During a recent lunch meeting with a startup in NJ, a Senior Manager shared with me the following seven pieces of wisdom from Pirkei Avot.(Supposed to be 2000 years old).
The wise man does not speak before one who is greater than he in wisdom.
He does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.
He does [...]
Tags: Communication · Management
Came across a good compilation of common sense tips for people management. Link Here.
My only issue with the article is that they call it rules. Management can never be rule-based. It has to be customized to every context, person, team, culture, business objectives etc.
In particular, I enjoyed reminding myself of the following 10 from the [...]
Tags: Management
We are currently helping two exciting companies in New York build high performing product teams.
One company is fairly old and profitable. Let us call it X.
The other is fairly recent and barely profitable. Let us call it Y.
X has everyone they need to get the job done. We are helping X by doing an organizational [...]
Tags: Company Size
I do assessments on the resources and capabilities of product development organizations. Usually, I follow the following 3 steps
GAP analysis, followed by
Root-cause analysis and then
Suggest core recommendations.
Nowadays, as a result of practicing Appreciative Inquiry, I get lot of insights that I would have usually missed. I have not completely given up the old approach [...]
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One of the issues that start-ups struggle is with issue of communication break-down. As the organization grows, communication goes from “every-one knows everything” to “why was I not told about this?”. One rule of thumb that I suggest to the decision-makers is use the “5W” approach of communication. Any time a decision is [...]
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As a manager, you have a very powerful tool in your arsenal - feedback. If used properly, it can reinforce the positive and eliminate the negative.
I work in a flat organization and have over 20 direct reports. We have semi-annual performance reviews. I use these performance reviews to set semi-annual goals and assess employee performance [...]
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In my last posting, I talked about viewing the world from your manager’s perspective. In this blog entry, I am going to talk about my decision making process; a four-question model to make and communicate quick, clean-cut strategic decisions.
Whenever, I have to make decisions that could affect other individuals, I use this model without fail. [...]
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I like Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management. I try to revisit these rules once every few weeks. There is lot of wisdom in these rules; each rule is a gem in itself. Here is my most favorite one:
When faced with decisions, try to look at them as if you were one level up in the [...]
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I read this excellent article on Fast Company.
From the article: “There’s a better way to think about all this, one that requires us to embrace imbalance. Instead of trying to balance all of our commitments and passions at any one time, let’s acknowledge that anything important, and anything done well, demands our full investment. At [...]
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A big chunk of the work we do involves mentoring. Ron Brejak sent me this nice quote related to mentoring:
Tell me … I will forget.
Show me … I may remember some.
Discuss with me … I will begin to understand.
Allow me to do … I will gain skills and knowledge.
Allow me to teach … I will [...]
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