Tag Archives: management

December 7, 2018 · 12:36 pm

Faddie Friday!

It’s Foodie Friday and the topic today is really Faddie Friday. What got me thinking about food fads was hearing yet another discussion about keto diets. You know – low carb, no carb, no fun. I’ve been doing a variant of this for many years (and lost a lot of weight) but it actually goes back to the invention of the Atkins Diet in 1972. I’m not a full-blown keto person but I do watch my carbs and try to cut out sugar and foods that I know are high on the glycemic index.

Atkins is far from the only food fad. At one time, fondue was all the rage. I’ll bet if you dig deep enough into a closet or your garage you’ll find a fondue set, maybe one your mom handed down. Nothing like a communal bowl of hot cheese, wine, and seasonings, right?

Now we have fads such as juice cleansing, kale, and bacon, which down here in the South is not so much a fad as it is a way of life. What’s interesting to me is that fads aren’t the same thing as trends. You can think of it in business terms. Fads are those two-day blips in your revenue while trends are the steady direction of those revenues. Fads are jagged, trends are smooth. Food fad – kale. Food trend – healthier eating. Got it?

You need to think in those terms as you approach your business and how you run it. I’ve lived through several management fads and they weren’t all as benign as kale. Ever hear of Six Sigma? How about Business Process Re-Engineering? Matrix Management? Or one of my absolute favorites, MBO – Management By Objectives. Even though it was created by one of my favorite management people, Peter Drucker, it was cumbersome, time-wasting, and not quick enough to react. Obviously, I agree with much of the thinking behind it but the actual implementation could bog you down.

I bring all of these up (and it’s far from an exhaustive list) to remind each of us that we have to watch out for fads. I was told by a senior executive many years ago that the internet was both a fad and a scam. He had a little trouble figuring out the difference between a fad and a fundamental change. Take the time to distinguish between the two and you’ll be far better off than those who don’t. Make sense?

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November 28, 2018 · 1:08 pm

The Best Weatherman

I’m going to tell you a secret about me. I’m a bit of a weather freak. I check the weather multiple times a day and I rarely miss the weather segment on the 11PM news. If I ever meet Jim Cantore, I’m going to shake his hand and run like hell since disaster is on the way.

I have a favorite weatherperson, but he’s my favorite for a reason you might not have thought about and he also teaches us something about being a great manager. Why I love this guy is simple. He doesn’t just explain the “what” of weather. He explains the “why” as well.

All weather folks tell you the forecast. They let you know if it’s going to rain or freeze or be gloriously sunny. That’s the “what.” Very few, however, will explain to you about water vapor levels and what looking at the infrared satellite view and the radar can tell you about what’s going on in the atmosphere. That’s the “why.” Great managers do the same thing. They don’t just tell their team what they want to be done. They also explain why they want it done and how it fits into the bigger scheme of things. It’s more like telling a story than it is just stating a fact (in the case of weather) or issuing a command (in the case of managing).

I’ll admit that I sometimes used to put the “what” before the “why” as a manager, particularly when there was an emergency situation. That’s a weak excuse, frankly. It doesn’t take more than an extra minute to preface the what with a why and then add on a “how” for good measure. Even in most crisis situations, there is an extra minute to do that, and it often results in a better result and a more united team as the crisis is conquered.

When you watch your weather tonight, listen for the “why.” Do the same to yourself as you’re asking your team for help. Do you hear the “why”?

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November 14, 2018 · 11:24 am

Girls And Boys Just Want To Have Fun

One thing I learned after I began managing people many decades ago is that even though it’s called “work,” it doesn’t have to seem that way all the time. Since I was still pretty young (24) when I got my first managerial responsibility, I still placed a good deal of emphasis on having fun as well as getting the work done. In fact, most of the time when problems arose it was because I had failed to act in a way that would be how I would want my boss to act or that I’d forgotten that for most people, work is what they do and not who they are. Let me explain why remembering to have fun is just as important as remembering to get things done.

I felt I was running a benevolent dictatorship. What I mean is that most decisions were mine because I bore the responsibility for them to the powers that be whether I had made them or not. However, I rarely took those decisions in a vacuum. I got input from my team and always encouraged them to voice their opinions. They knew that I might not decide to do things the way that they wanted but that I’d listened and considered their thinking on the matter.

That’s part of having fun. It’s letting every member of the team feel valued. It’s taking what we were doing together seriously but not taking ourselves so seriously. I read somewhere that great leaders are ambassadors of happy. I like that, especially since I’ve worked for a few bosses to whom “happy” and “staff” were never words that intersected.

People have fun when they know what to expect from their leader. When leaders make a conscious effort to have fun, whether via silly signs or self-deprecating humor or through the constant appreciation of the good work of each person on the team. That’s when “work” becomes a place that’s a lot more than a job or a paycheck. Ask yourself, “are we having fun yet?” Ask your team too. Are you? Are they?

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