MgmtWatchSM Helping you manage If you are having difficulty seeing this mail or images in it, you can view it in your Web browser. Volume 8, Issue 11      In This Issue:   Becoming a better boss: 13 steps to success   Motivating long-term employees: 10 tips for managers   New interview question: 'What's your favorite color?'   The 6 kinds of terminations … and how to avoid lawsuits for each one   Porn on PCs: How far must you go to block it?   Seven steps to riding out the downturn   Mastering failure   Smart presentations: About those butterflies   How I learned to love middle managers   The 10 worst job tips ever   Medical bills you shouldn't pay   How to boost employee morale on a budget   How nice guys can get the corner office Becoming a better boss: 13 steps to success Learning how to listen More than 20% of American workers feel that their bosses hardly ever listen to their problems, said a recent Gallup Poll. And that can cause resentment... Managers aren’t only responsible for an organization’s fiscal assets, they’re also responsible for its human assets. According to a recent Adecco report, here are 13 simple ideas you can implement today to become a more effective manager... Read the article.  Back to top Motivating long-term employees: 10 tips for managers When a long-term employee seems to be stuck in a rut or is simply coasting, a few moves by the supervisor can help shake out the cobwebs and rekindle the employee's fire. Here are 10 simple tips for managers... Read the article.  Back to top New interview question: 'What's your favorite color?' What do the colors people choose say about their suitability for a certain career? CareerBuilder just unveiled a... Read the article.  Back to top The 6 kinds of terminations … and how to avoid lawsuits for each one Terminations are the spark to many employment lawsuits. And for each of the six kinds, there are some common steps employers can take to make sure they defend themselves if the termination is challenged in court: 1. NEW HIRES. When new employees are dismissed, their legal claims typically assert... Read the article.  Back to top Porn on PCs: How far must you go to block it? Judges are getting impatient with employers that allow employees to be exposed to pornography at work. Perhaps because controlling Internet access to pornographic images isn’t technically difficult, and because word tends to get around pretty quickly if a co-worker is showing porn to co-workers, courts now are clamping down more on employers that don’t do enough. Recent case: Vicki Criswell that co-workers on three occasions to online pornographic images. She sued, saying the images were so offensive, they created a sexually hostile environment. She blamed the company for not protecting her. While a lower court dismissed the case, an appellate court took a second look... Read the article.  Back to top Seven steps to riding out the downturn Worried about how you are going to manage your way through the downturn? You could do a lot worse than following a seven-step "resiliency strategy" drawn up by a U.S research firm. The recommendations by Sirota Survey Intelligence are focused on effective people management at all levels, with the aim of ensuring that the business, and its people, are best placed to deal with whatever economic knocks may come their way. The first of these seven steps is simply to... Read the article.  Back to top Mastering failure Myra White teaches managing workplace performance and organizational behavior at Harvard University and is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of "Follow the Yellow Brick Road: A Harvard Psychologist's Guide to Becoming a Superstar", a book based on her research into how over 60 well-known people became superstars. No one likes to fail but it is part of being human. While people who become superstars may seem immune to failure, my research shows that they take the same amount of wrong turns as everyone else. What distinguishes them is that they don't let their failures interfere with their pursuit of success. They accept failure, objectively assess their options, and take constructive action. Most of us are taught in school that failure should be avoided at all costs. Teachers make it clear that failing grades are unacceptable and is often our own fault because we haven't studied hard enough or simply don't have the proper brains. An even more insidious message that circulates among students is that people who fail are losers. Many people take these ideas about failure that they learn as children with them into the workplace. They continue to believe that failure is 1) an indication that there is something lacking in them; and 2) a sign that they are a loser. These ideas are an over-simplification and can leave people paralyzed in the face of failure. When a person believes that workplace failure is due to an inner flaw and makes them a loser, it can have devastating psychological effects on them and profoundly affect their feelings of self-worth. [Superstars don't let failure master them. They master it. They do this by:...] Read the article.  Back to top Smart presentations: About those butterflies Have a big meeting or sales presentation to give? Don't let those "butterflies" get in the way. Turn that nervous energy into your delivery power with these tips from Broadway. Lots of people fear presenting. And lots of people have advice on how to "get those butterflies to fly in formation"—i.e. how to be calm and composed in front of an audience. There are some good nuggets of advice out there about practice and preparation, but when it comes to dealing with stage fright, take this cue from Broadway: 1. Don't fight the feeling, it's natural... Read the article.  