by David Zinger

Reminder: This is the Change Poverty – Two Cent Challenge. Click the penny below to join us:

Here are the responses you gave to the September 23rd request for one word for management.Thank you for your responses. You have the last word in management on Slacker Manager with David Zinger.This is the last management article I am writing for the blog. In two days, On October 30 I will express my thanks and say my farewell.

Here are the people and their word:

• Gerald
  

  Management = Details.

• Carrie
  

  Stupidity

• Devin Willis

  Service

• Koen

  availability

• Harry

  Priorities

• Phil Dourado

  Outdated

• JoelC

  Management = nurturing

• Chris Parente

  management = leadership

• Darth Sidious

  Control

• Bo Aphran

  management = help

• Liz

  effectiveness

• csbmonkey

  Balance.

• Kathryn

  direction

• Lisa

  Communication.

• Mike King

  Joy

• Michael

  Results

• Patty

  understanding

• Darina

  Allowing

• Chris Young

  Accountability

• Nathan

  empowering

• CK

  cronyism

• Corinne

  Quality

• Phil Gerbyshak

  management = compassion

• Don W.

  Relationships

• Emily

  second michael:
  management = results

• Nancy Lewis

  LISTENING

• Robert Story

  Responsibility

• Rob Hooft

  fine-tuning

• Pronoia

  Mgmt = Enabling

• Darin

  organization

• Michael Haberman, SPHR

  Management = Guidance

• Brad Henderson

  Management = Influence

• EMMANUEL ABDULSALAAM

  Management = Enhancement

• Chris
  

  Management = Management

• Edward
  

  Management = Challenges

• Bob
  

  Management = Flow

Post from: EveryJoe

Your One Word for Management: David’s Second Last Post

Overcoming Poverty: It Just Makes Cents – Oct. 26 to Nov. 1.

Calling all bloggers…Small is the New Significant.

Click the coin button below and take a step to Change Poverty.

Two cents a word, your choice for donation, an honest campaign. We are encouraging all bloggers to pledge two cents a word for every word they write in their blog between October 26th and November 1st. to their favorite or local charity involved in work to lessen or overcome poverty. As a blogger, we respect both your choices and honesty. We want you to be able to choose who to give the money to and we don’t need to collect it to know that you will do the right thing!

No Cents – No Problem. If your country does not use pennies — just use the smallest unit of currency to calculate your donation.

David Zinger’s Slacker Manager send off. It was not deliberate to launch this campaign in my last week of writing for Slacker Manager but I could not imagine a better way to end my tenure here than by ensuring every word I write in my last week is helping someone in my city (Winnipeg) experiencing poverty.

A small initiative to lessen poverty. One initiative that came out of blog action day from Joyful Jubilant Learning was to encourage bloggers to put money where their mouth (word) is.

I (David Zinger) am pledging 2 cents a word to Winnipeg Harvest  a non-profit, community-based organization. They collect and share surplus food with people who are hungry and their ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for food banks in our community. For every $1 they receive, they are able to pick up and deliver $20 worth of groceries.

This two cents a word includes every word I write the last week of October on www.davidzinger.com  www.slackermanager.com  www.joyfuljubilantlearning.com  and www.diehappytoday.com.

Here are the steps for you to get involved:

1. Commit to pledging two cents a word by completing our short Google form.
2. Ask other bloggers to join you by writing a short blog on the topic or offering a link to this post or the Google pledge form.
3. Keep track of all the words you write for the week.
4. Complete a second form that will appear here on November 2nd. to let us know how much you wrote and who will recieve your donation. You can also access this form by clicking here.
5. Ensure the organization gets your donation.
6. Have the satisfaction of knowing you put your money where your mouth was and probably helped put food in the mouth of someone who struggles to be able to do this.
7. We’ll keep you posted of the totals.

Here is the url for the form for the first part of our two cent campaign: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pNDHpM04XdlxUl5CQ8eh3Pw

Click here after November 1st to let us know how much you wrote and how much you raised!

The initial form is also embedded below and you can complete it right in this blog post. What are you waiting for, go ahead and sign up right now.

Post from: EveryJoe

It Just Makes Cents: Will You Join Us?

by David Zinger

Don’t lose sight of happiness at work.

Slide into happiness with this short slide presentation on Happiness at Work.

Watch the slides and then be determined to be happy.

Remember: Happiness is the ultimate currency at work.

Stay current.

Post from: EveryJoe

You can be happy at work

He may not share all he does with us here at Slacker Manager, but that’s mostly because we don’t ask Dr. Z enough questions. :)

Recently Sybil Stershic interviewed David about employee engagement, and asked him some very tough questions:

• How does David define employee engagement?
• Why does David think there are so many managers who don’t get the importance of effectively engaging employees?
• Is there a point at which engagement levels are unsustainable?
• How realistic is it to sustain high levels of employee engagement?
• What is the most effective approach to employee engagement?

Go read the full employee engagement interview and learn a bit more from David.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out David’s employee engagement network, filled with 467 smart folks, dedicated to helping folks understand and improve employee engagement.

Post from: EveryJoe

Interview with David Zinger on Employee Engagement

by David Zinger

Happy New Year. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere we have just completed July and August and we are moving into September and the fall.

Click here to read a short post I wrote at Employee Engagement Zingers about September 1st. being my psychological and learning New Year’s Day.

Are you refreshed and fierce? Do you feel you have a freshness for September? I hope you have taken some time during the summer to slow down, move into different rhythms, rejuvenate, rest, and get fierce for the fall.

Management musings. A few questions to move from the back burner:

1. What new projects do you have plans for this fall?
2. How would you like to change your management style or approach?
3. What do you hope to learn during the next few months?
4. How do you hope to change to transform yourself this fall?
5. What do you need to move from simmering to putting full heat on to get percolating with your management mission?

