TAG | dilbert
10
And Yet Another Example of “Management in Action”
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And Yet another example of goobly-gook or “alphabet soup” from the mouths of alleged managers.
“We know”- translation – you don’t – or better yet we have the perks and you don’t
Perks of management can often be best described as luxuries given to management that the firm cannot rationalize – “Its a perk of management”
Fine I guess it the business / organization / company was prospering.
Yet its not – its as if more management is needed to parcel out and control the limited resources now available
All the while shepherding resources to retain the “Perks of Management”
Another clear example of management by Dilbert :
While most people don’t distinguish between goals and objectives in every day conversation, I find that performance management practitioners sometimes use the word goal when they really mean target. This potential confusion between objectives and targets explains why I usually recommend against using the term goal when establishing a standard performance management terminology.
From my point of view, objectives, KPIs, and targets are related, but distinct, items:
An objective describes what you want to accomplish.
A key performance indicator (KPI) monitors progress towards a specific objective.
A target is the value of a KPI a defined moment in time.
As always, a simple example is useful. Imagine a runner who has entered a marathon with the objective to win the race. On the surface, accomplishing that objective is binary – the runner either does or doesn’t win the race. However, to better understand the runner’s performance, we can create the KPI ‘position at the end of the race’ and set the target to be 1. We judge the runner’s performance by creating a grading system that compares the actual value to the target:
1 = success
2-20 = pretty good
>20 = not acceptable
In other words, anything but a top 20 finish would be viewed as poor performance. We could even map these categories to the classic green/yellow/red stoplight metaphor.
The system is very adaptable. As this runner improves over time, we can change the grading system for future races so that only a top 10 finish would be considered good performance. Another, less accomplished runner, could share the same objective and KPI but create a different target and grading system as follows:
< 25 = success
25-100 = pretty good
>100 = not acceptable
By changing the KPI ‘position at the end of the race’ to just ‘position’, we can even monitor progress during the race . Effectively we have switched from a lagging to a leading indicator of performance.
If you’re a runner, you may have recognized a potential complication. A runner who is a strong finisher may not expect to be in the top few positions during the first half of the race but wait to the last few miles for a closing kick. In fact, any particular race may have a disproportionate number of fast starters (so-called rabbits) that don’t pose a serious threat.
To handle this situation, we can introduce a second KPI that monitors performance for the same objective: ‘average time per mile’. Average time per mile can be measured at various points during the race to benchmark performance. Depending on your skill level, the multiple targets could be 5:00 at mile 4, 5:35 at mile 10, and 5:20 at mile 20. An appropriate grading system might be < 2 seconds difference = success, 2-5 secs difference = pretty good, >5 secs difference = not acceptable. Average time per mile also allows you to compare performance between races and between runners with similar capabilities.
We all want to win the race. But we can do a better job of improving performance if we focus on targets to allow us to reach our objectives.
source : http://alignment.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/target-vs-goal/
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9
Management Accountability in the Current Economic Climate – Planning Ahead
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It is more than a well known fact to mankind that the business cycle is just that a cycle. When I an employee asks for help – a new employee who should be receiving “training” from experienced staff ( management) they may well be told “and my job is to manage”. Yet ask those same authorities what “management ” entails other than being a badge of honor , acclaim or reward what management truly involves and you will be met with more than one blank stare and the phrase ( or mantra) “I am the manager”. “I am the boss” etc etc etc.
So too is it with the current business cycle. If times are rough for sales then the refrain to staff ( who are receiving negligible pay packets) is “stay the course”. That is of course even if the ship is sinking fast.
Yet when it comes to the current business downtown the bosses are throwing the staff off the top deck of the ship as fast as they can. Downsizing , layoffs, firings are all standard and indeed the norm.
What happened to the concepts of planning ahead and of being “proactive”. Should not this been taken into account with forward looking planning. Was it now now obvious to all that 1) perilous times were coming 2) business is a cycle.
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Yet you may of heard the phrase from the mouth’s of idiot managers “Our job is to think” or “Our job is too look ahead /manage”. If these people were negligent should not they be the one’s held responsible and whose heads should be on the chopping block ? Was management involved with bond trading at Lehman Brothers reprimanded in any way or held vaguely responsible ? At the best they received large bonuses and were promoted . At the worst they were made sacrificial lambs , fired and are now in position of authority , trust and management safely at some other firm where they are in positions to advise and “manage”. More of the same.
its all very similar to the executives or General Motors going to demand money from the US congress with no business plan whatsoever prepared. But then again would you of expected different ?
