Or the standard phrase “The door is always open” or “I am as close as your telephone ( email / blackberry /iPhone in 2011/12).

These are all pat answers. Yet the wisest manager of all does not fall prey to these slogans. The role of management is to manage.
Yet ask most managers what management is and you will receive alternatively a blank stare , or worse yet a feigned look that the troops are starting up and its time to stomp them and teach them who is boss.

If management is so busy putting out minor fires – how on earth can they see the forest for trees , the real priorities and where to allocate time , resources and planning efforts.

Sure events will happen. Fires will occur and disasters will happen from time to time. These have to be dealt with promptly.
On top of that a major role of fire departments is not so much in heroically fighting fires but in fire prevention. Indeed if resources and time are set to task , not to minor disturbances a lot , lot will be accomplished of merit – and with a lot less effort and
frustration. Some people just like to put out fires – and in a jackpot most of the time – or getting there. Avoid these people like the plague. Indeed if are misfortunate enough to take one on a holiday be prepared for startled responses like “you act like you are on a budget”.

Fire Your Boss

Fire Your Boss
Root Canal in Puerto Morelis Cancun

All true but the hidden agenda may well be to maintain and enlarge the execs / sales managers / supervisor’s  means to get another job in the industry.  After all if they are not “experienced”  “familiar “  with the alphabet soup of the day their days of promotion to another or better or escape hatch job – while the going is not too bad – are somewhat limited.   “Are you experienced with  gobbledygook number x 2009 …..No then come back and see us when you are.”   Guess which exec or employee pushes for that new computer program / management tool /  monitoring program ?

The most amazing part is that once in place , after all the preparation and high priced staff in place to lecture willing or captive employees on the merits of the program , that upper management , supervisors and bosses are totally inept at any simple comprehension of  the basis of the whole program and its concepts.

For example on the plane , with plenty of scotch , they may glance over an add in a magazine ( which they borrow off the plane , after all they paid a business class fare) , which states that the “phone is the most underutilized tool of most employees – let your fingers do the walking…” .  One may well ask what about the internet and the mouse in this day and age of the year of 2009.   At meetings , in interviews and on meetings in the field ( as an observer only there to help) , the exec/  supervisor boss may well spout this phrase incessantly .  However at the same time he may well admonish staff for using the phone too much.

Its not a case simply of trying to cause trouble and prove whose boss , of incompetence or even stupidity.  People go back to what they “grew up under “  and what they know.  Alcoholics or children of alcoholics and dysfunctional homes often go right back to the same behavior they knew and grew up under .   Why – they know it works , its rock solid and after all it feels “best”.

In the same way and manner most managers no what the program is , or what the new flavor is – which has been bought or cost a fair amount of money of resources to purchase and implement will always go back to “more of the same “.   Count on it.  Its a truism of life.  Get with the program.

Fire Your mean and incompetent boss

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“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/

Fire Your Boss

www.jerkbossesihaveknown.com

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