or even your job, you must perform these simple things, but in the exact order as I have listed above. I can use the example of answering a phone. When answering a phone, you first have to go through the mechanical process of picking it up. It is simple and requires only the committed step of moving your hand and bringing the phone to your ear. The second step in answering your phone is the analytical part. That might be determining who it is and whether or not you want to talk to them. You are analyzing some data with which you have been presented to make a decision. The third step, creative is not of particular value in answering the phone. There are not many creative ways to answer the phone, and in fact if you do you might

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Blaming your predecessor is a bad idea

October 7, 2011
Blaming your predecessor is a bad idea

I have been struck lately by how current politicians unceasingly never-ending blame their predecessors.   I am not particularly interested in the politics of it all, but I don’t believe people should blame their predecessors much past the first six months in a new job.  I am not saying you cannot say something was done before your arrival, but to drag out the blame game for more than 18 months, as the president is doing, smacks of  sophomoric behavior. I didn’t do it! I took over a department once that was filled with problems.  The previous guy managed very centrally and restricted decision making.  His management style couldn’t be more different than mine.  Quite often I would be in a meeting with my staff and they would trot out his name and blame him for decisions that he had made.  I allowed it to go on for about six months until I announced “There will be no more blaming Jim for anything he or you have had a hand in.  If it was a bad decision in your estimation, then take action to change course.  You are responsible.” Everyone stared at me. It was obviously a blood sport blaming Jim, and I

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