Last Monday we discussed some of the ridiculous reasons that managers use to excuse their lack of fairness and Tuesday we covered what most employees actually mean by ‘fair’.
The main focus was on compensation and that doesn’t begin to cover it.
Unfair treatment from pay to perks to training to strokes to any form of attention will create problems.
Note: I didn’t say ‘might’ or ‘may’ cause problems, but will cause them.
Not just engagement, motivation and retention problems, but also problems with creativity, innovation, initiative (AKA leadership) and especially trust—there won’t be any.
So let’s be clear.
There is no acceptable reason to treat …read more

Yesterday I told you how monkeys lose productivity when treated unfairly.
Unlike the managers I described in that post, good managers know that unequal pay, but they also know that it’s not just a matter of title/grade.
Not everyone with the same title deserves the same compensation—in fact, to do so would be extremely unfair!
Most companies establish a range for each job and some guidelines within each range, but the guides frequently fall short of what’s needed in the real world.
How do you draw the lines to achieve fairness?
You might think that ‘fair’ is some kind of universal one-size-fits-all yardstick, but all …read more

As you may know, I coach with a focus on MAP—it’s effects, uses and how to enhance/change it—so I tend to collect articles and information that will help illustrate and/or drive home a critical point.
MAP is both timely and timeless with the same topics arising in successive generations of managers, so the past articles are often of just as much use now as when they were written.
Obvious as it may seem, fair treatment of employees is one of those things to which managers constantly make exceptions citing all sorts of ‘reasons’.
Years ago I read an article about a study by …read more

Friday I quoted Henry Mintzberg, the man Tom Peters called the world’s premier management thinker. I hope you clicked and read the short opinion piece in Business Week.
Here is a link to an interview in the Wall Street Journal that will give you more substance on his new book, Managing.
Mintzberg says that, “Basically, managing is about influencing action. … One step removed, they manage people. Managers deal with people who take the action… And two steps removed from that, managers manage information to drive people to take action… too much managing through information—what I call “deeming,” and says his four …read more

You may not be a CEO, you can learn from from them and tweak the information to work for you.
First is an article written by Neeraj Bhargava, who co-founded India’s WNS Global Services and ended up CEO. It’s interesting because the focus his learning curve in an overheated market, how he hired an exceptional team and got out of their way.
Next is an interview with James J. Schiro, CEO of Zurich Financial Services (they didn’t crash and burn) focusing on what he’s learned, how he manages, how he uses social media and building the company’s culture.
CEOs jobs are safer than …read more

I’ve never been a lover of the MBA, its almost holy status, depending on the school, and especially its dominance on Wall Street,
In a recent post Justine Larbalestier said, “I was fascinated by Background Briefing’s recent documentary about the emergence of business schools and their effect on corporate culture and its relationship to the current crisis: MBA: Mostly Bloody Awful.”
I agree with Justine regarding the illogic of assuming that people can walk in and manage or advise a business of which they know little to nothing, especially with little to no experience.
It’s said that MBA can also stand for ‘Mediocre …read more

One of the hardest things that growing companies face is the need to stop shooting from the hip.
I hear the reasons not to all the time, from startups, small biz, entrepreneurs, et al:

It will ruin our culture.
It stifles creativity. It’s for larger companies.
It’s bureaucratic. It’s too time consuming.

“It” refers to the underpinnings of all successful companies. “It” includes the following in order of importance:

Financial controls that include

monthly statements of revenues by product;
discounts;
costs by department;
cost of goods sold;
inventory;
receivables aging;
stock issuance;
cash flow;
manufacturing yields;
hiring by department

Annual operating plan …read more