Tag: management

A Good Lesson in Bad Business: When a Company Botches an Employee Thank You

REWARDING EMPLOYEES can be a tricky business.  It’s also hard for many organizations to get right no matter how good their intentions are. The key to it — and this is critically important — is that whatever you give employees to say thank you for their hard work must make them feel like you sincerely

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A Very Public Firing That Shows the Really Terrible State of Management Today

Editor’s note: Technical issues delayed this post, and my apologies for that …  WANT TO GRAB a big audience on social media? Just record yourself getting fired, post the recording on TikTok, watch others post it on X (aka Twitter), and create so much buzz that even The Wall Street Journal writes a story about

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Wherever You May Work, Meetings are a Pain in the Ass for Just About Everyone

SOME WORKPLACE ISSUES seem to pop up over and over again, and if you stick around long enough you’ll get another round of suggestions on how to handle them. Last week, I found an article at Chief Executive on a workplace topic I’ve written about a lot over the years, and you may have dealt

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A Christmas Lesson For All: Treat People Less Like Scrooge, More Like Fezziwig

Editor’s Note: I’ve been republishing some classic posts; here’s one from December 2021. GIVEN HOW CHAOTIC the last several years have been with lockdowns and other such calamities, nobody would blame you for being a Scrooge during the holidays. But, what if you just don’t identify with Scrooge? Perhaps a more contemporary grouch would be better

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It’s Time to Finally Face It — All the Crazy Hype Over AI is Greatly Overblown

mesh cube/istockphoto.com

FOR ALL THE HULLABALOO we keep hearing about Artificial Intelligence and all the advancements that will flow from it, there’s another school of thought to keep in mind. You may be hearing it more these days, and it’s this: Perhaps the AI hype was a little overblown. Case in point: A timely story from Computerworld

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It’s Not For Everyone, But Here’s How to Help Workers Who WANT to be a Manager

Editor’s Note: I’ve written a version of this weekly wrap-up for more than 20 years — from Workforce.com to TLNT.com to Fuel50. Now, I’m doing it here. Let me know what you think at johnhollon@yahoo.com. I THINK I WAS WAS BORN to lead and be a manager. I’ve been doing it since I was editing

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The FIVE Big Things I’ve Learned About Becoming a Better Manager

Editor’s Note: I’ve been republishing some classic Skeptical Guy posts while preparing a new project. This one is from December 2018. HERE’S A GOOD QUESTION I almost never, ever hear anyone ask much less answer: How can I be a better manager? That may be because most of the advice on being a better manager only

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Workplace Wisdom: You Can Learn More From a Bad Boss Than From a Good One

Editor’s Note: I’ve been republishing classic (and slightly edited/updated) Skeptical Guy posts the last few months. This one is from June 2018. HERE’S A MANAGEMENT TRUISM you just can’t avoid: You learn more from a bad boss than you do from a good one. I was struck by this when I came across an old Corner

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The real secret to managing employees? Just encourage them to manage you

Editor’s Note: I’ve been republishing some classic Skeptical Guy posts over the last few months. This one is from August 2017. A FEW YEARS AGO, I was working as Editor of a fairly well-known talent management magazine and found myself engaged in one of my frequent discussions with the publisher. I don’t remember what the subject was, but

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Dave Ulrich on Smart Strategies to help businesses thrive in ambiguous times 

BACK AT THE PEAK of the Covid lockdown in April 2021, New Zealand technology firm Fuel50 held a virtual FuelX Talent Mobility conference because it just wasn’t possible to stage a live event as they had done in the past. There were a number of great speakers — like Josh Bersin — but one had a very different presentation from everyone else. That speaker was Dave

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