How would your management style change if all your employees were financially independent and their objective was to master their craft while contributing to society? Think about it. Employees would be free to choose whether to stay or go. Oppressive management styles would result in empty buildings. Once upon a time, I had a manager named … [Read more...]
Unintentional Lesson
Ever had one of your buttons pushed? During a terrific session at the AYE Conference entitled Software by the Numbers, I discovered a new button of mine. Let's call it the "Planning" button. The objective of the session was to explore the pitfalls of objectively trying to measure creative work. After giving general instructions to everyone, … [Read more...]
Make Results Predictable
Your organization is in chaos. You want to create pockets of stability. What do you do? Make the results of meetings predictable. Winfrey is the manager of a geographically dispersed software development team at the XYZ Corp. Ellsworth, her manager, assigns Winfrey the management responsibility of hosting a biweekly training conference call. … [Read more...]
Go Dark Loudly
The answer is "X has gone dark". The question is "What frustrates me?" I don't like feeling frustrated. As a member a geographic team, I communicate with my teammates by either email or phone. Sometimes teammates go dark—they completely stop communicating. Paul went dark recently. Attempts to contact him by email received no reply, … [Read more...]
Your Team’s Answer is Wrong, Part 2
In response to my post entitled Your Team's Answer is Wrong, my colleague Bob Lee writes -- (You wrote) "The trainers passed out a copy of the correct answer for the case study to all of us." (emphasis added) The definite article the as opposed to the indefinite article a is a killer here. Had they framed their solution as a … [Read more...]