October
1999 - Be
A Social Worker
Coordinates Lois P. Frankel,
lpfrankel@msn.com
All work, says Lois P. Frankel, is social- a
fact of work life that people ignore at their peril. "Establishing
good working relationships can help us secure the cooperation of the
people we need to accomplish our tasks. If we delay building
good relationships until we really need them, it will be too late."
Here are six of Frankel's favorite techniques for socializing at work.
-
Once a day, drop into someone's office
for a 10-minute talk. "Casual conservation helps build friendly
relationships that can withstand stress."
-
When people talk to you, listen.
"Put everything else on hold for a moment, so that people will
realize that what they're saying matters to you."
-
When you need help, ask for it. "This
is mainly a relationship-building exercise, but you'll get lots
of useful feedback as well."
-
Begin conversations with small talk.
"If you always talk about work, people will think that you only
care about work- and that you don't care about them."
-
Don't let your desire to be liked keep
you from being straightforward. "We all want to be popular,
but that desire should never overshadow the need to make tough
decisions."
-
Do favors for others- even when you can't
anticipate that a favor will be returned. "Doing so builds
good corporate karma, and somehow, some way, you'll benefit from
that karma."
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September
1999 - Differentiating
Between Leadership And Management
From American Journal of Evolution,Owen
and Lambert, Page 358.
Time-Frame: short-term (3 months - 2
years)
Focus:
|
Time Frame: long-term (5 - 10 yrs and
beyond)
Focus:
- the unknown
informal systems
|
| Implementing plans, setting
milestones |
Designing change agendas, developing
shared purpose and values, designing systems |
| Working within a system to achieve excellent
performance |
Working across systems to achieve excellent
organizational performance |
| Minimizing or controlling
risk |
Risk taking to test new products, services,
systems and processes |
| Evaluating existing plans |
Creating plans |
| Monitoring according to performance
accountabilities ('keeping on time and on budget') |
Inspiring people to use initiative |
| Networking for expertise
and resources |
Building coalitions to break through
barriers to change and to progress change agenda |
| Drawing on shared assumptions
(that reduce conflict) |
Questioning basic assumptions (with
the potential for increasing conflict) |
| Conforming to cultural values |
Redesigning cultural values |
August
1999 - Manager's
Role Is Tough One To Play
From The San Diego Union-Tribune,
Business WorkWeek, Monday, July 12, 1999
Some managers don't seem to understand just
what they were hired to do. A recent
survey by a consulting firm, George S. May International, reports
that managers and owners of businesses
think handling employee problems is their most
nonproductive task.
What are they thinking?
Dealing with employees is one of the primary
responsibilities of a manager today, even
if it's a task many would prefer to skip.
"One of the most endangered species in the
workplace today is someone who can get
others to do their jobs well," says Dennis Jaffe, an organizational
psychologist in San Francisco and co-author
of the book "Getting Your Organization to Change."
These individuals, he says, are just as valuable
as they are scarce.
And, it's sad to report that one of the reasons
they are scarce is because some simply
don't understand what a manager's role is.
The George S. May survey also found that managers
dislike disciplining or
dealing with personnel, correcting other's mistakes
and teaching others what they should
already know.
Managing is a balancing act. It is a
recognition of what needs to be done to reach a
corporate goal, what resources are available and how to get the most
out of those resources.
The working equation
Individual workers are the most flexible tangible
in that equation, and the good managers
are the ones who figure out a way to get the most out of their
employees.
You can talk all you want about defining markets,
developing business strategies and
operational systems, but all that can fly out the window if you haven't
paid proper attention to the people
hired to work in your company.
The most important task of any manager is hiring
the right people and the second most
important task is making sure they work toward the company's goals.
"Supervisors who say they shouldn't have to
concern themselves with this should be
concerned about their own jobs," Jaffe says, "If it is your job to
be able to get the people who work
under you to perform better, you'd better find a way to do that.
If you don't, your company might start wondering why it needs you,
or why it can't replace you with
a robot."
Part of the problem with this is the inability
of American companies to train their managers
adequately, Jaffe says.
Work on the 'soft skills'
"We just don't give them the training or the
guidance they need," he says. "Most managers
are people who worked their way up through the company and became managers,
but we never gave them the skills to manage."
"Companies don't invest in "soft" skills because
they don't see the payoff. They seem
to think that people should come by managerial skills naturally."
Some people do. Others have to learn them,
layering them on top of the technical job
skills they already have.
