Supervisor Snacks

There are three things, we all believe, that make you a good listener.       Letting people talk without interrupting.     Using facial expressions and the occasional “Mm-hmm” to show you are engaged, and….     Repeating some of what was said; sometimes word for word. Most of us think we are good listeners, but we can do so much better.  An article posted on the Harvard Business Review Blog by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, of Zenger Folkman, suggests that there are four areas that have great importance in successful listening. After conducting a development program designed to help managers become better coaches they found many characteristics that moved people from average to outstanding listeners.  They grouped these into four main findings. Good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks.  People perceive the best listeners to be those who periodically ask questions that promote discovery and i...

The ancient theory of thirds says that in any organization, team, business, or industry association, one-third of the people will do two-thirds of the work.   The next one-third will do the remaining work and the last one-third will do almost nothing.   If you belong to a group of any kind, think about the members and you will see that this is a pretty fair statement, and has been for thousands of years. The theory can be extrapolated to mean that the first third of the people in an organization are the leaders, the second third are the followers, and the last third barely contribute.  It is almost impossible to motivate this last third to become an active part of the group.  That’s not to say they don’t want to be a part of the organization, or that they lack interest.  Sometimes, we just need to be a passive part of a company. The people who make up those thirds ebb and flow; for a year or two (or many), one person will be in the first group and then slide...

I bought my new computer through a private dealer this time; he transferred everything from my old laptop to my new one and added some extra protection since I was concerned about the security and safety of my documents.  He warned me about changing passwords often, and not to download anything from people I didn’t know – things we’ve had drummed into us for decades now.   And then he added one reminder I hadn’t heard, “Be careful of what you click on; not all bad things come looking like an e-mail from someone you might know,” he gravely admonished.  What did that mean?   Suppose you’re browsing through Facebook and a cute video pops up alongside, showing a puppy and kitten sleeping together, or a mama duck herding her babies across the street while big trucks wait, or a pair of dancers in their 70’s grooving along to some uptown music.  Click on one of those and you might be safe – and you might be sorry.  Because one of those adorable images co...