I am fortunate to have worked on a team led by Anne Cawley early in my career. Experience working with her enabled me to know, rather than speculate, about the power of an effective manager. What elements of her management style made her effective? Congruence: She conversed with members of her team as equals rather than … [Read more...]
Rethinking Employee Rewards 2 of 3
In my first entry on employee rewards, I emphasized the importance of knowing the recipient well enough to reward them with something that is meaningful to them. But there is more to effective reward programs than providing a meaningful award. Let's take a step back and explore answers to the questions: What is the purpose of a reward program? … [Read more...]
Rethinking Employee Rewards, Part 1
I surveyed ten of my colleagues from different high-tech companies about the state of employee rewards programs at their company. One colleague told me about the outstanding reward programs where he works. The other nine colleagues told me something much different. Their feedback is easily summarized as follows: "Our reward programs are … [Read more...]
Short-Circuit Chaos?
Managers who like to be in control have a predictable reaction to their organization grappling with a change which creates chaos -- they want it to stop. When? Now, right now. What happens if management decides to short-circuit chaos with a magical solution? What happens if management accepts chaos as a necessary but uncomfortable period of the … [Read more...]
Influencing Management
In response to my post entitled Check the Box where I suggest that you choose not to argue with your manager about doing a task whose primary purpose is the furtherance of a PR campaign with their manager, my colleague Bob Lee writes "How much Fantasy Experienced As Reality is building up above?" It depends on your point of view, Bob. For Susan, … [Read more...]