Category: Managing others

Column: HR must raise its game

February 16, 2009 11:30 pm by Stefan Stern

To adapt that key question concerning the Romans posed by Reg, the not very heroic leader of the People’s Front of Judea in Monty Python’s Life of Brian : “What has HR ever done for us?”

We know the usual answer. It is delivered with a sneer and a derisive snort. HR managers are the “abominable ‘No’ men” (and women, too, of course). They get together to form “business prevention units”. This relentless carping has undermined their self-confidence and surveys confirm that HR people worry that colleagues do not take them seriously. They struggle to influence the corporate agenda.

The financial crisis has only made things worse. HR is summoned to redundancy negotiations but may then be ignored. And now questions are being asked about what HR did or did not do to help avert this crisis in the first place.

The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Posted in Managing others | Permalink

Goals gone wild — and how to tame them

February 4, 2009 1:44 pm by Adam Jones

A Harvard Business School working paper — more specifically, its witty title — has just made me smile.

‘Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting’ examines how employees do stupid things when their bosses tell them to focus on excessively narrow and demanding targets.

It features a useful ten-point checklist for managers to consult before they set goals for others. I paraphrase:

Are the goals too specific?
Are they too challenging and what happens if they are not met?
Who sets the goals and is the employee adequately involved?
Is the time horizon appropriate or does it foster short-termism?
How might the goals influence risk-taking and what are the acceptable associated risks?
How might the goals promote unethical behaviour and what safeguards are in place?
Can they be tailored to individuals while remaining fair?
How will they affect the organisation’s culture? Are team goals more appropriate?
Do affected staff have an intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation?
Would learning, rather than performance, be a better target?

Further viewing: the FT’s recent series of managerial psychology video lectures by Nick Epley of Chicago Booth business school, particularly the third lecture on motivating staff.

Posted in Managing others | Permalink

Pick of the week

January 16, 2009 11:41 am by Adam Jones

“Executive coaching isn’t therapy,” says executive coach Ed Batista, before declaring that Gestalt therapy actually provides rather a good framework for resolving workplace issues;
Don’t greet the guy sitting by the door first — 10 pages of advice from Harvard Business School on how to negotiate in China;
How the brain makes us fall into line with others — and how marketers can cash in on that hard-wiring;
Tips for keeping staff in emerging markets with high inflation (pay rises need to be more frequent that once a year, for a start);
The rules of movie marketing.

Posted in Career/skills, Managing others, Marketing/sales | Permalink

Podcast: how to keep Generation Y motivated

January 14, 2009 5:06 pm by Adam Jones

A new FT Management podcast has just been published, featuring Tammy Erickson, author of Plugged In: The Generation Y Guide To Thriving At Work.

Tammy, a perceptive blogger as well as author, wrote the book as a form of career advice for Generation Y, which she loosely defines as those born between 1980 and 1995.

However, I wanted to ask her how older bosses should approach the task of managing these younger workers. How do you recruit and retain the most talented “Ys”? And are they really as impatient as their critics make out?

Tammy prefers to call them “immediate” rather than “impatient”. On the plus side, they have a suppleness and adaptability that can make their seniors look rigid and over-scheduled.

Yet she says they can be naïvely ignorant of the unwritten rules that govern most workplaces:

The Ys often just simply don’t get how business in done within corporations… they don’t really understand how things happen.

Does any of that sound familiar?

Posted in Managing others, Podcasts | Permalink

Best business books of 2008

December 1, 2008 1:42 pm by Stefan Stern

When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change
By Mohamed El-Erian
McGraw-Hill Professional £15.99, 304 pages
Winner of the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2008. El-Erian’s serious analysis of the new economic world order has won admirers in every major financial market. As we struggle to work out what the “new normal” will look like, El-Erian provides readers with market-tested insights.

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
By Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
Yale University Press £18, 293 pages
The policy wonks’ favourite, this treatise by two Chicago economists has proved highly influential. Top-down government diktat is proving less and less effective, they argue. People cannot be told what to do. For better outcomes, “nudge” them: make suggestions, use peer pressure. Less convincing on what happens when nudging isn’t enough.

