Should we listen to “Gurus”?

Posted on March 12, 2014 by AnyaWorkSmart

“Guess correctly three times and they’ll call you an expert” – said a wise man. In the age of Internet and other mass-media guessing has become especially easy, as every correct prediction could be inflated beyond any proportion while small uncomfortable facts (such as the bankruptcy of companies created by famous business consultants) are downplayed to oblivion.

We are surrounded by Gurus of every possible expertise, offering their enlightened opinion on everything we want to know about, but does it make our life easier? Can we trust the majority of Gurus’ opinions? Should we listen to them at all? Continue reading →

The Science of Management: does it really help us?

Posted on February 25, 2014 by AnyaWorkSmart

Last week I’ve been talking to a friend who was just editing the final exam for his course “Decision-making in Disaster management”. Living aside the nice feeling of talking to people from the academic environment, there was actually something in our conversation that troubled me to the level of feeling a need to share it with the readers of my blog. Continue reading →

Judging people: External vs. Internal

Posted on January 30, 2014 by AnyaWorkSmart

Happy New Year, everybody! 🙂

AnyaWorkSmart is back online and will continue with discussion of every aspect of Management that can be improved by fighting Biases. I decided that the first post of the year should deal with a situation where the negative influence of Biases is most critical – our attempts to judge others based on their appearances and actions. Continue reading →

“Biases: Where do they come from?” – From Ask Anya mails

Posted on December 10, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Following post: Biases: Where do they come from?

“I’ve been interested with cognitive biases and misconceptions for some time already, reading all available material on the subject, including your blog. However, I noticed that just knowing about biases doesn’t really help to get rid of them. Last week I was talking to a friend about politics and was suddenly faced with a sad reality of failing to see through “Halo effect” bias. What happened was that as we were discussing with my friends a politician who recently achieved infamy by openly demonstrating unwanted behaviors in his private life, I made a statement that someone who behaves this way in his social life has no chance of filling his office properly. It seemed logical to me when I said it, but when my friends pointed to a fact that there is no known correlation between someone’s personal and professional life, I immediately understood that my statement was caused by “halo effect”. This situation made me wondering: is there any benefit in learning about biases, if it only helps you to understand what you already did wrong? Continue reading →

“Can a Non-Expert manage Experts?” – From Ask Anya mails

Posted on December 3, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Following post : An Eternal Argument: Can a non-Expert manage Experts?

“I read your post carefully and I have to say that I completely disagree. In my experience, any attempt to manage IT developers without also being a technical expert is doomed to failure for several reasons. For one, the developers have no one to talk to if they encounter serious technical problems and need further guidance – non-technical manager cannot provide this guidance by definition. Continue reading →

The Other Top Ten posts of AnyaWorkSmart

Posted on October 1, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

After the warm reception that my previous Top Ten post received, I decided to add another one, but this time a little different. As most people do not have the patience to look through archives of the blog for posts that do not contain the easily recognizable keywords for topics of interest, I thought to remind my readers of several posts I published in the past that to my opinion are very important for everyone to know. Continue reading →

Working patterns: The trap of “best practices”

Posted on September 10, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

When you start thinking about it, the concept of “best practice” seems very logical – it’s supposed to be the best way to achieve the desired results when dealing with a certain task, which was already proven as such by someone else. Basically, you can call it an OPTIMAL WORKING PATTERN.

Of course, if you keep thinking about it, you’ll notice several potential problems, both in the concept itself and in how it’s used in reality. Because, as we all know, when any abstract concept is applied to a real situation, problems tend to arise. Continue reading →

Working patterns: Why do we constantly create new problems by trying to solve the existing ones? Part 1.

Posted on August 27, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

If you’re reading this blog, it means you’re spending some time on the Internet. It may also mean that while browsing you’ve encountered at least one of the endless variations of the “Doing it wrong” or “You had one job” memes.

If not, these memes make a laugh of exactly what their titles describe – how the simplest tasks performed by others could go completely and ridiculously wrong. Continue reading →

5 Managers’ Mistakes No One Talks About (Part 2)

Posted on May 7, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Last week we discussed the first two Managers’ Mistakes No One Talks About, now let’s continue with the remaining three.

Managers should beware of doing something like: Continue reading →

5 Managers’ Mistakes No One Talks About (Part 1)

Posted on April 30, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

In my previous post I mentioned that the issue of mistakes, especially in the field of Management, has become pretty popular recently. There are many sources, both written and online, where you can find more or less comprehensive lists of “mistakes managers make”, altogether with some recommendations about how to avoid them. Continue reading →