41–50 of 72 posts
http://www.amazon.com/Management-Secrets-T-John-Dick/dp/0970...
The book is fiction, and written from the point of view of the manager in question, but if you enjoy reading Dilbert, this book is a pretty good read.
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As a manager, is your cubicle set so that your monitor is visible to everyone who walks by? Or is this simply policy for your subordinates?
no, everyone can see my monitor as they walk by. Pretty much everyone except for our CEO (confidential info, etc.) has their monitor visible as you walk by.
I always made it a policy that whenever I stepped behind someones desk that I asked first. You'd be surprised how far respect goes amongst professionals.
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I think it bothers me because they're probably the two least productive employees we have. I want to address this issue - the first step to me seems to be "well, what do they do all day?"
How you deal with those two employees will impact the rest of your team. Do you want the rest of your team to learn that it's important to be productive? Or would you rather teach them that it's most important to be seen to be working straight through for eight hours?
From my perspective, it's a cultural thing - we have tried to foster a two-way culture of openness and communication. We have 70 employees - 68 of which are okay with our environment of trust. What makes those two think they're special?
Also, they are dependent of their workers to make them look good. Usually they rose to a manager by doing a good job as an individual contributor, where their work was completely under their control. As a manager they need their team to get the work done. They can't do it alone anymore. It is not a simple thing to learn to give up that control, and convince others to work as hard as you had. Someone who has poor leadership skills and abilities is likely to compensate by micromanaging.
Specifically, it seems to work on people who don’t feel very attached to their jobs. They have separate, thriving lives outside of work, and are fully able to leave all baggage at their desks before they go home. Is this a bad thing somehow? Shouldn't we all strive to have separate thriving lives outside of work and to leave the company baggage behind when we go home?
Some people, however, see work as a place where they go to keep the chairs nice and warm during the day, and have no problem "turning it off" at the end of the day.
I agree that micromanagement (especially of employees whose job is creating things) is a really bad idea. If it's necessary, then you made a bad hiring choice and need to start looking again. However, if a developer came in "high and wearing a chicken suit" I wouldn't care how much he got done. The chicken suit might be passable if it were casual Friday, but high - not acceptable. There should still be an element of…
(I am personally not bitter about this. I wear whatever I want to work, and if someone has a problem, I'll just go work for the competition instead. Needless to say, nobody has a problem :)
I'm not Dick. But I've occasionally had employees who would have done better if I were. Anyone have any suggestions for how to manage a team where some employees need me to be Dick and some don't? The obvious solution is to replace the employees who need Dick's management, but that's not always feasible.
Seriously no-one needs Dick management. Some may need more support, more monitoring and so on but no-one needs to be spied on. Give them the freedom but have five minute chats with each one each morning so you can see if they're making progress. These aren't heavy things, they're quick informal updates, what are the problems, what's done that wasn't, can I see a quick demo and so on. Outside of that you leave them al…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How you deal with those two employees will impact the rest of your team. Do you want the rest of your team to learn that it's important to be productive? Or would you rather teach them that it's most important to be seen to be working straight through for eight hours?
Again, we're okay with facebook/gchat/whatever. The rest of our employees are not engaged 100% of the time, and we're okay with that. This is not about spying on them, or making sure they have their nose to the grindstone for 8 straight hours. We have flexible hours, allow telecommuting, etc. From my perspective, it's a cultural thing - we have tried to foster a two-way culture of openness and communication. We have…
Are they ex-military and therefore trained to react violently when people sneak up behind them? ;)
EDIT: My ex-CEO tells a story of a former employee and Vietnam vet who warned him not to surprise him as his fighting reflexes might kick in, so it apparently can happen in real life.
This is a related tangent that I'd like some input on: One of the characteristics of "bad management" that's shown here is Dick constantly hovering. At my company, we've arranged the cubicles so that they still offer privacy (walls are about 6 feet high), but that anyone walking by can see what's on the computer screen. Would you qualify this as hovering? We generally have no issues with casual gchatting, facebooking…
> "Am I a "Dick" manager for wanting to know what they're up to whenever I walk through the room?" For wanting to know? Whenever you walk through the room? Yeah, you might be a Dick. The only business reason to want to know "what they're up to" is if work isn't getting done. And if work isn't getting done, "what they're up to" is irrelevant.
wtf
I think apples should lead apples and oranges should lead oranges.