Management Self-Test

 

 

If you ask a room full of professionals who have at least 20 years of experience “have you ever worked for the boss from hell,”  about 40 – 60% will raise their hands.  If you ask entrepreneurs, 90% will raise their hands. There is explicit evidence that the quality of a person’s boss has a dramatic effect on how they preform and on how they feel. For Japanese salarymen, upwardly mobile professionals, the stress levels at work can become so high that the Japanese have a term to describe the worst effect – work death. One little known characteristic of these managers is they are oblivious to their effects on their direct reports. Having interviewed literally thousands of people in organizations, I have compiled a list of the most onerous behaviors of such managers and the three origins these characteristics. Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to an employee is to have a boss with all three of these attributes. Do you have any of these attributes?

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Managing Up and Down

 

 

 

 

People are often surprised when I note that there are some managers who are very good to their bosses and treat their direct reports very badly. They are also surprised to hear that it’s hard for executives to identify this problem especially if they are not familiar with tools such as skip-level meetings (see Beyond Luck for an example of how to run good skip-level meetings). Here is an interesting article on this topic from a recent New York Times.

 

There are a couple of ways that people can subscribe to this blog. Click the “+ Follow” link on the bottom right section of the site and enter your email address. This is a very easy way to receive the newest post as an email. The other way is via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The RSS Feed link is located on the right sidebar of the site, directly above the Categories section. Click on “RSS – Posts” to receive your posts in their favorite RSS reader. The RSS reader that many prefer is Google Reader (http://reader.google.com). It is free, well organized, and easy to use.

How To Demotivate People in the Workplace

Earlier today a group of colleagues were visiting about why people quit jobs.  There were quite a large number if ideas and most of them sounded reasonable.  As you know the answer is heavily dependent on how you frame the question.  My favorite question to a room full of experienced people is “Have you ever worked for the manager from hell?”  In most group about 40 – 60% of people raise their hands.  With entrepreneurs the number is closer to 90%.

For some surefire ideas about how to become the manager from Hades, here are 8 ideas for how to demotivate your people.  If you see yourself in any of these it’s time for a bit of quiet reflection about your life.

There are a couple of ways that people can subscribe to this blog. Click the “+ Follow” link on the bottom right section of the site and enter your email address. This is a very easy way to receive the newest post as an email. The other way is via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The RSS Feed link is located on the right sidebar of the site, directly above the Categories section. Click on “RSS – Posts” to receive your posts in their favorite RSS reader. The RSS reader that many prefer is Google Reader (http://reader.google.com). It is free, well organized, and easy to use.

When The temperature Rises…..

The light dims.  When I ask audiences “Have you ever worked for the manager from hell?” about 40% raise their hands, with entrepreneurs the number is usually closer to 90%.

Try this management development tool on yourself or with some others.  Review your career and identify your best and worst boss.  Jot a brief paragraph (2 – 3 lines) about each.  I do this with management development groups.  With more than five persons’ input summarized in a T chart, the answer is obvious: How They Make You Feel.

For the past several months the Sunday NYTimes has been running a column in the Biz section entitled The Corner Office.  Go to “No Ranting and Raving Permitted” for a great article on the power of emotion and entrepreneurial culture.

There are a couple of ways that people can subscribe to this blog. Click the “+ Follow” link on the bottom right section of the site and enter your email address. This is a very easy way to receive the newest post as an email. The other way is via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The RSS Feed link is located on the right sidebar of the site, directly above the Categories section. Click on “RSS – Posts” to receive your posts in their favorite RSS reader. The RSS reader that many prefer is Google Reader (http://reader.google.com). It is free, well organized, and easy to use.