Authors Note: The relationship between an employee and his/her manager determines how long a person stays with a company and to some extent how productive he’ll be while he is there. That relationship also plays a part in stress level,and physical health....
Authors note: A recent blog post on Bob Sutton’s Work Matters reminded me of this little piece I wrote a while ago. A simple thank you can make a difference; appreciation builds good will, and reminds people that they are valued as human beings, not just as CPUs...
Questions matter. The questions we ask open one avenue of inquiry, but close others. If we want to change the way we manage, we need to change our questions. And so, here are my slides from my talk at Agile 2010: 14 Essential Questions aimed at refocusing...
Some managers seem to know instinctively how to create trust. But I doubt that managers in low trust groups set out to destroy trust. I suspect that they have learned some bad habits and have some assumptions that subtly (or not so subtly) communicate lack of trust....
I’m a big believer in one-on-one meetings on manager-led teams. It’s a way to connect with people, stay in touch with progress, learn about problems early, coach, work on career goals, offer feedback, and more. But if you are the manager for a self-organizing team,...
Samuel Culbert interviewed on NPR. Employee performance reviews should be eliminated, according to UCLA business professor Samuel Culbert. “First, they’re dishonest and fraudulent. And second, they’re just plain bad management,” There’s...
Performance appraisals are ubiquitous. Many people recognize they don’t work very well. However, people have legitimate concerns about maintaining performance without appraisal. A first step is to separate out the many purposes evaluations served in...
If you’re a hiring manager, you know that a typical hiring process emphasizes technical skills, functional skills, and industry knowledge. Interpersonal skills are near the bottom of the list, if they make the list at all. However, if you’re hiring for an...
Hiring managers (and HR departments) expend enormous effort finding people with the right skills to fill open positions. But, skills are only half the equation for success. Many years ago, psychologist Kurt Lewin reduced the mysteries of human behavior to this simple...
Managers–like everyone else–need feedback to know how and where to adjust their actions. Managers may receive feedback from their managers. That’s necessary, but not sufficient. In addition to hearing how things look from above, managers need feedback from...
As test and development managers, we pay attention to developing technical personnel, but what about managers? Do we do enough to help manager and team leads develop and improve their leadership skills–especially when we are those managers? Some companies, GE...
We’ve long lived with the assumption that the people at the top of the organizations are the ones who understand the business. They understand the market, the product, the customers. They hold the financial information about how the company makes money and the...
(c) 2010 Esther Derby I recently spoke to a senior manager who wanted to know how “agile” his company was compared to other companies. When I asked what he’d gain from that information, he responded that then he’d know what practices the...
You’d think that since I’m president of a one-person company, I could change anything in my office in a snap. But a recent incident reminded me that top-down change is always a process. My dog, Miss Pudge, comes to the office with me every day. Until recently, she...
I received an email advertising a workshop for managers, titled “Overcoming a Culture of Entitlement,” last week. Here’s the hook: “When employees feel “entitled,” they resist change, they drag their feet, they’re not accountable, and leaders...
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act II, Scene 2 The other day I was skimming the Harvard Management Update when a section in bold red print caught my eye: “Why don’t more organizations...
I’m uncomfortable with the manager vs. leader dichotomy that’s bandied about lately. Most of the time, the conversation is reduced to a sound bite: “Managers do things right, leaders to the right thing” (from a Warren Bennis quote). Cute, but...
(c) 2003-2010 Esther Derby This column originally appeared on Computerworld.com Twice a week, I go to the gym and weight train with Brooke Darst, a Certified Personal Trainer. As I perform my exercises, Brooke provides a constant stream of feedback: Minor corrections,...
At the start of my series on Performance without Appraisal, I listed the goals that organizations hope to achieve with annual performance appraisals and so-called performance management systems: improve individual performance improve organizational results determine...
Part of my definition of a successful team is that the members of the team increase their knowledge and capacity as a result of their work on the team. That means that giving the team the opportunity to learn is part of the job. One of challenges I see when managers...
