Comments on: The Secret To Being A Great Manager

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:38:02 +0000

Right on. Maybe the next post should be The Secret To Being A Great Employee: Shut Up and Do What You’re Told.

Once again, I know the secret — not because I live it — but because I observe it.

By: Ed Brett

Ed Brett — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:10:37 +0000

“There are generally two reasons why I’m not good at some of the things my boss(es) want me to be better at: 1) I don’t like to do those things, and 2) I’m simply not wired to do those things well.”

When I was young and stupid(er) I had a boss who was on my case for months about getting a project done. One day she wandered over to my desk and said “OK, I get it. It’s not that you *can’t* do it, it’s that you don’t care about it, so you *don’t* do it.”

I learned something about myself that day, and after that she only gave me projects that I thought were interesting. I’m not saying that made me a good employee (that would be “no”), but it *did* make her a good boss.

By: Joe Young

Joe Young — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:50:45 +0000

Always a pleasure to read your blog Ron. I could not agree more with you. Positive reinforcement (somewhat close to what you are referring to) is so much more effective than punishment or in the case of your topic – focusing on the weakness of an individual. Personality types probably factor into how someone should me managed (I am a firm believer in a degree of individually managing someone too btw) and I would say there are probably some people who like to hear about their weaknesses constantly because they aren’t comfortable with success. A minority for sure but they are out there.

I always enjoyed Organizational Development (one more reason to stay in school longer) and I think your post alludes to a topic that would be a fascinating research topic that would yield some interesting results. Now back to my weakness – cold calling

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:25:41 +0000

Martin: If you suck at administration, it’s because you CHOOSE to suck at administration. There are a few people out there who really are superstars — good at everything related to their job. I hate them. I often suspect they’re aliens from another planet.

By: Martin Reed

Martin Reed — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:00:03 +0000

I whole heartily agree. Focus on what you are good at. I suck at administration and my staff know it and compensate for it. I bring creative ideas to implement, but I need those people to bring the ideas to life. They, to me, are the most important piece to the equation.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:42:46 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by rshevlin: New blog post: The Secret To Being A Great Manager http://bit.ly/aJXBaW…

By: Elaine

Elaine — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:53:52 +0000

As I said on Twitter, I overwhelmingly agree, and it put me in mind of my favorite boss. (I’m serious when I said you’d've liked him, he was a conservative with a wicked sense of humor.)

But I was musing on this and realized I’ve been trying to apply the same idea to my own volunteering. I’ve been in several situations where I thought I was doing a good thing, but was desperately unhappy, mostly because I was pushing myself to do things that I hate doing and am not very good at. So now I try to focus on both continuing to be helpful, but doing it using my strengths.