How to Be a Bad Manager
By Andy Heath
I recently wrote an article on how to be a good manager, but I have now written an article on how to be a bad manager for those that are interested.
Be Concerned Only for Yourself
Bad managers tend to only worry about their own careers, their own wishes, their own desires, their own whatever. If you want to be a bad manager and lose your employees' trust fast, just follow this simple rule.
Refuse to Manage
When I worked at a pension office, I worked for a lady that simply liked producing her own work so much that she never bothered to manage. She was in a bad mood about three out of five days in the week, so she was unapproachable. If you want disillusioned employees, just don't manage them. They're sure to hate you.
Give Employees Increased Responsibility with Diminished Authority
I love this one. The manager that gives employees increased responsibility with diminished authority is usually vindictive enough to try to sabotage his or her employees out of pure jealousy. If you want to be a bad manager, try to get your employees to do the opposite of what they're supposed to do – try to get them to fail.
Delegate the Worst Aspects of Your Job to Your Employees
I once worked for an electric company where the manager of my department did not like talking on the phone. I don't either, especially when I'm going to get chewed out about something. If you want to be a bad manager, just give ALL of your unpleasant work to your employees, especially if they're not qualified or experienced enough to handle it. You'll ensure their failure as well as your own.
Feel Threatened by Competent Employees and Push Them Down
Ever had one of those employees that is smarter than you are. Consider yourself lucky. But if you think you're not lucky, then do what you can to push that employee down. Make sure no one ever knows about that employee's contributions as the fear sets in that someone else might actually be interested in your job. Then you will join the ranks of the worst managers.
Never Listen to Good Ideas
Not listening to good ideas is the twin brother of being threatened by competent employees. If you want to be a bad manager, then do everything in your power to kill any idea that will leave your department running more smoothly and efficiently. Especially kill ideas that will increase company profit or reduce costs.
Take Credit for Your Employees' Work
If you want to be a scum of the earth manager, then do not give credit where credit is due. If your employee created a new system that makes things run better, make sure upper management thinks that you did it. You will make your employee so mad, he will probably leave. Won't you feel great knowing you made such a fantastic contribution to your company? Not only will you be expected to continue doing work you're not capable of, but the employee that was capable will have left.
Conclusion
Now you can see that there is a lot more to being a bad manager than to being a good manager. In being a good manager, all you really had to do was listen to your employees and teach them your skills. Just throw in some empowerment and you're set. Being a bad manager is much harder. Look at the sheer volume of work you have to do to be a bad manager, but you will definitely pay the price for it.
How to Be a Good Manager
By Andy Heath
I have never been a manager, but I have worked for a LOT of different people at varying levels of competence in the field of management. That said, I think I can give you some good ideas about the productivity the best managers have gotten out of me and the damage the worst managers have done to me and to the departments they managed. In case you're wondering how you can be bad manager, check back in two days, as that is the post that will come up next.
The first manager I had out of college was named Mary Ellen – yes, that is her real name. She was wonderful. She gave me all the tools I needed to do my job and she was always there to answer questions and kept me in the loop on processes. To be honest, I did not appreciate what a phenomenal manager she was and ended up leaving the company out of anger at her – one of the many, many, many mistakes I have made in my humble life. Just to give you a few more good things about her, she paid for me to have a membership in the Society for Human Resources Management, she paid for me to take a class at the Tennessee Foreign Language Institute, and she allowed me education in Microsoft Access. She was always there to listen, and she always listened to my ideas, even if she did not implement them. She was wonderful. I still regret not staying at that company, at least for another year or so, but that is how we learn, I suppose.
When I left that job, I went to work for Barbara, one of the meanest women God ever put breath into. But she was also a phenomenal manager – courtesy is not a prerequisite for being a good manager – though it does help. I tell people that Barbara was a good manager because I always knew where I stood with her. Plus, she taught me a lot of technical skills in Access and Excel, and she taught me to use my brain, a skill I had not yet acquired. I also wish I had continued working with Barbara for a little while longer, but then again, we live and learn.
