Management #1. We Are All Performance Managers

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Management. What do you manage? What is “performance”? How do you improve it? You already know the answers – you do it all the time.

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How to Have People be “Purpose-Driven” At Work

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An article reporting on the Workforce Purpose Index findings says that companies with purpose-driven employees have better growth in revenue.  Their study found “three factors that contribute to an employee feeling like they have purpose at work: Independence; Influence when it comes to decision-making; and Recognition for their work. How do you get those things […]

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Lost Productivity: Is the Culprit Social Media or Sloppy Communication?

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Productivity is a big deal – the idea is to produce good hourly output at work, especially if you want to get a raise. An article (Why Your Facebook Habit At Work Makes Economists Worry) says that some people want to blame employees who are using social media for the recent drop in productivity. Another theory […]

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Micromanagement: Story #1

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A friend of mine is an accountant for a yoga-fitness studio, and last week he told me his studio owner is a “micro-manager”. I asked him what he meant – here’s what he said: “Patty is our studio owner who sometimes drops in on a yoga class, and if she thinks a student is doing a pose incorrectly, she will interrupt […]

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What’s the Source of the “Productivity Deficit”?

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The Marketplace newsletter has an answer for a question I hadn’t thought to ask: “Why are workers less productive?” It seems the output produced for each hour of labor worked (aka non-farm business productivity) dropped in the second quarter of 2015. It’s the third quarter in a row with a decline in US labor productivity. Innovations like smartphones and 3D printing […]

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Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, and the Missing Conversation

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There is much talk right now about Yahoo’s demise as an independent company. The Economist said the failure was due, first of all, to “a chronic lack of focus”, never deciding if it was a media company or a technology company. NPR’s “Morning Edition” said Ms. Mayer, the CEO, treated Yahoo more like a think-tank than […]

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That Difficult Client Talk – Part IV.  Completion

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Reggie started with a serious performance problem in his department. He said his staff was “under-performing”, and he was insistent that I find out what the problem was and “fix it”. So I did. The problem was Reggie. He was a technical whiz, but not a very good manager. Here’s what I mean: He was […]

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Three “Brexit” Lessons for Getting YOUR Goal

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Did you notice that the “Remain” leaders in the United Kingdom – the ones who wanted to stay with the European Union – made some costly mistakes? It seems they had some lazy assumptions, and failed to deliver the well-designed conversations that could have painted a different picture for UK voters. Mistake #1: Too few […]

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Super-vision: It All Depends on Communication

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We pay attention to our goals, other people, and the environment. But having a great life needs more than attention: it takes communication.

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