Back to top How I learned to love middle managers I hoped to create a utopian workplace. Instead, I caused an employee revolt. Ten years ago, while I was working at Juno, a start-up Internet service provider in New York City, my boss promoted me to the position of technical manager. The new role didn't come with a pay raise, and I had only two people reporting to me, but I still felt good about it. Juno was a hot company, backed by the investment firm D.E. Shaw, where Jeff Bezos had worked before he left to start Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN). I was proud to start getting those mass e-mails that were circulated among the managers. Until I noticed about half the company was on that distribution list. For a company of Juno's size -- it had about 150 employees at the time -- there seemed to be a disproportional number of managers. I think most of them, like me, had only one or two people reporting to them. But it was hard to know for sure, because the org chart wasn't circulated; apparently, Juno's top brass were afraid it would fall into the hands of headhunters. So you knew your boss and your team, but unless you were a smoker, you didn't know any of the people in the other parts of the company. For an Internet start-up, Juno had an operational structure that felt strangely like something out of the 1950s... [When my partner, Michael Pryor, and I left Juno to start Fog Creek Software, we knew we wanted to hire great people and then get out of their way. My instinct to do away with middle management was further encouraged when I read an article in one of those glossy business magazines, very much like the one you're holding in your hands. It was about a General Electric (NYSE:GE) plant in Durham, North Carolina, that made jet engines, and it offered a portrait of the perfect work environment: a factory that had more than 170 employees but just one boss... And for a while, the Everybody Reports to Me (and Michael) system worked just fine. Fog Creek grew slowly but steadily. We didn't hire our fifth employee until 2005, five years in. Then, last year, we began to realize that things had changed. Fog Creek had 17 full-timers working on two product lines but still no managers. And unbeknown to us, people were getting grumpy...] Read the article.  Back to top The 10 worst job tips ever The world abounds in bad advice for job-seekers. Here are some spectacularly unsound directives. Nearly every day, someone sends me a bit of astounding job-search advice from a blog or a newsletter. Some of this advice seems to come directly from the planet X-19, and some of it seems to have been made up on the spot. Here are 10 of my favorite pieces of atrocious job-search advice, for you to read and ignore at all costs: 1. DON'T WRAP IT UP The Summary or Objective at the top of your résumé is the wrap-up; It tells the reader... Read the article.  Back to top Medical bills you shouldn't pay Glenn Siglinger fought a surgeon who overcharged for treating his daughter, Allison. Jennifer S. Altman In a controversial practice known as "balance billing," health-care providers are going after patients for money they don't owe. Editor's note: For a CBS Evening News report on balance billing that was made in collaboration with BusinessWeek, go to: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/29/eveningnews/main4398133.shtml. As health-care costs continue to soar, millions of confused consumers are paying medical bills they don't actually owe. Typically this occurs when an insurance plan covers less than what a doctor, hospital, or lab service wants to be paid. The health-care provider demands the balance from the patient. Uncertain and fearing the calls of a debt collector, the patient pays up. Most consumers don't realize it, but this common practice, known as balance billing, often is illegal. When doctors or hospitals think an insurer has reimbursed too little, state and federal laws generally bar the medical providers from pressuring patients to pay the difference. Instead, doctors and hospitals should be wrangling directly with insurers. Economists and patient advocates estimate that consumers pay $1 billion or more a year for which they're not responsible. Yolanda Fil, a 59-year-old McDonald's (MCD) cashier in Maple Shade, N.J., got tangled up with balance billing after gall bladder surgery in 2005... Read the article.  Back to top How to boost employee morale on a budget In Pictures: 10 Ways To Boost Employee Moral "Money can’t buy happiness" is not a cliche when it comes to boosting morale around the office. In these uneasy times, when many entrepreneurs are pinching every penny, knowing how to reward employees without spending a lot is crucial. "You can do things for employees that don’t cost anything, but are worth a million dollars,” says Bob Nelson, author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, now in its fifty-second printing. Better yet, "small businesses can do [these things] because they aren't constrained by a 500-page policy manual." Stop fretting about not being able to shower your employees with cash... Read the article.  Back to top How nice guys can get the corner office No one wants to be labeled the "nice guy" in business, the pushover, the people-pleaser who finishes the race last, as the saying goes. A new book, How Nice Guys Can Get The Corner Office: Eight Strategies for Winning in Business without Being a Jerk, outlines how the nice guy can be just as effective and powerful as the thrusting businessman who usually places much higher in that race. This isn't a lesson on getting tough. It's a set of guidelines for anyone wanting to shake off the nice-guy moniker by becoming more assertive while remaining likable. "I just saw people struggling, including myself," said co-author and business consultant Russ C. Edelman. Edelman and his co-authors Timothy Hiltabiddle and Charles Manz surveyed 350 executives for the book on the effectiveness of leadership, specifically about classic nice-guy behaviors... Read the article.  Back to top Forward to a Friend: Do you have a friend that would like to receive MgmtWatchsm? Perhaps you know a peer within your organization, or associate at a partner company that would benefit from applying to receive this publication. Inviting a friend to experience the benefits of joining the BusinessWatch Network is easy! Just FW: this newsletter to the person you know who may have an interest and ask them to click here http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com Your friend will be glad you did! If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from MgmtWatchsm simply change your status, or send a letter requesting opt-off to: The BusinessWatch Network Privacy Mailbox, 1321, Marblehead, MA. 01945 DISCLAIMER: MgmtWatchsm and the BusinessWatch Networksm are service marks of DMS. All other trademarks or service marks contained in this email are the property of their respective owners. At the time of publication, all links in this e-mail functioned properly. However, since many links point to sites other than businesswatchnetwork.com, some links may become invalid as time passes. DMS Inc. supports the DMA Privacy Promise and Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice. We are committed to the proper use of email and to protecting consumers from fraudulent or inappropriate offers. Privacy Policy