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Category Archives: Office Musings
Continuous Improvement – The Bondage of Never Enough and Killer Stress
The Chains of Continuous Improvement
In the current, ever-upward striving to shape the culture of corporate America to closely resemble the Third Reich, we seem to have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the bondage of continuous improvement.
How It Used To Be
Gone are the days when a manager or boss might start a business meeting with the words, “Good job! We’re doing great. Just keep doing what you are doing right now!” That never happens anymore. What we do now in our jobs and professions never seems to be good enough. We are not only expected to improve our performance, we are expected to continuously improve it. From a business math perspective, that means improvement must take place over the smallest time increment possible.
Posted in Leadership, Office Musings, Stress Management
Tagged bad leadership, continuous improvement, leadership, Stress
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Parasitic Bureaucracy
Dictionary.com defines a bureaucracy as:
1. government by many bureaus, administrators, and petty officials.
2. the body of officials and administrators, esp. of a government or government department.
3. excessive multiplication of, and concentration of power in, administrative bureaus or administrators.
4. administration characterized by excessive red tape and routine.
Definitions one and two are relatively benign. Each speaks to the structure with no pejorative overtones (unless you want to attach special meaning to the word "petty" in the first definition).
Posted in Office Musings, Office Politics
Tagged assholes, bad leadership, Bureaucracy, leadership, parasites
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Office Politics IV – Even Hitler Had a Friend
This fifth article in the series about being politically savvy in the workplace builds upon the foundational insights of the prior four articles:
Office Politics I addressed the issue of neutralizing a toxic person at your workplace instead of committing either of the two fatal errors of trying to make them a friend or treating them like an enemy. Instead, we want to neutralize their toxic affect upon the work environment.
Office Politics II showed you how to use public displays of camaraderie to neutralize the “behind your back” toxic communications.
Office Politics III – Judo Versus Karate Words
This third article in this series about being politically savvy in the workplace builds upon the foundational insights of the prior two articles.
Office Politics I addressed the issue of neutralizing a toxic person at your workplace instead of committing either of the two fatal errors of trying to make them a friend or treating them like an enemy. Instead, we want to neutralize their toxic effect upon the work environment.
Office Politics II showed you how to use public displays of camaraderie to neutralize “behind your back” toxic communications.
Posted in Office Musings, Office Politics
Tagged bureacracy, office politics, savvy, words
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Office Politics II – Use Public Power to Neutralize a Toxic Person
This second article in a series about being politically savvy in the workplace builds upon the foundational insight of neutralizing a toxic person at your workplace instead of committing either of the two fatal errors of trying to make them a friend or treating them like an enemy. Instead, we want to neutralize their toxic affect upon the work environment.
A Short Story
Posted in Office Musings, Office Politics
Tagged bully, neutralize, office politics, toxic
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Office Politics I – Neutralize, Don’t Make Friends
This first article in a series about being politically savvy in the workplace lays the foundation with a critical concept: how we position ourselves in relationship to a difficult personality in the workplace.
Two Common Errors That Lead to Failure
When faced with the challenge of a difficult personality in our workplace, we tend to go to one extreme or the other:
1. Error #1 – we may try to make the person our friend
2. Error #2 – we see them as an enemy
The Buffalo Nickel Approach to Leading People
Are you old enough to remember when the BUFFALO NICKEL was in circulation? Or maybe you’ve seen them in display cases at a coin shop or in a friend’s collection. They fascinated me as a kid, the picture of a proud Native American on the obverse and a mighty buffalo on the reverse. How easy it was to examine one side, then flip the coin over and look at the other side.
I seriously doubt if you have a BUFFALO NICKEL in your pocket, so look at the two sides of the coin in the picture below:
- Buffalo Nickel
Posted in Leadership, Office Musings, Personal Development
Tagged diversity, good leadership, leadership
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12 Rules of Survival
Sometimes you have to focus on survival before you can turn your attention to excellence.
One of the most stimulating and perceptive things I’ve read in some time is the “12 Rules of Survival” by Laurence Gonzales on his web site, deepsurvival.com
The author’s introduction reads:
Posted in Leadership, Office Musings
Tagged critical thinking, excellence, plan, planning, progress, success, survival
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“Gottas” for Success
After having counseled and coached literally hundreds of individuals and many families spread across my career, I'm convinced there are five critical elements for success in any specific endeavor and in life in general.
Four of these are not so unique to me; you'll find entire books written concerning the first four. They are:
The Work You Love and the Threat of the Black Hole
So many people in the U.S. are unhappy in their jobs. They drag themselves to work on Monday and all week look forward to Friday and the weekend. Perhaps you’re one of them. If so, I suspect that off and on (maybe daily) you’ve wondered if there is something else you could do—that dream job that a few fortunate people find. You know the one. It’s the job that doesn’t feel like work. The one where someone has to tell you to go home because you’re having so much fun and don’t want to leave. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but would like to share three things that come from Dan Miller’s book, 48 Days to the Work You Love
Posted in Office Musings
Tagged calling, career, Dan Miller, future, hate, hope, job, occupation, progress, purpose, success, work
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