The Logic of Life: Uncovering the New Economics of Everything
By Tim Harford
Little, Brown £18.99, 288 pages
The FT’s undercover economist comes out into the open with an entertaining look at behavioural economics, and the rational motivation behind our apparently quirky and unexpected actions. Does going Dutch at a restaurant make economic sense? When is it right to bluff at cards?

A Sense of Urgency
By John Kotter
Harvard Business Press £11.99, 208 pages
One of the world’s leading gurus of change, Kotter revisits his eight steps of change theory and focuses on its most important element: a sense of urgency. Managing change successfully really does come down to that. An elegantly written book that proves you don’t have to drone on endlessly to make a point.

Continue reading: “Best business books of 2008″

Posted in Career/skills, Innovation/tech, Leadership, Managing others, Strategy/ops | Permalink

If you are paranoid now, wait until you join Rypple

November 27, 2008 2:05 pm by Adam Jones

A new web-based service called Rypple is offering workers private, anonymous feedback from colleagues and bosses.

Members use the site to ask their peers how they performed in a specific task, or how they are doing in general. The peers write down what they think and these opinions are returned to the feedback-seeker without their names attached.

This ~~nameless character assassination~~ dispassionate evaluation enables members to work on their weaknesses on a rolling basis, instead of having to wait for their annual career appraisal, the company says.

Continue reading: “If you are paranoid now, wait until you join Rypple”

Posted in Career/skills, Innovation/tech, Managing others | Permalink

Clock-watching bosses need to discover the Japanese concept of ‘ba’

November 26, 2008 11:53 am by Adam Jones

BBC Radio 4 broadcast an ostensibly light-hearted programme that made me grimace yesterday. It was about punctuality and time management and featured a factory that docked the pay of workers going to the toilet outside scheduled breaks.

Punctuality may be important but too much oversight eliminates those informal interactions that make work more productive as well as more bearable. Who hasn’t picked up a useful snippet of work information from a colleague during a moment of impromptu down time?

I’d almost forgotten about the programme when a couple of hours later I came across an illuminating profile of Ikujiro Nonaka, the Japanese management guru, in the new edition of Strategy + Business, the house magazine of Booz & Company.

Continue reading: “Clock-watching bosses need to discover the Japanese concept of ‘ba’”

Posted in Corporate culture, Managing others | Permalink

Lunch with Tom Peters

November 24, 2008 1:35 pm by Stefan Stern

This piece was published in Saturday’s FT. It was a huge pleasure to meet the great man.

Do note Tom’s assertion that “management is not getting harder”.

What do you think?

Posted in Hard times, Managing others | Permalink

Pick of the week

November 21, 2008 1:45 pm by Adam Jones

Glib politicians and CEOs rejoice: research suggests that sidestepping questions can be a good policy if you do it artfully enough.

Todd Rogers, executive director of the Analyst Institute, and Michael Norton, a Harvard Business School professor, looked at public speakers who, when faced with a difficult question, provide a slick answer to a different question that they would rather have been asked.

Their conclusion? Listeners mind this less than a straight answer delivered badly.

Elsewhere:

McKinsey on why those who try to imitate Toyota’s lean manufacturing often fall short;
Mastering the art of confrontation (and arguing with Rudy Giuliani);
The credit crunch can be an opportunity for entrepreneurs as it forces bigger companies to be conservative and possibly shed assets.

Posted in B-schools, Career/skills, Innovation/tech, Managing others, Strategy/ops | Permalink

Pick of the week

November 7, 2008 11:49 am by Adam Jones

Tom Peters has given managers some tips on how to carry themselves during a recession.

“Banish gloomy from your personal demeanor,” he suggests, before adding that a sunny demeanour “is pretty stupid, too: who do you think you’re kidding?”.

A determined look – “gettin’ on with gettin’ on” – is best, he concludes. Inevitably, there is a garish PowerPoint slideshow.

Elsewhere: