Posts tagged Leadership

There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

mralexho:

- Susan Cain 

Ain’t that the truth.

Decay had begun to show in some HP offices. Mice skittered in the corridors. Spiders fell from cracked ceilings. As the company cut back on trash pickups, detritus piled up, and in one location workers took garbage home in their cars. Upon arrival, Apotheker was informed that HP was missing 85,000 chairs.

cnnmoneytech:

Things at Hewlett-Packard were waaaay bad when Mard Hurd got ousted, according to a new Fortune investigation.  (via cnnmoneytech)

Sounds pretty brutal if you ask me. Especially the spider part. 

I’m a big believer in delegating, giving people lots of responsibility, maybe even more than they can handle. You don’t want a roster of order takers. Failing is OK. When you micromanage, you get people that don’t care.

Tumblr’s New EIC Talks About His Management Style

Chris Mohney, the new Editor in Chief of Tumblr, gives an interesting interview to Ad Week in which he’s asked about his leadership style. I like the answer he gives, quoted in full above, especially the last part about micromanagement:

When you micromanage, you get people that don’t care.

How true. 

How To Be A Turnaround Artist My latest article in Fortune focuses on how to manage a staff you didn’t pick. The situation occurs pretty often in the workplace (pretty much every time a new manager takes over a group) and is critical. Lose the team and you’re likely to lose your job.  The idea for the article was hatched while watching Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the San Francisco 49ers, in the middle of a crazy turnaround job. The 49ers went 6-10 the previous season, and were so bad that the coach at the time, Mike Singletary, lost his job. Harbaugh took over this past season and, with a limited offseason due to the NFL’s lockout, led pretty much the same group of players to a dominant 13-3 record. The 49ers lost to the New York Giants in the playoffs, but Harbaugh was named the NFL’s coach of the year in a vote that wasn’t even close.  As sneak peak, here’s some of the experts you’ll meet in the piece:  Frances Frei, Harvard Business School Professor John Challenger, President of Challenger, Grey and Christmas Tom Davenport, Author of Manager Redefined and Ryan Rush, a manager who took over a team of 21  Read the full article here: Inheriting another person’s staff: How to deal

How To Be A Turnaround Artist

My latest article in Fortune focuses on how to manage a staff you didn’t pick. The situation occurs pretty often in the workplace (pretty much every time a new manager takes over a group) and is critical. Lose the team and you’re likely to lose your job. 

The idea for the article was hatched while watching Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the San Francisco 49ers, in the middle of a crazy turnaround job. The 49ers went 6-10 the previous season, and were so bad that the coach at the time, Mike Singletary, lost his job.

Harbaugh took over this past season and, with a limited offseason due to the NFL’s lockout, led pretty much the same group of players to a dominant 13-3 record. The 49ers lost to the New York Giants in the playoffs, but Harbaugh was named the NFL’s coach of the year in a vote that wasn’t even close. 

As sneak peak, here’s some of the experts you’ll meet in the piece: 

Frances Frei, Harvard Business School Professor
John Challenger, President of Challenger, Grey and Christmas
Tom Davenport, Author of Manager Redefined
and Ryan Rush, a manager who took over a team of 21 

Read the full article here: Inheriting another person’s staff: How to deal