Of course, no manager relishes disciplining
employees, or correcting mistakes, or teaching
workers something they already should know, but that is part of business and
a very important part at that.
Managers do not work in a vacuum. Their
performance directly spills into the performances
of those who work for them. Understanding and accepting this
is essential.
Jaffe says that those who prefer to think of
themselves as technical experts should probably
retreat to a non-supervisory position. In short, if you can't
handle the responsibilities of the
job, surrender it to someone who can.
Every manager needs to recognize that motivating
and guiding workers is one of their
main responsibilities. If they don't, individual workers and
companies never really get the chance
to realize their potential.
- Michael Kinsman
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July
1999 - Training
Update
From the San Diego Union-Tribune,
June 21, 1999
There's the Rub
The rub is that not everyone is up to speed.
Even workers who receive entry-level training need additional training
if they are to preserve their value in the workplace. A worker
with marketable skills in 1999 might be an unemployed worker in 2002
or 2005 if he or she doesn't improve those skills.
- Michael Kinsman
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June
1999 - Office
Ethics
The following check-list was taken from the
book, "You Want Me To do What?", by Nan DeMars , 1998,
Fireside
DeMars primarily focuses on ethics issues for
secretaries and administrative assistants, but has philosophical work
for all employees.
Use this discussion guide to help you and your
co-workers assess the current level of ethical maturity in your office.
Each "yes" answer is a warning sign of a potential ethical dilemma.
yes no
|
Do you think anyone in the office is
doing something illegal?
|
yes no
|
Do you think anyone in the office is
doing something unethical?
|
yes no
|
Is any behavior or action taking place
in the office that you would be embarrassed to see reported
in the media?
|
yes no
|
Are people leaving to go home, go crazy,
go to jail, or go to the authorities?
|
yes no
|
Do you trust your boss?
|
yes no
|
Does your boss trust you?
|
yes no
|
Do you trust your co-workers?
|
yes no
|
Have there been any incidents in the
recent past that made you ashamed of your company?
|
yes no
|
Is there anything going on in your office
that you would feel uncomfortable about explaining to your kids?
a reporter? your parents?
|
yes no
|
Is everyone?customer, co-workers, vendors?being
treated fairly?
|
yes no
|
Is there any perception of a conflict
of interest?
|
yes no
|
Are there any obvious or subtle behaviors
that seem unfair, or seem to undermind the effectiveness of
the work done in your office?
|
yes no
|
Has your ability to make an impartial
and objective decision been compromised or forced to be biased? |
- Nan DeMar's Office Ethics Audit
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April
1999 - The
Generation 2001 Workforce
From Management Review, April
1999
How will students graduating at the start of
the next century shape the American workplace? A survey of the
first graduating class of the new millennium by Northwestern Mutual
Life Insurance Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, shows that tomorrowís employees
will have drastically different characteristics from Generation Xers.
This means that in just two yearsí time, employers will have to adopt
very different management styles to welcome the new breed.
Clearly, Gen 2001 students see themselves as
a privileged group. They cite technology as their biggest advantage,
followed by better career opportunities and more educational resources.
These future employees tend to hold traditional values dear because
they have a perspective on three consecutive generations and have
more trust in their grandparents and parents than do Generation Xers.
For example, they strongly believe in working
hard to pay their dues. On the other hand, because family values
are particularly important to them, they also want to have more flexible
work schedules to spend time with their families.
Deanna Tillisch, director of the study, says
the class of 2001 is a multifaceted group, and employers should provide
them with even more flexibility than Generation Xers. "Lifelong
education is real important to them. As an employer, you want
to provide challenging opportunities to them," she says.
Though employers can assume that the new entrants
to the workforce will exhibit more loyalty than their predecessors,
they also must bear in mind that career opportunities will be much
greater for these young people. Recruitment will thus be a very
tough job for employers, notes Tillisch.
- By Louisa Wah
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March
1999 - Etiquette
With Office Gadgets
From Training Magazine, January
1999
- As new communications technology pours
into the cubicles of corporate America, our first challenge is to
learn to use it. Our second challenge is to learn to use it
without driving one another nuts. Barbara Pachter, co-author
of the Prentic Hall Complete Business Etiquette Handbook, offers
some tips for "techno-etiquette" that sound good to us:
- Leave your name and phone number at the
beginning and end of a voice mail message. And speak clearly
and slowly, for crying out loud. Your name is Kris-tin Applegate,
not Krim Mumble-duh. It is inconsiderate to make someone replay
a message to try to guess your name or number.