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It might be said that “if you cannot trust your family whom can you trust” ? In the same or similar manner it can be said that if you cannot trust your employees whom can you trust ? In a way its a similar fate that awaits father who as young women scoured the field of life plundering all the women they could in their paths. The ultimate revenge of life for these wonderful souls is to bear daughters as children. Now its life revenge. The said father will lie awake at night , while their daughter is out at the movies , a simple date , or simply earlier simply playing with a young man at kindergarten. The reasoning is that everyone else “has” to think like them. There is only after all only one way to think , one way to act. Their can be only one winner – and of course it is them. Jesus’s gift to the world all in themselves.
In a similar manner these “managers” tend to regard any hard working employee , whom they did not hire, as a direct threat. A clean broom sweeps all is the catchphrase. Out with the old ( especially older , even elderly employees who may do the work of five “boys” or “girls”). You would think that every attempt would be made to keep these most valuable employees. Yet the exact opposite is more than true. Its almost a vendetta to get rid of these most valuable , seasoned employees and to ” place their people” in those positions and indeed positions of trust and power. Its stacking the deck , or the game so to speak.
The fallacy of problem with this whole equation is that the hiring manager only hires carbon cut out clones that are to his “liking” ,”way of thinking” or even way of life. Its as if the hiring manager is looking in the mirror. This is what he most feels safe with and even trusts.
Its like one big dysfunctional family , trusting what they know, always being able to count on the system or ways of doing things. After all is this not the “proper way” to do things. In such a situation , as in an alcoholic household – the people involved may never know or come to realize that what they take for granted is not “normal ” , “functional” or least of all very effective or efficient.
What a bunch of morons
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Perks of Management
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Imagine a mentality like this
“Rule Number One” You can never trust your employers to be responsible
Along with this is rule number two being “Any discussion of management decisions is to be taken as a direct threat and attack on the manager”
Rule Number Three :Any continual education of most kinds is to be seen as another direct threat as “Everyone else ( especially those who work under me” is after my job. “ Somehow this pathology continues.
The one exception to this rule is where the company has mandated a course. Talk about Dilbert. The manager has thus taken (?) the course. It may well have involved a drunken meeting of sorts for upper management. Well at least some air travel points ( to which they are more than entitled).
In this situation of the post course educated management type the poor victim may have to listen to the words of wisdom spouted by the scholar in his attempts to impress others. For example it may be a course on buying behavior clusters. In actuality this may be one half to a full page in any standard marketing textbook. Yet the intelligent manager may spout at after each encounter with any human being his immediate label. “That is an early adopter”, “”That would be a later adopter ” etc etc etc. The amazing part is that the whole concept may ( and is usually) is taken out of context of its acutal use or indeed any relevant use or helpful appropriate label. Its the non-seeing idiot leading the blind so to speak.
This type of person has his ego directly embedded with his position. He or she as been taught ( indeed it is a mantra of their existence) that without their job / position they have no worth as a human being whatsoever . This may fall into other fields as well as “Moonie , If you are not making money then you have no worth as a human being ( at least ) in our eyes
The problem with these internalized ” rules “ is that any reaction or “human resources” to any questions or concerns of an employee is a direct attack on that person regardless if the idea has any merit any well or positive benefits to the organization involved.
What a bunch of morons.
An insightful letter to the editor:
A heated debate on the rescue plan for the “Big Three” automakers (GM, Ford and Chrysler) is raging on both sides of the border. Both governments (U. S. and Canadian) are going through their empty treasury cupboards in near panic haste. Everybody is trying to do the “right thing” but there is a danger that just the opposite will be achieved. How did we get into this deplorable situation?
Ever since the demise of the Trudeau leadership, all subsequent political leaderships did away with this “vision for the nation” thing. It became too difficult, almost impossible, for most of our political leaders on all levels of government to think beyond today. Long-term economic planning for our nation became viewed as a communist ploy and was banished from the vocabulary of our governments.
