One of the things that the old folks in the Glacier Metal related work (RO, SST, CPA, Work Levels, etc.) complain about is Timespan of Discretion. Elliott Jaques, the psychiatrist and researcher who coined the phrase “mid-life crisis” in a minor arm of his work, believed that you could determine the complexity of a job role by how long the person in was supposed to work on their own, before being…
Category
Managing
Here’s what a great workplace looks like – high performance teams
What does a great workplace look like? Walter Ulmer took a stab at defining it over 25 years ago. He saw that there was a big difference between regular teams and high performance teams, one where everyone took it to the next level.
And what is the essence of a “supportive” climate that promotes esprit and gives birth to “high performing units”? It may be easier to feel or sense than to…
Love in the Workplace Includes Demanding Performance
Can you love your direct reports? The guys of Manager Tools say “yes” and add that it has to include demands for performance. Here’s why.
If you want to be a great manager and get high performance consistently out of your team, you must learn to balance to two sides of management: caring and demanding. It’s a tough one to get right as most of us err naturally to one side or the other. Canadian…
What Is Real Executive Work? (That Executives Aren’t Doing)
Japanese workers call their executives “tea drinkers”I got some strong comments regarding my post that executives are boobs. I probably should have said “worthless drags on shareholder value who ought to be golden parachuted into a live volcano that resembles the eternal hell they deserve for being lazy good-for-nothings.” But let’s not quibble.
Let’s instead deal with what real executive work…
Engineer-speak vs. Marketing-speak: Talking to engineers successfully
I’ve been reading the fascinating You’re In Charge — Now What?: The 8 point plan by Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin. It’s mostly about how incoming CEOs can handle the first 100 days. What got me hooked is that the process they describe in their first chapter is pretty much the one that I’m writing up about Jos Wintermans at Canadian Tire and Acceptance, Ltd. If you are starting a new managerial job, above Level 3 especially, I’d recommend taking a look at their points. They fluff some elements that require more rigorous thinking, but it is correct in its essentials.
The passage that struck me today is a short one about how a marketing guy, Jeff Killeen, handled the culture shock of starting as CEO at GlobalSpec. GlobalSpec is an engineering-focused company, and here he talks about the struggles he had both in developing a relationship with technical genius & founder, John Schneiter, and the engineers of the company. If you work with engineers or developers, this is relevant.
Why You Can Tell Your Big Secret To Success
A few years back, I took on my first ISO 9001 project. An IT outsourcing company, then still in North America, wanted to certify the Desktop Support groups at each outsource contract in the world. You can apparently just do one site and certify the operations everywhere. Upper management gave them 90 days to complete the project. Just one quarter.
The site I was working with got chosen and…
Why Managers Should Not Write Technical Job Postings
A friend of mine encouraged me to tell this story which I watched unfold first hand while a software development manager for a mid-sized consulting firm. One of my best developers — a software architect, really — started laughing in the middle of the day. We all needed something to release the strain of our bi-weekly drop work, so all us meerkats gathered around his desk.
“Look at…
Imaginist, Systemicist, and Getting Myself Wrong
In late November, while talking to my old partner about how the Seven Decision Making Approaches (or “languages of achievement”) are relevant to his current work problems, I suddenly realised something startling. For several years, I have been selling myself as either Imaginist or Empiricist, but delivering Systemicist results. The disconnect has been startling. It cleanly explains many of…
Being Happy Makes You Less Productive. Sometimes.
Happy workers are better workers, right? Nope. At least not all the time. And maybe not even most of the time. Find out why. [Full Post]