I think the qualities that these two good managers have in common are that they were willing to listen, they always let their employees know where they stood with them, and they took opportunities to teach their employees new skills, be they hard skills or soft skills.
One of the skills the Mary Ellen taught me was the concept of the "pillow punch" which I later read about – not by that name of course – in a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The pillow punch involves giving someone bad news but doing so in such a way that makes it an easier pill to swallow. A few months ago I heard a speaker that discussed giving people bad news in the following way.
First, find the common ground. Get them to say, "Yes, that's right, I'm with you." Second, tell them what's in it for them, and there is almost always something that's in it for them. Third, give them the bottom line. At that point, you can tell them the bad news. Then Barbara taught me to think of things from a business perspective. She always had me start with the objective in mind and to work from that objective. She taught me how to look at a business problem and work toward a solution. I really appreciated these lessons very much and still use them to this day.
To be honest, I have not had any manager that met with these two women's competence since. It is sad in a way that the best managers I have yet had were also the first two I had. I would like to have someone like that again at some point, if I continue in the working world, but to be honest it's highly unlikely that I will ever be able to work with such people again. They were one in a million.
The next article I post in two days will talk about bad managers, and I have had so many more of them than good managers. I have also had some average managers, but if you're going to have a level of competence, who wants to be average? I guess I probably won't write an article on how to be average because most people already are.
But to recap, if you want to be a good manager, listen to your employees. Teach them the skills that you possess so they can take them with them to the next job if they do not stay with you. And as an optional component, be courteous.
My Pug Winston
By Andy Heath
I have a pug named Winston, and he is wonderful. I say I have a pug, but actually he belonged to my ex and me before we broke up, and James got Winston, but I still get to go visit every now and then.
We decided to name him Winston after Winston Churchill, who wrote a poem about his daughter's pug. Thus, Winston it was.
We bought Winston from a lady that bred various types of dogs, and James had always wanted a pug, so it worked out perfectly. When we first met Winston, he was so sweet. We wrapped him in a towel and took him home, and he cried part of the way. Then we took him inside the apartment and introduced him to his new home, and he was terrified. He would not even come out of the kitchen.
Eventually he felt more comfortable, and before long he had no memory of his previous home. James and I were all he knew, and as far as he was concerned, had ever known. When James and I broke up in May 2006, it was very hard for a lot of reasons, but I have to admit I still miss Winston from time to time.
I remember I used to sing to Winston every day. I had made up a number of songs that I sang to Winston and he loved it. We used to play tug-of-war with a towel, and it was wonderful. It turns out he lives a very happy life. I think he has no recollection now that I ever lived with him, but he still recognizes me and he goes CRAZY when he sees me. That makes me very happy, I have to admit.
Winston is not a very bright dog, though. We used to play fetch with him, which he loved, but sometimes we would pretend to throw the ball, and he would run all the way down to the end of the hall and just look at us as if to ask, "Where did it go?" The we would show him the ball and he would come running back, not even realizing that we had tricked him. Silly pug! I just love him.
Here's a picture of him.
Gays Must Be the Best and Most Competent
By Andy Heath
Occasionally I have the opportunity to listen to Black men and women tell me about the amazing struggle that it is to be an African American in the United States today. They will concede that this country has come a long way, but they also note that we have a long way to go. One thing they consistently point out is that they feel they must work twice as hard and be twice as good as their white counterparts in order to be considered at those counterparts' level. It is sad that this is the case. You would think in 2010 that we would be beyond that point. I suppose we do still have a long way to go.
I then realized that there is a strong correlation in that regard for gay people – especially when gay people are doing jobs that are typically associated with straight men. For example, the public will not take an excellent gay football player nearly as seriously as a mediocre straight football player. But why is that? I suppose I'm preaching to the choir in asking what sexuality has to do with the ability to play football, but really, why is it?
