This last Saturday, November 11th, I had a total blast listening to Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, chat about who they were, how they'd gotten where they are and how they worked together (if you're a geek or just like stories about blowing stuff up, these guys are a must see).

I was struck by their nearly total dissimilarities with respect to temperament, stage presence, and working styles.⇒ Read more

I was thinking about the unpleasant things I've encountered in various workplaces. In my experience, there are few things I find more repugnant than explicit, blatant negative reinforcement.

I am reminded of a scene from The Hudsucker Proxy:

Mail Room Orienter: You punch in at 8:30 every morning, except you punch in at 7:30 following a business holiday, unless it's a Monday, then you punch in at 8 o'clock. Punch in late and they dock you.⇒ Read more

According to Zogby International, there's a strong correlation between your willingness to apologize and your potential income level.

In a survey sponsored by The Pearl Outlet, Zogby found a significant link:

Americans earning over $100,000 a year are almost twice as likely to apologize after an argument with their other half as those earning under $25,000... ...the more you apologize, the more you earn.⇒ Read more

They're watching you. All of the time.

Every move you make. Every sentence, every word you utter. Your emails, your instant messages.

Every expression on your face. Every smile. Every frown, every furrowed brow.

Every action you take.⇒ Read more

I'm here to teach. And to learn.

Once we move beyond the basics of earning a paycheck, why do I show up for work every day?

Simple. I want to learn. And I want to teach.⇒ Read more

The San Jose Mercury News reports on a Manpower survey about the aging workforce and employer policies towards that workforce.

The conclusion: Most companies do not have policies to attract or retain older workers. (14 percent have policies to attract and 21 percent have policies designed to retain aging workers.)⇒ Read more

Stack ranking - or curve ranking - where team members are rated against one another - is used at Microsoft and other companies. Basically, it's rare or near impossible to rank all team members at the same high rate, even if all team members have earned it, because the system requires that some are ranked highly, some are ranked as average, and some are ranked as below average.⇒ Read more

From the mini-microsoft blog (minimsft.blogspot.com) comes this brilliant, incisive, and right-on comment:

Mini-Microsoft: Goals for a Brave New Microsoft Review and Compensation System: "MS is an engineering company. MS is packed with engineers. Engineers are wired and hired to apply their talents to fixing things. Hence the ongoing string of ideas aimed and fixing things here at MS.⇒ Read more

A New York Magazine article titled "Boss Science: the psychopathology of the modern American corporate leader" asks: Is there some law of office life that dictates that jerks rise to the top? Here's the introduction:

Possibly, your boss is a truly fine person—wise, kind, perceptive, capable, understanding, the all-seeing director of the office sitcom, the sort of individual one might like to have, in an ideal world, as a parent or a confidant. Or not. In the real world, bosses are known to suffer from a long list of social pathologies: naked aggression, credit hogging, micromanaging, bullying, you name it. According to one report, 60 to 75 percent of employees—it doesn’t matter the organization—say the worst aspect of their job is their boss. It’s not difficult to believe, as one office expert concludes, that “every employed adult will have to work for a bad boss for some significant period.”⇒ Read more

Have you ever noticed that some people are so incompetent they don't know how incompetent they are? This, by no means, is a unique or new observation.
In fact, this story 'broke' several years ago and was picked up by all the usual major news sources (there are a zillion citations but here's the New York Times one for reference. In essence, Dr. David A. Dunning of Cornell University concludes that incompetent people lack the basic skills needed to assess themselves properly.⇒ Read more