Does your boss have a dog house? No, not the kind that he keeps his Black Lab in. I mean does he need to keep someone in the figurative dog house all the time – the one you go into when you are in trouble? Woof I have worked for several bosses that keep a dog house. They seem to need to keep someone in the dog house to stay focused. They target a person or an area of the business with all of their energy, and as long as someone is in the dog house, everyone else is just fine. Sit! I remember working for one such guy. He was one of the meanest people for whom I’ve ever worked. He was belligerent, insulting, and had a very short fuse. When he would get upset with anyone, they basically went in and stayed in his dog house until someone else messed up. I remember spending almost all of my spare time working to stay out of the dog house. What a waste of time, but it did make me better. So, how do you stay of out of the dog house? First, keep to your commitments. If you sign

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I spent four years in the United States Navy. I learned a great many useful life lessons during that time, but the most significant lesson I learned was to respect the chain of command. In a military context, the chain of command is the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed within a military unit and between different units. Orders are transmitted down the chain of command, from a higher-ranked soldier, such as a commissioned officer, to lower-ranked personnel who either execute the order personally or transmit it down the chain as appropriate, until it is received by those expected to execute it. In general, military personnel give orders only to those directly below them in the chain of command and receive orders only from those directly above them. Thank you sir, may I have another? The concept of chain of command also implies that higher rank alone does not entitle a higher-ranking service member to give commands to anyone of lower rank. For example, an officer of unit “A” does not directly command lower-ranking members of unit “B”, and is generally expected to approach an officer of unit “B” if he requires action by members of

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I guess you could say that all managers can be put into general management styles. Some are funny. Some are yellers. Some are dictators. Some manage by committee. Some never communicate face to face, but via email. So I suppose that since people are different, so should there be a variety management styles. One of the most dysfunctional management styles I have seen is what I call the Divide and Conquerer, aka the D&C. The D&C is a manager that chooses to have no structure in his life. He conducts no staff meetings, no structured one on one discussions, any meetings that are scheduled are without an agenda and normally called at the last minute so you can’t prepare. The D&C likes to walk around a facility and get his information by talking to staff, junior managers, or in some cases, complete strangers. He asks for opinions and tries to piece together the “truth” much like I would imagine a cold war era CIA agent has to get his information from a variety of enemy sources named Natasha and Boris. He never believes anthing his staff tells him and pits one against the other.He never gets the whole picture, but

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Obviously, that is a loaded question. I can assure you that all of the people who have dedicated their lives, professions, and livelihood to education will and should give you an emotional “YES”! But what of the rest of us that worked hard in high school to get good enough grades to get into a top notch university? What about the parents and students who pay something south of $100,000 to get a four year degree with absolutely no promise of a job afterward? And lastly, what about the 60 credits you are required to take, called electives to augment the 60 credits of your major so as to give you a well rounded education? When is the last time you used “The Planets, Stars and Universe” in your new job as an accountant? I have always held that there are two parts of the university environment. There is the education part, the one we all understand whereby college professors teach classes, do research, and publish papers. This is the part where crochity old people who don’t work essentially inculcate young heads of mush with the important facts they will need to succeed in the real world. Then, there is

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I have worked with and for a lot of people.  Each brings his or her experiences and personality to the position they hold.  That life experience shapes that person and their reaction to the stresses of the day.  One of the bosses I had in my life was a tyrant.  He felt compelled to humiliate subordinates and inpire nothing but fear in his workers.  That fear paralyzed decision making, and prevented people from doing their best.  Most of his employees spent half their time looking over their shoulder to see if they needed to protect themselves, therefore only spending 50% of their time doing their jobs.  Their productivity was terrible. Fear not! I like to inspire confidence in my people.  I know that when my direct reports are confident in me and that I will not undermine every decision they make, they will grow and lead their own areas more effectively.  I have had some team members make some rather bad decisions that I had to help clean up, but I would rather do that than to be the bottleneck, making all those decisions myself. I think that the managers that rule by fear are probably pretty insecure in their own skills. 

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