Management As A System

What is a system? A system is comprised of processes, some important, some not so important. A process has a start and a stop, an in and an out. You know you have a process when you can flow chart it on a piece of paper. A process has a certain state. It is mature and...

The Top Ten Ways to De-motivate People as a Manager

1. Micro-manage (People will do exactly what is requested and monitored and no more) 2. Give people challenging assignments when they don’t have the skills for the work (This will lead to burn-out and poor morale after the thrill of the new assignment wears off) 3....

Happiness and Work

What is happiness? In many ways happiness is very subjective and judged differently by each person. My observation is that people are most happy when they feel in control of their life. Much of one’s life occurs at work thus happiness at work is an important factor to...

Bad vs. Good People?

Labels at work It can be easy as a manager to label people as bad or good performers. This performance labeling tends to be a convenient way to quickly categorize people. It is efficient for human resources. Once labeled, people can be given promotions or demotions,...