On Management

[cjsmith]

Many thanks to akienm for permission to link to his recent entry about managing people.

He brings up four things a good manager should do: connect, listen, respect, appreciate [his team members].

Reading that, I realize that my favoritest manager in my patchwork career is the guy who did three: Listen, Respect, and Appreciate. (Perhaps he's my favoritest simply because I have not yet worked for someone who has done all four.) If that man were not now deceased, I would go try to work for him again, no matter what the product or corporate atmosphere.

I wish My Division In The Company That Shall Not Be Named had kept... or had ever had, frankly... a handful of managers who did all of these. Rumor has it that it had, last week, one such. (I don't know for sure because I didn't work for this person.) Now it has zero.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Good point.

Most of my manager/employee (er, I should say manager/contractor) relationships have included one or two of: listen, respect, appreciate. I'm not actually sure whether I need the connection part in the workplace, although perhaps I would perform better if I had it.

Most of my romantic relationships have had the connection, and very few have had much of the other three. Interesting division of labor, there. Hmm. Perhaps this means I will want another job soon. It fills a need.

Re:

[gs.livejournal.com]

I agree that connection seems less important in a work relationship (although I'm not sure how Akien was defining it).

[few] of my romantic relationships...have had much of the other three.

Ow. I think my feeling of connection is limited by the degree I feel listened to, respected, and appreciated. I hope your trend improves.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I can feel connection if I'm listenING, respectING, appreciatING. Granted, it's best if it goes both ways.