Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass This one of the greatest articles I have read. I first saw it in 1986 when I was a subordinate and the managers at the firm wanted to encourage employees to take more initiative. The article outlines the plight of a…
Building Resilience – Harvard Business Review. This is a great article my Martin Seligman who is called the “father of positive psychology”. In it, he describes the phenomenon of “learned helplessness.” In many studies, some people, when they experience a situation in which they had no control, became passive — even in a subsequent situation…
Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn – Telegraph. In 2003, I read and saved an article in Money Magazine called R+U Lucky? Some guys do have all the luck. Here’s how to join them – August 1, 2003. In it, the author describes the research of Richard Wiseman who has studied people…
Living with Your Hands Off Your Ears TEDxFlint – Peter Bregman – Living With Your Hands Off Your Ears – YouTube. This is a Tedx talk by Peter Bregman in which he relates his personal stories to illustrate that learning comes from taking your hands off your ears. He starts the talk with two…
7 Tips for Difficult Conversations – Daisy Wademan Dowling – Harvard Business Review. One key skill that separates good leaders and others is the ability to have difficult conversations. Almost anyone can manage a group if everyone is performing well. It is easy to give raises and bonuses to strong performers. The harder part…
Firing Someone: What They Don’t Teach You in B-School – Andrew J. Hoffman – Harvard Business Review. This is an excellent blog post about Mr. Hoffman’s own experience firing someone and how it is critical to the other employees that the manager upheld high standards and did not permit non-performing employees to continue to work…
The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations – Peter Bregman – Harvard Business Review. Peter Bregman provides another outstanding blog post in which he describes the importance of giving the other party to a difficult conversation the experience of being heard. This is reminiscent of one of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — seek…