O respeito mútuo é uma coisa muito importante

Tanto pode ser de e para com os clientes "Fed-Up Flight Attendant Makes Sliding Exit" como para relações hierárquicas (este caso ilustra muito bem como a net pode ser usada como retaliação contra um chefe asshole. "Girl quits her job on dry erase board, emails entire office (33 Photos)"

Desmascarar mitos (parte III)

"great bosses do set very challenging goals and communicate them to their followers. But you're a bad boss if, once those goals are known and accepted, you keep mindlessly invoking them. Rather than continually drawing people's attention to that distant horizon, help them see what they can and must accomplish right now. Let them proceed calmly, with confidence, and with the motivation that comes from taking clear little steps — and they may just accomplish those big hairy goals."

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Em vez de mitos...

... ou seja, lançar um grande, distante, espampanante, audacioso objectivo sem especificar o que fazer para lá chegar.

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Visualizar o caminho todo entre o hoje e o futuro desejado...

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... quais as etapas que vamos ter de atingir?

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O que fazer, por quem e até quando, para passar da etapa n para a etapa n+1?

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Robert Sutton chama a atenção para este truque em "Hey Boss — Enough with the Big, Hairy Goals". Sutton chama a atenção para um artigo já aqui referido "Small Wins" de Karl Weick.

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Recordar "Desmascarar mitos (parte I)"

Comunicar, comunicar. comunicar

Algures este mês, não consigo recordar onde (talvez no artigo "How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Economy", escrito por Robert Sutton e publicado no número de Junho deste ano da Harvard Business Review) li um texto em que o autor defendia que as mensagens da hierarquia têm de ser claras e simples, porque quem as lê tem a tendência para, em caso de dúvida, dar sempre a pior interpretação, algo que nunca passou pela mente de quem escreveu a mensagem:
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Alguns trechos do artigo de Sutton:
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"If predictability is about what will happen and when, understanding is about why and how. The chief advice here is to accompany any major change with an explanation of what makes it necessary and what effect it will have—in as much detail as possible. This advice, too, is rooted in psychological research: Human beings consistently react negatively to unexplained events. The effect is so strong that it is better to give an explanation they dislike than no explanationat all, provided the explanation is credible."
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"Good bosses also know that more than a single communication is needed to bring a large group to a point of real understanding."
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"When operations are going haywire and people are rattled, it’s especially hard to get new ideas to take root or to teach new behaviors of any complexity. Your job as boss is to design messages that will get through to people who are distracted, upset, and apt to think negatively given any ambiguity. When it comes to internal communications, your mantra should be “Simple, concrete, and repetitive.” Think of the attendants on Flight 1549, in what has been called the Miracle on the Hudson. As the plane plummeted down, they chanted in unison, “Brace, brace, heads down, stay down.” Bosses who lead people through crises need to provide the same kind of clear and emphatic direction."
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Um aparte, claro que isto só é possível quando se tem uma estratégia e se consegue fazer um desenho (mapa da estratégia) que a explique.
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Encontrei no Financial Times um artigo na mesma onda "The undercover boss" nele pode ler-se:
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"What lessons has he learnt? “Our key messages were just not getting through to people,” Mr Martin says. “People working a shift on a large site do not have time to read newsletters or log on to websites. You have to communicate with people on their terms, and it is different for every location. One size does not fit all.”
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For example, Mr Martin found that an apparently sensible idea – encouraging his workers to take a tea-break where they were working rather than coming back to a canteen – was taken to mean that the break had been cut."
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"Leaders may know exactly what they want to see happening. They send out messages down the management line. Employees ought to understand. But between the top table and the shop-floor something goes wrong. Leadership teams can be scarily ignorant of how badly their wishes have been distorted, and how much unhappiness there is among those on the receiving end.
And right now there is a bigger, more urgent point. In a recession it is even harder to have an effective, open dialogue with an anxious workforce."
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E este trecho mexe na ferida que começamos por referir:
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"he needs to “over-communicate” to reassure staff who have seen big redundancies in recent months. “If you don’t pass on enough information, even if it is bad news, they will fill the gap with something else, probably worse than the truth.”

Para quem aqui chega por causa do livro "From Good to Great"

Já em tempos referi aqui uma crítica de Robert Sutton ao trabalho de Collins.
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Pois bem, Sutton volta à carga aqui: "Good to Great: More Evidence That "Most Claims of Magic are Testimony to Hubris""
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Continuo a apreciar muito do que Collins escreveu e continuo a achar que são boas práticas a seguir... pero todavia, não acredito que sejam um remédio milagroso.
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A vida é demasiado complicada.