Topic : Management

1. A Hope for No Tensions: (If one can be sweet, surface, cheerful, then tensions can be avoided. So niceness is necessary.)

2. A Hope for No Differences: (If one can be agreeable, compliant, adaptable, then differences can be erased. Since differences are dangerous.)

3. A Hope for No Criticism: (If one can communicate cautiously, with questions, cleverly with concealed or indirect messages, then criticism can be escaped. Since comments are criticism.)

4. A Hope for No Anger: (If one can hide, suppress, deny, or defer anger, then negative feelings can be eliminated. Since angeris attack.)

5. A Hope for No Weakness: (If one can hide pain, stifle tears, conceal sadness then one will appear strong and invulnerable.Since sadness is weakness.)

6. A Hope for No Disobedience: (If one can gain another’s love, they will have to be loyal, obedient, conforming to the lover’s demands. Since love is control.)

7. A Hope for No Craziness: (If one can keep all debate perfectly reasonable, then all feelings can be kept in their place. Since logic is the last word.)

8. A Hope for No Failure: (If one can strive to be completely adequate, successful, perfect, one is safe. Since failure is final.)

David Augsberger, When Enough is Enough, (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1984), p. 106

• David Augsberger, When Enough is Enough, (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1984), pp. 109-130

Ed McManus, editor of The Jokesmith newsletter, has put out a booklet of humor about folks in human resources. It’s called What is a Human Resource? and in it he explains how people get assigned to particular jobs.

You leave them in a conference room for four hours. Then, you go back to see what they’re doing:

• If they don’t look up when you enter the room, assign them to the Security Department.
• If they’re counting the butts in the ashtray, put them in Finance.
• If they’ve taken the table apart, put them in Engineering.
• If they’re screaming and waving their arms, send them off to Manufacturing.
• If they’ve left early, put them in Sales.

Bits & Pieces, March 4, 1993, p. 10

Stephen Stumph of N.Y. University’s graduate School of management, has identified six major skills needed at the top once you get there. They are:

1. Having a vision. Executives must fashion a vision of what the company can be, champion that view and get employees behind it.

2. Managing rivalry. A CEO should not try to eliminate competition between subordinates and sub-units entirely, because it can be positive.

3. Thoroughly knowing the products, customers, and competition.

4. Maintaining a consistent strategy. The best managers stick with the strategy once it is set.

5. Identifying problems early.

6. Accommodating adversity. Senior executives must be able to get around roadblocks and bounce back from failure.

Stephen Stumph

What mistakes do all good managers avoid? James K. Van Fleet, a consultant on managerial motivation techniques, suggests the most common mistakes:

1. Trying to be liked rather than respected.

2. Not asking your subordinates for their advice and help.

3. Not developing a sense of responsibility in your subordinates, and not expecting it from your peers.

4. Emphasizing rules rather than skills among your employees, and thwarting personal talent.

5. Not keeping criticism constructive.

6. Ignoring employee complaints.

7. Keeping people uninformed—not respecting their right to know.

- James K. Van Fleet

Source unknown

Connie Mack was one of the greatest managers in the history of baseball. One of the secrets of his success was that he knew how to lead and inspire men. He knew that people were individuals. Once, when his team had clinched the pennant well before the season ended, he gave his two best pitchers the last ten days off so that they could rest up for the World Series. One pitcher spent his ten days off at the ball park; the other went fishing. Both performed brilliantly in the World Series.

Mack never criticized a player in front of anyone else. He learned to wait 24 hours before discussing mistakes with players. Otherwise, he said, he dealt with goofs too emotionally. In the first three years as a major league baseball manager, Connie Mack’s teams finished sixth, seventh, and eighth. He took the blame and demoted himself to the minor leagues to give himself time to learn how to handle men. When he came back to the major leagues again, he handled his players so successfully that he developed the best teams the world had ever known up to that time.

Mack had another secret of good management: he didn’t worry. “I discovered,” he explained, “that worry was threatening to wreck my career as a baseball manager. I saw how foolish it was and I forced myself to get so busy preparing to win games that I had no time left to worry over the ones that were already lost. You can’t grind grain with water that has already gone down the creek.”

Bits and Pieces, December 13, 1990

When you give a guy a raise, that’s the time to increase his responsibilities. Reward him at the same time you motivate him to do even more. Hit him with more while he’s up, and never be tough on him when he’s down.

When he’s upset over his own failure, you run the risk of hurting him badly and taking away his incentive to improve. As a mentor used to say, “If you want to give a man credit, put it in writing. If you want to give him hell, do it on the phone.

Lee Iacocca with William Novak, Iacocca: An Autobiography

As everybody knows, managers have practically nothing to do—that is, nothing except...Decide what is to be done; tell somebody to do it; listen to reasons why it should not be done; why it should be done by somebody else, or why it should be done in a different way, and prepare arguments in rebuttal that should be convincing and conclusive. Then they must follow up to see if the thing has been done, and if it hasn’t been done to inquire why not; then to listen to excuses from the person who should have done it. Another job is to follow up a second time to see if the thing has been done, discover that it wasn’t done right, and to conclude that it might as well be left as it is, reflecting that the person at fault has five children and that no other manager would put up with him for a second.

Leaders must also ponder how much simpler and better the thing could have been done if they had done it themselves; to reflect sadly that if they had done it themselves they would have finished the task in twenty minutes, but as it was they had to spend four days trying to find out why it had taken somebody else three weeks to do it wrong.

Bits and Pieces, May, 1990, p. 16

In the age of participative management, it’s still important to remember that the workplace is hardly a perfect democracy. There are times when decisions must be made without the approval of the bulk of the employees, says Supervisor’s Bulletin. In such circumstances, don’t ask workers to vote, ask them only to voice their objections. Then strive to overcome those objections so management’s plans can gain wide-spread acceptance.

Management Digest, September, 1989

Quotes

• A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done. - Fred Allen
• A committee is a cul de sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. - Barnetta Cocks

Sources unknown