Tag Archives: management

Dancing On The Ceiling

Every company has a ceiling, or a number of ceilings, which prevent employees from reaching new heights.
Whether it’s a function of the org chart, or the limitations of internal systems, or lack of new and different work, people are going to hit some stopping points and make some choices:

Push at the extremities
Coast
Look for an exit

There’s [...]

Every Dog Needs A Job

Your dog sits at home, biding her time until your return. But then…
Hey, look! Someone’s coming! It’s The Letter Carrier! He’s not One Of Us! I have to protect hearth and home!
Bark! Bark bark! Bark bark bark bark bark! Bark bark bark bark bark bark!
Yay! He’s leaving! Yay! My barking worked! Just like the last [...]

Avoidance Behavior

I once worked at a company where everyone — and I mean everyone — avoided the IT department.
The IT people were incredibly hard to work with, had a major attitude problem and generally said “no” to every reasonable request (at least it certainly felt that way).
Sound familiar?
Now, before one of my IT friends sends me [...]

Dissing The Hired Help

My wife and I recently ate dinner at a lovely restaurant in Vancouver. Excellent food. Fabulous view of the sunset over the water.
Our server, Beth, attentively took us to our table, chatted us up in a friendly way and discussed the pallet of options. Very nice woman.
The manager, Scott, stopped by to pay a cordial [...]

Heart Transplants

In these turbulent times, many companies are undergoing deep changes — in product lines, go-to-market strategies, staff rosters and operational structure. The challenges are great, and, unfortunately, many companies haven’t, or won’t, survive.
In their efforts to change, organizations will often bring in hired guns — consultants, analysts and industry rock stars — whose job it [...]