Follow- through. My fierce fall work and intention is to fully focus on follow-through from my golf swing to carrying projects or intentions to full completion. I am exceptional at staring and launching project and now I want to devote more of my energy to completing key projects.

Post a comment and let us know what you are up to this fall!

Post from: EveryJoe

Management: From Summer Simmer to Fall Fierce

Click here to read a review I wrote a of Jack Hayhow Jr.’s Wisdom of the Flying Pig. I really liked the book and now Jack has offered a PDF version of the book free of charge to Slacker Manager Readers.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Here is a short quotation from page 15 to whet your appetite for this great bargain:

If you accept the premise that as a manager you don’t get paid for what you do, you get paid for what your people do, it naturally follows that the best use of your time is helping your people be more productive. And here’s what your people need to be more productive: Your people need to know exactly what you want them to do. Your people need certain information and resources to do the job right. Your people need to know how they’re doing and to be recognized when they succeed. And finally, your people need to know you care.

Click here to request the book. When you place your order please enter the following code:  D8Z1B.

What are  you waiting for? Fill out your flight plan (order form) and take off with the pig.

Post from: EveryJoe

Free Book: Wisdom of the Flying Pig

by David Zinger

What will you do? Read the following 50 word case study involving sex in the office and determine what you would do if you were the manager in this situation.

Rajeesh Setty advocated writing 50-word mini sagas. I believe mini sagas offer an effective and fast format for case vignette discussions. I look forward to your comments about this case method or your specific comment on the case below.

Read the mini saga below, imagine you are Alex, and in the comment section offer what you would do in this situation.

Alex, manages 16 people. He worked late Thursday night to complete a project. He walked across the office to turn off the light in the photocopy room when he witnessed his boss engaged in sex with one of Alex’s direct reports. They didn’t see him and Alex quickly left the building.

Please comment: If you were Alex what would you say or do in the next few days?

Post from: EveryJoe

Management Mini Saga: More Than Paper Reproduction in the Photocopy Room!

by David Zinger

Assessing the poverty of strengths in the workplace. Here are the results from my latest management strength survey.

• 55% of people have had no strength training
• 18% of participants spent less than 1/5 of their day using their strengths
• only 9% of participants spent over 4/5ths of their day using their strengths.
• 28% of respondents report being able to spend beyond 60% of their time using their strengths.
• only 3 out of 10 managers are working from their strengths a majority of the time.

Actual strengths. The list of their greatest strength at work was somewhat vague. Communication, organization, problem solving, and knowledge were most frequently cited strengths. I believe managers would benefit from more detail and a sharper focus on their strengths (see the list of strengths listed at the end of this post).

My two favorite strength responses were: Making complexity comprehensible and sleeping through the noise!

Conclusion. We still have a long way to go to create a strength based workplace.

• 55.8% of the respondent have not had any training while 44.2% had at least some training in strengths.

Question 2. What percentage of the working day do you use your strengths at work?

• 18% spent less that 1/5 of their day using their strengths
• 18% spent between 1/5 to 2/5ths of their day on strengths
• 36% spent between 2/5ths and 3/5ths of their day using their strengths
• 19% spent 3/5ths to 4/5ths of their day on strengths
• 9% spent over 4/5th of their day using their strengths

Question 3. What is your greatest strength at work? (the list is in alphabetical order as provided by the participants in the survey.

ability to make decisions
Ability to Solve Problems.
Adaptability
analysis
analysis: finding patterns
Analytical Thinking
Analytics
Analyzing
calculations
calm
Calming people down to get to the root of a problem
coding
Commitment to get the job done right
common sense
communicating complex information
communicating requirements
communication
communication
communication
Communication
Communication
Communication skills
communication?
Course of Action Analysis / Planning
Creativity/Problem solving
customer relations
deadline work
decision making
Direct Work
don’t know
Employee Relations
Enabling people to understand their strengths and how to use them
encouragement and leadership
Excel skills
EXPERIENCE
Finding Solutions and Strategic Planning
Focus
Going home on time
Humor
humour
innovation
Integration of Ideas
interpersonal skills
intimidation
justice
Knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge
knowledge
knowledge of product
Lateral Thinking
Leadership
Leadership
leadership
leading groups in short-term goals – and as a musician
listening
Listening
Listening
listening
Logical Analysis
Making complexity comprehensible
Manage by walking around
management
managing
Multi-tasking
My focus on the needs of the customers
Organisation
organization
organization
Organization
Organization
Patience
Patience
patiences
perspective
planning design
positive attitude
Priority Setting
proactivity
problem solving
problem solving
Problem solving
problem solving
problem solving
Problem-solving
Process Improvement
procrastination
promoting other people’s strengths
Relating to people at their level to help them develop
relationship building
relationship mgmt
sales
seeing a problem & starting the process of root cause solution implementation
seeing how things can be done
SEO
SEO
setting priorities
simplifying
sizing up people
sleeping through the noise
speed
Strategy
team building
Technical Depth
Technology
Technology
tenacity
Too many to name
Troubleshooting
Understanding people
unknown
Vision

What conclusions or thoughts do you have after looking at these “strong results?”

Post from: EveryJoe

The Results From Management Strong Stuff

by David Zinger

Click here or on the wishbones above and take 2 minutes to be transformed into a management Genie. Grant 3 wishes for managers:

1. The wish you would grant for the people you manage.
2. The wish you would grant for the organization.
3. The wish you would grant for yourself.

Go ahead Genie, do it now.

I will provide an overview of the wishes granted in 2 weeks.

Photo Credit: Wishbones by Comparison by http://flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/305400890/

Post from: EveryJoe

Genie Power: The 3 Wishes of Management