Management Zingers: Volume 5 No. 7

Here are  this week’s Management Zingers

These are 5 of the best leadership and management articles from the WEB during the past week. If you want to go directly to the post or article, click on the title at the front of each zinger.

Getting Passionate About Responsibility for Passion by Steve Roesler looks at passion in management. He offers some empowering advice for employees in relationship to their manager: If you want a good shot at using your talents where you are now, then take the responsibility for making it happen. Nothing warms a manager’s heart more than seeing someone who is passionate about responsibility.

A Fun Innovation Diagnostic by Stephen Shapiro give a fun 16 item quiz on determining your organization’s innovation level: 3. If your organization were the Three Musketeers, what would your motto be? A. One for one B. One for all C. All for one D. All for one and one for all.

What DO you have time for? by Carmine Coyote at Slow Leadership asks you to look at your time. How do you value your time: A good deal of overwork is a choice, not an obligation. In many ways, I’m less interested in what people don’t have time for than what they do. Despite all the pressure put on them by demanding employers, much of the overwork that people claim to suffer from is — fundamentally — their own choice.

The Connection Culture by Michael Lee Stallard is one of the new Change This manifestos posted this week. I encourage you to make a connection with his work:  one of the most powerful and least understood aspects of business is how an emotional connection between management, employees and customers provides a competitive advantage. Unless the people who are part of a business feel a sense of connection –an emotional bond that promotes trust, cooperation and esprit de corps – they will never reach their potential as individuals, nor will the organization.

The 10 1/2 Commandments of Visual Thinking: The “Lost Chapter” from The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam helps you to think with your eyes. I came across this manifesto while reading the other manifesto listed above. Dan states:  As businesspeople, becoming comfortable with our visual abilities again—improving our ability to look at complex information, see important patterns emerge, imagine new possibilities, and clearly show those discoveries to others—is about to become our most valuable skill.

I wish you good learning, good living, and good managing.

David Zinger