Inspiring leader . Quiet problemsolver . Compassionate mentor. Different employees crave different things from their managers.
For example, some employees want a hands-on boss who stops by with a "How are things going?" every couple of hours. Others don’t care to see their boss but once a year at the performance review. Unless you’re a mind reader, it’s impossible to know exactly what your staff wants from you. But a survey of 500 U.S. employees-published in the book What People Want, by Terry Bacon-reveals what matters most to workers...
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The interview remains a hiring manager's most effective tool for evaluating job candidates. Unfortunately, managers too often rely on a list of standard interview questions for which most applicants have canned responses.
The message: Ask generic questions and you'll get generic answers. Instead, try these queries, each designed to get applicants to really tell you about themselves and their skills...
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Whether it's deserved or not, the perception that management is "against" employees, once earned, is difficult to shake.
That's why it's vital for supervisors and HR to make sure all employees are treated fairly and consistently at all times, especially when it comes to discipline. To make sure your disciplinary actions are fair, ask yourself the following questions before taking action against an employee:...
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As unemployment continues to hover near 10%, the temptation to stretch the truth on a résumé is becoming harder for desperate job-seekers to resist.
That's why experts say job applicants are doing more "creative writing" on their résumés these days. And...
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The accelerated pace of office life has made us lose touch with common courtesies once taken for granted, like saying, ’’Good morning.’’
Cecille Hansen works with a great guy who has an extremely irritating habit. Whenever someone speaks to the account executive, he makes a "hurry up" motion with his hand, winding his wrist as if to say, "Hurry up. Get to the point, already." "He didn’t even know he did it until someone brought it to his attention," says Hansen, a records
manager for an insurance broker in Bellevue, Wash. "He’s the nicest guy. He just goes at a higher speed than most of us."Hansen’s generous view of her colleague’s rude behavior is due, in part, to her awareness of her own sins:...
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Three easy rules that can make all the difference.
She was just shy of her 17th birthday. I was a year younger. It was my first time, but she was like a pro. When she started, my back stiffened and even my knuckles started to sweat. You see, my classmate and I were giving a presentation to our entire school. I was so nervous I had to clamp my hands to the lectern to steady
my shaking body. My only saving grace was so that no one heard the guttural sounds of fear groaning out of my mouth, because I was shaking so far from the microphone. Afterward, I was so embarrassed that I set myself a new goal. I would overcome my fear and become a proficient public speaker. I took a course in
speaking, trained hard and even spoke in competitions at local Rotary clubs. Now I travel the world from the U.S. to Thailand to Amsterdam doing several dozen paid speaking engagements a year. Public speaking is...
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Ten Management Practices to Axe There is a plethora of advice out there, here are some that should be removed from the list.
So you've studied all the best sellers about how to make yourself into a better manager? Well, you can't believe everything you read.
Every few years, a management book or philosophy emerges to change our thinking about the best ways to lead employees. From The One Minute Manager to Who Moved My Cheese?, new and revived leadership concepts have shaped the way we organize, evaluate, inspire, and reward team members. With so many
competing management theories in the mix, some ill-conceived practices were bound to take hold-and indeed, many have. Here's our list of the 10 most brainless and injurious:...
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The disposable worker Temp jobs may save or ruin your company. Know how to keep productivity up.
You're a bad manager who's driving us nuts, and here's what those of us who report to you want to tell you—whether you like it or not.
Welcome! I'm so glad you made it. Make yourself comfortable. You're probably wondering why I invited you. You're in for a treat. You see, this is your annual review, the one your boss never gave you, the one that really matters.
Don't get up. This isn't going on your permanent record. It's just between us, one professional to another. In reality, I guess you could call this an intervention. As with any wake up call, I'm doing this because I like you. You have so many gifts. But you've lost your way. And frankly, you're doing more
harm than good these days. This is going to be hard to hear, but I'll say it anyway:...
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Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.
"When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war," General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter. The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan. "PowerPoint makes us stupid," ...
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Lawsuits by employees against their employers have grown tremendously in the past decade.
Sometimes those lawsuits have merit, sometimes they don't. But, either way, those lawsuits cost time and money to fight-money that is better spent on product development, training and raises. Even worse, some laws-including federal overtime law and the Family and Medical Leave Act-allow employees to sue their supervisors directly, meaning a
manager's personal bank account could be at stake. Most lawsuits are not triggered by great injustices. Instead, simple management mistakes and perceived slights start the snowball of discontent rolling downhill toward the courtroom. Here are 6 of the biggest manager mistakes that harm an organization's credibility in court. Use these
points as a checklist to shore up your personal employment-law defense:...
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