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Tag Archives: managing people
People are Our Most Important Asset
One of the beliefs I try and get the organizations I work for to adopt is to truly value excellent people. The costs are challenges of hiring great people, to me, makes it critical to do what you can to keep your exceptional people. I probably haven’t written about this because it can conflict with my advice against performance appraisals. I do actually believe it is possible to know certain people are great and contribute greatly to the success of … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect
Tagged coaching, Creativity, curiouscat, John Hunter, Management, managing people, Psychology, respect for people
9 Comments
Continuous, Constructive Feedback
Employee performance: Continuous, constructive feedback yields results [the broken link was removed]: Be specific. If you simply say “Good job, Frank,” Frank won’t know exactly what he did to get that atta boy. Therefore, he can’t consciously work to repeat that behavior. Instead, say something like “Frank, that new procedure you developed for handling service calls has really improved customer satisfaction. Thanks for coming up with it.” Include coaching. Annual reviews often are used as the only performance communication tool. … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect
Tagged managing people, Performance Appraisal, Psychology
4 Comments
Best Buy Rethinks the Time Clock
Best Buy Rethinks the Time Clock [the broken link was removed]: With a classic flextime structure, workers arrange their schedules with their boss in advance. But under a program called Rowe, for “results-only work environment,” the boss has no say in scheduling and can judge employees only on tasks successfully completed – even if none were done in the office. The five-year-old plan now covers 60 percent of the employees at Best Buy’s corporate headquarters near Minneapolis. And by all … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Respect
Tagged managing people, respect for people
Motivating Employees
No Matter How Badly You Want It: “When it seems easy, it’s like they already wanted to do it in the first place.” Martin paused. “It seems impossible when they didn’t ever want to do it. So, it doesn’t seem to matter what you want, as the manager, or how badly you want it. The only thing that seems to matter is whether your team members want to do it?” The lights were circling in Martin’s head. The whole time, … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect
Tagged Deming, managing people, motivation
1 Comment
Motivating People to Change
Don’t miss a nice series of posts by Jon Miller: How to Motivate People to Change – part 1, part 2, part 3. [links broken, so removed 🙁 ] Success may come in the short term when motivation is through a combination of fear and reward centering on financial safety and security, belonging to a group and achievement of status… There is some question as to whether this type of approach to motivation is sustainable, and at the very least … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged change, managing people, motivation, Psychology
Performance Appraisals – Is Good Execution the Solution?
Performance review proponents say the way it is done matters most[the broken link was removed] (based on reaction to: Performance appraisals get low marks[the broken link was removed]): Deming, it seems, has many fans. His view of performance reviews? He included them in his catalog of the “seven deadly diseases” afflicting U.S. management in the late 20th Century. Byrne referred to Deming when he wrote: “The ‘report card’ type of yearly review [does] more harm than good. Review the person … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Performance Appraisal, Systems thinking
Tagged Deming, managing people, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Systems thinking
3 Comments
Why Extrinsic Motivation Fails
Why Motivation by Pizza Doesn’t Work This completely changes the role of the manager as motivator. Rather than being the source of motivation (kind of a ludicrous idea in itself), the manager must help employees to find their own intrinsic motivation. Lean thinkers understand this idea as respect for people. Dr. Deming talked about joy in work. Douglas McGregor talked about theory x and theory y thinking. All of these perspectives incorporate an understanding of workplace systems and human psychology. … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect
Tagged extrinsic motivation, management, managing people, motivation, Psychology
5 Comments
How to Improve
My management philosophy is guided by the idea of seeking methods that will be most effective.* There are many ways to improve. Good management systems are about seeking systemic adoption of the most effective solutions. What this amounts to is learning about the ideas of Deming, Ackoff, Ohno, Chirstensen, Scholtes, Womack… and then adopting those ideas. In doing so learning about management tools and concepts as they are applied to your work. Here is a simple example. Years ago, my … Continue reading
Ritz Carlton and Home Depot
Don MacAskill writes of his great service from Ritz-Carlton and horrible service from Home Depot. Neither result is surprising, see related posts below… Ritz-Carlton’s motto is “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” And they actually turn those words into reality… Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Management, Systems thinking
Tagged aim, culture, Customer focus, managing people, organization as a system
3 Comments
Righter Performance Appraisal
Speaking of “doing the wrong things righter” Microsoft has eliminated forced rankings in performance appraisal: to do performance appraisals righter. Microsoft exec puts her stamp on human resources: The forced curve was company policy. And it climbed up a list of employee gripes that grew as Microsoft’s stock, which accounts for much of the company’s compensation, languished. In May, after barely a year as Microsoft’s human-resources chief, Lisa Brummel swept away “artifacts of the past,” starting with the widely disliked … Continue reading
Hiring the Right People
The job market is an inefficient market. There are many reasons for this including relying on specification (this job requires a BS in Computer Science – no Bill Gates you don’t meet the spec) instead of understanding the system. Insisting on managing by the numbers even when the most important figures are unknown and maybe unknowable. Using HR to find the right person to work in a process they don’t understand (which reinforces the desire to focus on specifications instead … Continue reading
Posted in Career, Customer focus, IT, Management, Performance Appraisal, Popular
Tagged Career, curiouscat, Deming, hiring, management, managing people, Popular
15 Comments
Internet Access at Work
Providing internet access at work can create some management issues. However, the correct solution to those problems is not to be overly restrictive on access to the internet. Obviously, the most important thing is doing the work of the organization: there is no excuse for employees ignoring customers or pressing needs to IM with their friends or browse the web. However, if you hire responsible people and manage properly – maintaining a proper work culture, etc., you should respect and … Continue reading
Posted in IT, Management, Respect
Tagged internet, IT, managing people, Psychology, respect for people, technology
1 Comment
Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation
The Econ 101 Management Method by Joel Spolsky. Once again Joel presents interesting ideas very well – past posts referencing Joel. But when you offer people money to do things that they wanted to do, anyway, they suffer from something called the Overjustification Effect. “I must be writing bug-free code because I like the money I get for it,” they think, and the extrinsic motivation displaces the intrinsic motivation. Since extrinsic motivation is a much weaker effect, the net result … Continue reading
Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Psychology
Tagged Deming, extrinsic motivation, Joel Spolsky, Management, managing people, motivation, Psychology, Software Development
5 Comments
Brainstorming Under Attack
Brainstorming under attack: 8 errors in the WSJ [the broken link was removed]. The WSJ has their content behind a wall [the broken link was removed] so their content is not part of the web and so I have not seen their article. The blog post makes good points about mistaken impressions of brainstorming: People do better on their own than they do in brainstorming sessions. This is really daft. I like to think of myself as a pretty creative … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Management, Quality tools
Tagged communication, Creativity, managing people, problem solving, Quality tools
Respect for People
A very thoughtful post, Respect for People on the Kaikaku blog raises some interesting questions. What does respect for people really mean? Toyota empowers people: To stop the line – to stop every other worker from working – that is real respect and trust. To implement creative improvement ideas around their work area. They trust you to come up with the best idea to make your work easier and more interesting. You don’t have to wait for management to tell … Continue reading
Stop Demotivating Employees
Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation [broken link removed – Harvard is extremely bad about breaking links, which is an indication of how little they think about anything but the short term] by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, and Michael Irwin Meltzer from the Harvard Management Update: Most companies have it all wrong. They don’t have to motivate their employees. They have to stop demotivating them. Clear, simple and right. Douglas McGregor explored this topic well in 1960. He explained … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, Management Articles, Popular, Psychology
Tagged management, managing people, Psychology, respect for people, short term thinking
18 Comments