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 →

When it is right to throw money at the problem

Posted on November 19, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

We all are familiar with situations when decision-makers keep throwing money at the problem instead of trying a structural solution that could potentially be much more beneficial to the system. The examples are too many, especially in our austere times.

Naturally, we tend to be critical of such wasteful strategies, but a story told to me last week by an older friend about his time in the Military reminded me that sometimes solving the situation by spending more resources may be more beneficial than attempting a structural decision. Continue reading →

When to delegate and when to do it yourself

Posted on November 12, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Delegation 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 →

Lessons Learned: How to Deal with Failure

Posted on October 29, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

A few weeks ago a friend sent me an amazing piece of memorabilia – a journal article from the year 1905. It made such an impression on me that I immediately decided to share its wisdom on the ever discussed question of what is success and what is failure and how can we influence their relationship by learning the lessons our life experience provides us with. Continue reading →

Manager’s Expertise: what skills should we know?

Posted on October 8, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Theoretically, an Expert is someone who mastered all the needed skills of his or her domain. So, basically, an Expert Manager is someone who mastered all the skills of Management.

But what are those skills? Continue reading →

Working patterns: Why do we constantly create new problems by trying to solve the existing ones? Part 2

Posted on September 3, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

This week we continue to discuss the reasons for why do we make our own life harder by creating new problems when solving the existing ones. Here is what you should be aware of: Continue reading →

Working patterns – the way we do things

Posted on August 20, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

A working pattern comes to life when we start doing something systematically and repeatedly. It could be something very basic, such as always reading your morning e-mails with a cup of coffee in hand or something a bit less innocent, such as never providing positive feedback without saying something critical first. The main point here is that every one of us has his or her own way of doing every specific task and this way may differ from how other people approach the same task. Why am I talking about something as obvious as that? Continue reading →

The right to rest – see you in two weeks! :-)

Aside

Even though I advised you guys against becoming the Lonely Hero who holds the world on his shoulders, this is a lot like I feel for the last few months :-). Wearing so many crucial hats simultaneously could be and is a hard job. So I decided that at least two weeks of not doing anything at all would be in order for me.

However, AnyaWorkSmart being still Anya Work Smart, there is no going on vacation, without leaving a relevant message behind. And here it is – make sure that you also remind yourself of your right to rest. Look at that like at another perspective of being a manager – manage yourself like you would manage others. And you do let your employees rest, right? 🙂

So, see you all in two weeks and I promise to bring a lot of vacation-inspired inspiration to the pages of my blog.

🙂

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 →

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 →