Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything
Category Archives: The Successful Manager
The only thing that matters: The Relevant Results
In New York city, a taxi driver and a priest die on the same day and knock on Heaven’s door. Saint Peter receives them and shows the taxi driver and the priest around. The taxi driver’s home for eternity is … Continue reading
What to do when you are overwhelmed with things to do
If you are overwhelmed by the extensive demands on your time or by the number of projects that seem permanently stuck on your to-do list, here’s a technique to organize your projects more effectively. Make a table with three columns: … Continue reading
Three Leadership Lessons from Ron Johnson’s Debacle at J.C. Penney
Monday’s dismissal of J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson comes as no surprise. In late 2011, J.C. Penney had hired Ron Johnson from Apple to revive the sagging fortunes of the storied retailer. He was deemed as a retailing genius who … Continue reading
Leadership: Stay out of the kitchen if you can’t handle the heat
Not everybody is prepared to endure the demanding responsibilities of a leadership role: It’s tough to challenge status quo and to pilot your organization forward into unfamiliar territory It’s tough to be long-term oriented and to propose transformative ideas that … Continue reading
The Duplicity of Corporate Diversity Initiatives
Even after years of diversity initiatives in corporate America, “inclusion” is more about meeting the numbers on gender, race, and other obvious differences, and less about pursuing intellectual, ideological, pedagogical, and stylistic diversity within teams and organizations. Overall, the workforce … Continue reading
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Don’t be friends with your employees
Be friendly with your employees, but don’t be friends with them. To be effective, managers need to to be obliging when they can and tough when they must. The boss-employee relationship implies a power structure that makes managing friends quite … Continue reading
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Performance appraisal systems don’t “meet expectations”
Across the corporate world, the annual performance appraisal system has been reduced to a perfunctory exercise to “do what HR needs and check-the-box,” and produce paperwork to weed out the laggards and reduce liability against discrimination lawsuits. So much so … Continue reading
When an Employee Threatens to Quit
When an employee gets confrontational and threatens to quit in order to get a salary hike, promotion, or organizational change he demands, let him quit. First, listen him out and consider his demands seriously. Beyond that, be resolute and ask … Continue reading
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Why Mergers Tend to Fail
Many corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&As) fail to realize their wished-for synergies, and eventually fall short of producing value to the stakeholders. Some years ago, a KPMG survey estimated that 83 percent of all mergers fail to create value and … Continue reading
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