Management Craft

Reminder - Boss's Day is in 2 Weeks - Enter Now

Fellow bloggers - please share this with your readers. Thanks!

Boss's Day is Monday, October 16th

Do you work for a great boss? If so, I want to hear about him or her.

• What does he or she do that makes him or her a great boss?
• How does he or she help you succeed?
• What qualities do you most admire or like?

Send me a paragraph describing your great boss and he or she may win a nice package from me. Here are the details:

This year,  I will honor FIVE great bosses - YOUR bosses.

Email me one paragraph that describes what's great about your boss - what you most appreciate about the work that he or she does.

I will publish the entries (using only first names) on this blog (and share it on the Carnival of the Capitalists) and will select the five entries I like best. If your entry is one of the five selected as best, your boss will receive the following from me:

• Signed copy of Focus Like a Laser Beam
• $20 Starbucks gift card
• Lovely wrapping
• Personal note card from me congratulating him or her on being so well regarded by you and letting him or her know about your entry.

What a nice surprise for your boss - if you love your boss, send in your entry!

Due to timing and logistics (getting the package there in time), this offer is open to only those in the US and Canada. I don't think the rest of the world celebrates boss's day anyway..... However, if you are in another country but your boss is in the US or Canada, that's fine.

When you email your entry, include your name, your boss's name and his or her mailing address. You can send the entries to me at lhaneberg AT gmail DOT com.

I must receive entries by Friday, October 6th, end of day. If your entry is one of the five winners, your boss will receive his or her gift by Friday October 13th.

I want FRESH!

I have received several emails in the last few days from PR firms, publishers, or authors offering me their books. I have not said yes to any of them.

I love books. I love great books.

Everything I saw seemed so BLAH so duplicative so uninteresting.

I want FRESH. I want to be provoked, evoked, and even angered.

So tell me, what should I be reading that does all those things? Help me pleeaassee.

If Only Employees Purred

Oh how much easier it would be if employees purred
You'd know when they were happy or content
The continuous vibrations would fuel the workplace
Like windmills or a Columbia River dam
The low smooth sound would attract customers too
There's something about a purr that's soothing
Seductive and attractive in a nurturing way

Purring doesn't just happen in the best of conditions
A cat's motor runs on bad days too when she feels
Comforted, warm, loved, cared for
Purring does not happen in isolation; its a response
To another being and what affect that being is having
It would be nice to know that about your employees too
Whether they feel care; what difference you make

If only employees purred

My podcast was reviewed!

Thanks to Steve Rucinski for taking the time to review my podcast series on the Small Business Trends Radio site. Here's a snippet:

Pluses: The site is a very clean design, podcast links are obvious and the audio begins to stream and play almost immediately. RSS subscription links are front and center and each podcast has a nice summary paragraph with show information. The real strength is where it should be, in the audio content and Lisa is a good interviewer.

Steve shares two minuses: that my podcast does not allow comments and that the sound quality could be better on some calls. I agree and will look into both!

This has been such an interesting learning experience for me and I appreciate everyone who has tuned in.

How to GET People to Trust You

That's the title of this Forbes Mag. article. It seems to me that there is something wrong embedded in the title itself.

The word GET always makes my "warning, control" radar go up. Forget how we GET people to trust us, isn't the more important question how we can be trustworthy?

I think it is Covey who made this distinction, too. Yes, here's a quote from this online article about Covey's 7 Habits.

Covey writes that the inside-out approach says "[I]f you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character."

Managers who are trustworthy - open, candid, caring, consistent, keeping promises, not gossiping - will be trusted.

Here are a couple quotes from the Forbes article that I find particularly disturbing:

From love to business to politics, trust matters. There's no magic formula to building a trusting relationship. But there are a couple tricks to help you gain trust in a hurry--even if you don't deserve it.

and then this one...

Old-fashioned kissing up can also encourage trust. Feinstein advises her clients to make the object of their affection feel at ease by doing favors, giving compliments and being accommodating.

The key to establishing a long-term connection is consistency. A key part of espionage, says Earnest, is making local informants feel safe in every situation and with everyone in the agency. "If someone else is sloppy," he says, "the source fades away."

Huh? This smacks of Apprentice style management advice - power, manipulation, appearances. Yuck! We need to develop and build stronger, more trusting relationships in business, not more smoke and mirrors, disingenuous flattery, and short cut social strategies.

Yale's New MBA Design

Well, it is about time! Yale has announced that it is totally redesigning its MBA program to be more systemic and integrative. Based on what I have read so far, the changes look great. I hope this is like the $4 prescriptions at WalMart and that other schools will soon follow suit and redesign their programs.

I don't know enough to render an opinion on whether the topics and types of experiences will be successful, but the design diagram and basic description look interesting.

What do you think? Would you be any more or less likely to apply for a highly integrative program like this one?

My hopes for the new program:

• Builds courage
• Builds connection - students' abilities to build deep intimate business relationships
• Builds catalystic thinking, flow, and play
• Builds character and a deeper caring for people and business
• Builds the focus and drive to execute
• Builds nimbleness and an ability to lead change
• Builds passion

(Hat Tip to the Fortune Business Innovator blog.)

Top Blogs

Here are the top blogs according to Business Week readers. Of the winners, the only one I have in my aggregator is Scoble. And I am not sure why I read Scoble, either, because I am not into tech stuff that much. Well, yes, I do know - I like the way Scoble thinks and reacts to things - he seems more authentic and courageous than many people I read or know.

Lots of techy blogs on the list, which one would guess. Anyway, check out the list!

Hat tip to Scoble for the link.

Business can be amazing?

Yep. I believe that too. I love this recent quote from Tom Peters:

"Business* [*at its "excellent" best] can be: An emotional, vital, audacious, innovative, joyful, frightening, risky, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that breathes life & fire into our work & life & elicits maximum concerted human potential in the wholehearted effort to help others ** [**employees, clients, suppliers, communities, owners, temporary partners] succeed & profit & imagine & reach places they'd never dreamed they could go."

Audacious, huh? Yes, let's try some more of that today!

My Demotivators

OK, OK. I know. What's a chic and sophisticated professional like myself doing messing around like this?

I needed a mental break. Soooo, I created two three Demotivational Posters (I shared the link a couple days ago). Sure, it's kind of negative - but meant to be all in fun.

Make your own! Email me yours if you think you can do better. I'll post it if I agree.

What do you think?

Tell me about your AMAZING boss! Boss's Day is Oct. 16

The last couple years, I have created an ebook for Boss's Day and written Boss's Day poems.

This year, I would like to do something different. I will honor FIVE great bosses - YOUR bosses.

Email me one paragraph that describes what's great about your boss - what you most appreciate about the work that he or she does.

I will publish the entries (using only first names) on this blog (and share it on the Carnival of the Capitalists) and will select the five entries I like best. If your entry is one of the five selected as best, your boss will receive the following from me:

• Signed copy of Focus Like a Laser Beam
• $20 Starbucks gift card
• Lovely wrapping
• Personal note card from me congratulating him or her on being so well regarded by you and letting him or her know about your entry.

What a nice surprise for your boss - if you love your boss, send in your entry!

Due to timing and logistics (getting the package there in time), this offer is open to only those in the US and Canada. I don't think the rest of the world celebrates boss's day anyway..... However, if you are in another country but your boss is in the US or Canada, that's fine.

When you email your entry, include your name, your boss's name and his or her mailing address. You can send the entries to me at lhaneberg AT gmail DOT com.

I must receive entries by Friday, October 6th, end of day. If your entry is one of the five winners, you boss will receive his or her gift by Friday October 13th.