- Don't leave rambling or repetitious voice
mail. Does anybody listen to a message that's more than 20
seconds long? No, everybody hits the "delete" button, just
like you do. Keep it short and simple.
- Spelling and grammar count in e-mail.
No, people won't assume that you really know better, and, yes, they
will draw conclusions about your competence.
- Don't use all capital letters in e-mail
messages. Recipients feel as if they're being yelled at.
And it's hard to read.
- If you're using a speaker-phone, let the
caller know who else is in the room with you. This is simple politeness.
It can also avoid all sorts of embarrassment.
Don't use a speaker-phone if you share office
space with other people. Listening to your conversations will distract
and annoy them.
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February
1999 - How
An Employee Feels About The Boss
The following comments were given by an employee
on a questionnaire we administered for a recent building department
study. Wouldn't it be nice if all employees had such a boss?
"When I need to make a decision on my own,
I never have to worry if I'll get fired over it (because I do make
good, moral choices!). Even if my boss would have done it differently,
I don't get counseled at length about how I screwed up. I am
respected for having been the one there at the time who had to make
the decision. Even when I hate my job because I'm overworked
or need a greater challenge, I do remember that there are a lot of
places where I do not have the freedom to think for myself.
I don't fear my boss is keeping book on me. I don't have to
worry that my boss wants to keep me below the level I could rise to.
My boss wants us to develop our full potential and doesn't worry that
we're threatening his job. Do you know how nice that is?"
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January
1999 - The
Brain Chemistry Of The Human Moment
From Harvard Business Review Issue:
January-February 1999
The anecdotal evidence compiled during my work
as a psychiatrist and researcher over 20 years strongly suggests that
a deficit of the human moment damages a person's emotional health.
That finding is also supported by an ever growing body of scientific
research.
Working as long ago
as the 1940's, the French psychoanalyst Rene Spitz showed that infants
who were not held, stroked, and cuddled - even if they had parents
who fed and clothed them - suffered from retarded neurological development.
In 1951, researchers at McGill University found that a lack of normal
contact with the outside world played havoc with adults' sense of
reality. In the study, 14 men and women were placed in sensory
deprivation tanks; within hours, all of them reported an altered sense
of reality, insomnia - even hallucinations.
More recent studies
have examined less extreme situations with equally compelling results.
Between 1965 and 1974, two epidemiologists studied the lifestyles
and health of 4,725 residents of Alameda County, California.
They found that death rates were three times as high for socially
isolated people as for those with strong connections to others.
A similar study of Seattle residents, published in 1997, found that
married people with a strong social network had lower health care
costs and fewer primary care visits than those who were more isolated.
Still other studies have shown that supportive social relationships
boost immune-system responsiveness and prolong life after heart attacks.
Consider also the decade-long
MacArthur Foundation study on aging in the United States, which was
recently completed by a team of eminent scientists from around the
country. It showed that the top two predictors of well-being
as people age are frequency of visits with friends and frequency of
attendance at meetings of organizations. The study also discovered
that, although those who have religious beliefs on average live longer
than those who don't, people who actually attend religious services
do better than those who believe but do not go to services.
Most recently, researchers
from Carnegie Mellon University examined how people were affected
by spending time on-line. Contrary to their expectations, they
found higher levels of depression and loneliness in people who spend
even a few hours per week connected to the Internet. Again,
this suggests that the electronic world, while useful in many respects,
is not an adequate substitute for the world of human contact.
What exactly is the
chemistry at work in these studies of brain function? Scientists
don't know the whole story yet, but they do know that positive human-to-human
contact reduces the blood levels of the stress hormones epinephrine,
norepinephrine, and cortisol.
Nature also equips
us with hormones that promote trust and bonding: oxytocin and vasopressin.
Most abundant in nursing mothers, these hormones are always present
to some degree in all of us, but they rise when we feel empathy for
another person - in particular when we are meeting with someone face-to-face.
It has been shown that these bonding hormones are at suppressed levels
when people are physically separate, which is one of the reasons that
it is easier to deal harshly with someone via e-mail than in person.
Furthermore, scientists hypothesize that in-person contact stimulates
two important neurotransmitters: dopamine, which enhances attention
and pleasure, and serotonin, which reduces fear and worry.
Science, in other words,
tells the same story as my patients. The human moment is neglected
at the brain's peril.
-Edward M. Hollowell
Hot
Management Info for 1999
