Blog Archive
January 2006
I’ve got a great big pile of magazines on my desk which are a bit of a challenge to get through, I must admit. But today I read an article in one of them by Michael West, writing in People Management (Oct 05) which really struck a chord.
Dan Bobinski points out the importance of allowing employees to have some input into important decisions to avoid apathy and grudging compliance. We go along wholeheartedly with this – managers need to be human, make allowances, recognise true commitment and give back accordingly when flexibility is needed if they are to get the best out of their employees.
What’s this? A new survey has been published which finds that two thirds of British workers feel their boss is a good leader, and three quarters say they are proud to work for their organisation.
Nice to see The Storytellers mentioned recently in Richard Donkin’s column in the FT, with his view of the importance of Meaning at work.
A massaged ego is a wonderful thing when you think you are doing a fantastic job and people can’t get enough of what you are doing. But sometimes all is not what it seems…
I heard an amusing story the other day about a mining company which introduced a new-look newsletter for employees. The internal communications team was delighted with the response – the workforce kept asking for more and more newsletters and lots of back-patting back at HQ followed. That is, until some bright spark took it upon himself to check out exactly what it was about the newsletter that was creating such a wave of enthusiasm.
It turned out that the newsletter’s paper was perfect for rolling joints, and that is precisely what it was being used for…