A Happy New Year present for my readers: my Top 5 Favorite Movies for Managers

office spaceAs Season Greetings are almost upon us and Anyworksmart will traditionally go into well-deserved recess for the next month, I decided to finish the year with something light yet meaningful in order to thank my readers for being with me during the last two years. The best thing that came to my mind was to provide you with a list of five of my favorite movies and TV shows that you can watch with your family during the holidays, while also benefiting from their very serious insights about being a Manager. Continue reading

When to delegate and when to do it yourself

DelegationDelegation is such an integrative part of Management that it seems everything has already been said about it. We all understand its benefits for grooming potential Leads and know how to redistribute the load of responsibility according to people’s natural tendencies.  However, in real world we sometimes find it hard to apply our knowledge for the simple reason that delegation basically means trusting people with important things, and having some actual experience in dealing with employees sometimes makes trust a very rare resource. Continue reading

Let’s talk about Office Politics

Office politicsThis is clearly our most favorite aspect of office life to complain about. It’s hard to imagine a normal person expressing any liking for all the intrigues, gossips and “pointless” conversations filled with personal agendas and lacking any practical goal. Mostly we try to distance ourselves from “all that” or at least we like to think that we do. Continue reading

Constant change of human resources – the impact on our projects

change of human resourcesIn my previous post, I provided an extreme example of how critical to organization could be the loss of knowledge and expertise in some cases. Even though in many other, more usual cases, the loss would not be felt immediately, the cumulative effect could be more than Continue reading

Human resources – are they really that dispensable?

RainmanEvery manager that ever needed to let an employee go knows that it is one of the worst experiences that comes with the job. However, there is hardly a more profound manifestation of your managerial powers. There is something very basic and primeval in us exercising our right to decide who we want to work with and who is to look for a different place to work. Continue reading

Why the SKY doesn’t FALL on the ground or the myth of the Lonely Hero

Why the SKY doesn't FALL on the ground or the myth of the Lonely Hero1As you may have noticed from my previous posts, I’m a big fan of movies, especially classical ones, and nothing has more class on a square foot of film than the 007 series. I frequently find myself exchanging reviews with my friends and putting the movie’s messages (subliminal or obvious) under scrutiny, Continue reading

Inducing Loyalty through Team Building

Inducing Loyalty through Team Building 1In my previous post on Loyalty I mentioned that in our uncertain times it’s much more logical to build Loyalty on the small scale of a specific Team or Department, than on a company level. People can’t be sure anymore that the company will stay around for long, or even if it does – that it will still have enough resources to employ them. Continue reading

Employees’ Loyalty – Corporate vs. Personal

Employees' Loyalty – corporate vs. personalIn one of my previous posts we’ve already discussed Employees’ Loyalty and its importance for proper Team Management. Now it’s time to understand how it could be successfully defined, increased and sustained.

Let’s start with a meaningful definition. Continue reading

Employee’s Loyalty – What does it mean today?

Employee's LoyaltyAs I’ve written so much about building a Perfect Team, it seems logical to discuss what would sustain this team long enough to produce meaningful results. Naturally, it all revolves around the concept of Employee’s Loyalty.

I haven’t seen any direct mentioning of loyalty in employee’s contracts and, not living in Japan, Continue reading