A few days ago, I read an article about Southwest Airlines where the author claimed that the company’s values were to put employees first, customers second, and shareholders third Wouldn’t it be great if making business decisions was this simple

The worst assumption that managers can make about their area of responsibility is that they know everything that is going on in the department In reality, they only know what their people want them to know or think they need to know

Now do I have your attention I’ve written on the subject of motivation and incentives in the past, but recently have come across some additional information and research that continues to challenge conventional business wisdom as it relates to use of monetary incentives to encourage higher performance

I do not make New Year’s resolutions I find that the process of deciding what I want to accomplish in the next year is much more intense than simply coming up with a few “like to do’s” for the coming year

Most managers feel that a major part of their job is to motivate people who work for them The problem that many have is distinguishing the difference between motivation and manipulation

The term “groupthink” was first used by Irving Janus in 1972 when he was researching why teams made excellent decisions one time, yet made disastrous decisions another time The two most famous and widely used examples of groupthink that led to disastrous outcomes are the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion

In the early 1970’s Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard developed one of the most popular and used leadership models which is called Situational Leadership While I think a more appropriate name would have been situational management since it deals primarily with task execution, the model is still very relevant and useful today

A key role and responsibility of any manager is to develop those people who report to them Often, when developing subordinates through delegation or training activities, managers may fail to take into account that each person has different learning preferences

Bobby Cox, the manager of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, is retiring at the end of this season after 29 seasons as a manager He is fourth on the all time list of wins by a manager

Jay Niblick, a colleague and friend, has recently published a book titled, What’s Your Genius (available on Amazon