It was substituted by short-term (quarterly) myopic vision. Companies have to make truckloads of profit by the end of every quarter (i. e. three-month period) in order not to disappoint the anonymous stock market analysts and it will surely result in both the big bonuses for their CEOs and ever-increasing prices of their shares.
During his nearly two-year contract (2001 to 2002) in Chrysler, that was under the German management, this writer noticed how dispirited the employees were by the constant reorganizations and restructuring, how arrogant, unwise and unimaginative the top management appeared to be.
I witnessed the suppliers of Chrysler being squeezed by management into 15% reductions in the prices of parts announced to them via e-mail on Friday afternoon and being effective the next Monday. I have seen many highly skilled and innovative information technology staff being outsourced to Indian companies and many other management blunders.
It kept on getting worse as time went by. It almost felt like management’s business plan was to destroy the company as fast as possible.
All top managers (CEO, CIO, CAO, board members, etc.) should have been “promoted” to a very ugly jail and charged with committing serious criminal economic acts. Instead, they got multimillion dollar bonuses, lucrative stock options and other valuable perks. And everybody else got shafted.
This was standard operating procedure in the entire auto industry. GM — the Dick Cheney of the automotive world, once the most powerful corporation in the world — was the most mismanaged of them all. And now, we should be bailing them out with our money? No, let them go bankrupt!
In order to provide meaningful financial relief to GM, Ford and Chrysler, which would assure their existence, both the federal and the provincial governments would have to fork out billions (not hundreds of millions) of dollars. Anything less would be worthless. Yet, there would be no guarantee that they would survive. What should we do?
In these times of acute financial distress on every level –federal, provincial, municipal, corporate and personal — it would be morally and intellectually wrong to pour our shrinking financial resources into an industry that is a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.
http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1305226
Jerk Bosses I Have Known and Endured
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It seemed that by trying to make his boss look good , Syd, could never do well. Even though Syd persisted in applying the “Golden Rule” to his own workplace. Jesus said ” Do to others as you would have them do to you” ( Lk 6:31). Treating his boss as Syd himself would like to treated was all in the guise of working towards building a good and better relationship. Relationships with what psycopaths and morons . Its as if the inmates had taken over the asylum. It was all a lost cause to Syd, the worker. Smile away, pretend that he enjoyed his job, all in the guise of getting a promotion to enjoy the perks and privileges of management – do no work , tell others what to do , always blame others yet like a politician take automatic credit for any events or numbers that came in a positive way or trend. The amazing parts are that here we have Syd , a fellow with a drinking problem – driving dui to work, putting in little of any effective efforts and achieving little results, passed out most of the day from the party before, and all because he was not present mentally to cause any problems , and most importantly not challenge “Potatohead” on his lovely ideas and plans. At the most Syd might of mildly and meekly said “now that idea has merit “ or “those ideas should be further studied for implementation as they have great merits”. In the end Syd gets promoted not because of any skills , merits , credentials or performance reviews but only because 1) he never drew attention to himself in any manner – especially negative manner 2) he had a smile on his face on his way to work every morning which his boss noticed. Rather amazing.
At the end of the road for all his troubles and efforts Syd was promoted to a position in management where his major perk was a fully stocked bar fridge.
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By trying to make his boss look good you may well be applying the “golden rule” to the workplace. In traditional (normal / respectful) value systems the “Golden Rule” is held as “do not do what is hurtful to yourself to others” or “treat other people as you would like to be treated”. Another simple description in the English language is “treat others as you would like to be treated”. However with many management deviants the “Golden Rule” that they proudly exclaim and pronounce with a smirk of “power” is “The Rules are Golden and they are MY RULES” .
Here is a case in point concerning “Syd”/ Syd told me some time later about one of the little things that set his boss apart from others.
Syd’s boss – “Old Potatohead” usually arrived early for work at his office which overlooked the staff parking lot . This meant that Potatohead could see the employees as they walked from their cars into the office plant building. What Syd recalled was that the boss remarked to him , more than once , that when Syd was arriving at work in the morning that he always had a smile on his face and thus there was something more than special in the attitude of this one employee – Syd.
As they say “Monkey See, Monkey do”. Guess who got promoted to management level. Syd a poor guy with a drinking problem who would arrive to work in the morning still feeling “no pain”.
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