Onboarding – how to maximize your new employee’s potential

Posted on June 25, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Welcoming a new employee into the Team could be a serious challenge, as there is always a chance that something would go wrong and precious potential would go wasted on unnecessary complications. Many pitfalls await the new guy as he tries to navigate the labyrinth of the new workplace: taking too long to start delivering, making a lot of mistakes and asking wrong people for help, being unable to connect socially because of trying too hard or not trying hard enough, and many others. Continue reading →

Constant change of human resources – how to reduce its impact, Part 2: Retaining the Knowledge

Posted on June 18, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Let’s admit it – people always leave.

May be we let them go, may be they’ve found something else and may be their time has come and they’re retiring. In any case, your organization is left with an open void that needs to be filled as soon as possible. The sooner and the better you’ll fill it with somebody else – the smaller would be the amount of time and energy swallowed by that void. In order to do that you not only have to find Continue reading →

Constant change of human resources – how to reduce its impact, Part 1: reducing the volume

Posted on June 11, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

My previous post dealt with some of the reasons for negative influence of constant change of human resources on our projects. Despite the fact that many Managers still consider this phenomenon a “necessarily evil” and an integrative part making things done, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would argue that no attempts should be made at mitigating this “evil”. Continue reading →

Constant change of human resources – the impact on our projects

Posted on June 4, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

In 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?

Posted on May 28, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Every 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 →

How can I convince my team to try improving decision-making skills?” – From Ask Anya mails

Posted on May 21, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Following post on “The need for better decisions – why now?”

“I completely agree with everything you said about the urgency we all should feel in regard to improving the quality of our decisions. But how do I convince the people I’m working with that something should be done about this issue? What can I offer them as an incentive to try improving their decision-making skills? ” Continue reading →

5 Thumb Rules for Management in times of Austerity

Posted on April 17, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

There are several terms not so pleasant to our ears that seem to dominate the news lately, terms like sequestration, spending cuts and most of all – austerity. The abundance of these subtractive terms in the media may well mean that they pretty much define the current situation, and we, as Managers, will need to adjust to function in this situation, because it’s unlikely to dissolve quickly.

Let’s try to understand what Austerity means from Management perspective and what tips we may use to lead our teams successfully despite the harsh environment. Continue reading →

The “Do’s” and “Don’t’s” of Conflict Resolution

Posted on March 19, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

It sometimes amazes me how much energy, time and resources are being wasted on unnecessary conflicts. Projects are delayed because the stakeholders are not speaking to one another, e-mails are left unanswered because “how dare they?!”, critical information is withheld in a vain hope to reach some relative advantage, but in the end – everyone loses when company begins to lay-off people it cannot employ anymore. So today I’d like to talk about how we deal with conflicts and about the pitfalls that are awaiting us in this complex task. Continue reading →

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

Posted on January 14, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

As 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 →

Embracing Change – From Ask Anya mails

Posted on December 20, 2012 by AnyaWorkSmart

Following series of posts on Change Management – “Why change doesn’t stick?”

Question:

“Change is important, but it involves risk and it is very hard to motivate the team members to embrace the changes and even harder is to get help with identifying the real risks in a constructive way. How can I make the team members to be proactive and get them on board?” Continue reading →