Judging people: External vs. Internal

AngryHappy 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

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

The Other Top Ten posts of AnyaWorkSmart

another top ten 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

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

600-00983926Let’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

Do not goMy 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

5 Thumb Rules for Management in times of Austerity

AusterityThere 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

Life without biases Part 2: Where do they come from?

Life without biases Part 2 Where do they come from

In the previous post about Biases we’ve talked about what they are and what influence do they have on our performance as Managers.

In order to better understand this influence, people who study the subject tend to divide Biases into types. The problem is that typology presented as Continue reading

Embracing Change – From Ask Anya mails

Ask Anya MailFollowing 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

When to stop doing what you’re doing?

Hi, how’s work?

Your team is working like clockwork, all your projects are delivered on time, your business is so profitable that it leaves the competition behind?

No? Yes, but…?

Then may be YOU HAVE TO CHANGE SOMETHING. Continue reading

How much is “Most People”?

How much is most peopleWhen I previously wrote about utilizing data and research in management, I mentioned that not always when people are using a certain word or term, they are understood the way they meant to. This is especially relevant when we’re trying to express quantities without using numbers. For example, how many people are “most people” or how frequent is “usually” ? Continue reading