Management Zingers: Vol. 5 No. 9

Here are  this week’s 3 Management Zingers

Here are 3 Management Zingers (remember to click on the title to read the full version on the post):

I Don’t WANNA Be Coached! (What to do when employees don’t want coaching.)  by Phyllis Roteman is a very good article on trying to provide workplace coaching for people who are reluctant to be coached: You know who they are. They’re the employees who squirm when you mention having a coaching discussion with them. They’re always “busy” when you want to talk about their development or give them some feedback. And when you do get a coaching meeting scheduled, they placate you by nodding their heads compliantly – or sit silently – anything to get the meeting over with.

Question your work by Jason Fried at 37 Signals provides a great list of 8 great question concerning what we are working on. The questions include: Whay are we doing this? What problem are we solving? What’s the opportunity cost? It is really worth it? …

Do You Have the Strength to Ask for Help?is by my Philly friend Steve Roesler. He has been offering great posts on change than then on passion on All Things Workplace. This post on the Employee Engagement Network outlines how to get help as a manager: To Get Something Done, Ask for Help There is nothing that sparks the human spirit–and thus adds meaning to a task–than the satisfaction of providing help to someone who needs it. Yet my experience–at least in many western cultures–is that it is somehow viewed as “weak” to ask for help. After all, if I’m a guy who gets things done, I don’t want people to think that I can’t get things done. I know you already see the fallacy in this. Most textbook definitions of management include some version of this: “Management–getting things done through others.”

David Zinger