I have found this to be the case in nearly any calling that is typically associated with straight men. How many openly gay CEOs do you know of? Oh, there are a few, I'm sure, even in large companies. But these same people often feel like they have to hide their homosexuality in order to get ahead in the world. They feel like people will not accept them for who they really are and that they must put up a façade in order to succeed – and there might be an element of truth to that.
Unfortunately, politics still plays a prominent role in corporate life, even in die hard, for profit companies that cannot afford to have anything less than the most competent people in their key positions. And that politics often means that gays will get the short end of the stick. I have written about the glass ceiling as it relates to gays in the United States before, and this is a very real obstacle for openly gay men and lesbian women.
In my football example above, the gay man was more competent than the straight man. This is the only remedy I have really found in dealing with the glass ceiling for gays. We must be the best and most competent if we are to succeed. We must be the best writers, business people, scientists, laborers, managers, and any other label you can name.
My question is this – what can we do? The fact is that not all of us can be the very best and the very most competent in our fields. Though often I feel that if we are the best fighters and the most persistent, then we can often succeed no matter what our sexual orientation. I would ask you this question – what do you think we can do? How can we respond to the threat of getting the short end of the stick in ways other than being the very best? I hope you will contact me to let me know, and I will post the best responses.
Why Oscar Wilde Is My Hero
By Andy Heath
I believe those who suffer a great deal have much to teach us. Oscar Wilde is one of my favorite historical characters, and in many ways I try to emulate him. He was a famous gay playwright in Britain in the 19th Century, and was eventually convicted on charges of sodomy and sentenced to hard labor and prison. After that time, he moved to France and then died, as the prison experience broke him. Regardless, there are many things about Oscar Wilde that I admire.
First, I admire his courage. If you have ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, you will see that both Lord Henry and Basil are obviously gay characters in that book. Oscar Wilde was about 100 years ahead of his time when it comes to courage because he wrote about obviously gay characters in England when it was not just a sin but a crime to be gay. He put himself in great danger for this reason. I admire Wilde for risking – and eventually losing – everything in order to be the man that he knew he must be.
Second, he was a creative spirit. I admire him for being a great student – I certainly was not – and for being willing to show his creativity in his studies as well as with his peers while he was in school. Apparently he decorated his room with peacock feathers, something that was clearly more flamboyant than a man would have been permitted to be at that time. And the fact that he did so well in school studying the classics shows me that he has brilliance that I so greatly admire; he was certainly smarter than I am – which may not be saying much, but I admire him all the same.
Third, I just think he is interesting. I admire interesting people. He was witty and always making wonderful jokes. If you read The Picture of Dorian Gray you will find that biting wit in nearly everything Lord Henry says. It is simply wonderful. There was one particular scene toward the beginning of the book where Dorian Gray said that he had missed playing a duet with Lord Henry's aunt. Lord Henry replied with something like, "No matter. I'm sure everyone will have thought it was a duet considering how loudly my aunt plays." There was another scene where Lord Henry was speaking about a woman, saying, "She has everything in common with a peacock except for beauty." When I read that I thought I would fall out of my chair laughing. What a delightful insult!
I have to admit I have never read any of Wilde's plays, and I lament the fact that he only ever wrote one novel. I'm not one to sit and read plays, to be honest. Though I might do that at some point just to get a greater feel for Wilde.
I don't know what it is, but I feel a spiritual connection to him. He seems to call me from the spirit world, almost like he guides me in my life. I feel I have so much to learn from him about courage, about the willingness to be oneself, about creativity, and yes, about love. When I conjure images of those that I most admire, Oscar Wilde comes to mind nowadays. I hope that at some point when I die, I will have the chance to meet him. I know that just sounds silly, but regardless, it is true.
Review of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
By Andy Heath
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is one of the most haunting books I have read in a long time. It's about a high school girl that was raped by one of her classmates and then shunned by her peers.
The book is written in first person, present tense, which is difficult to get used to at first. But the protagonist, named Melinda, describes the pain she goes through at being shunned by her peers as well as remembering the rape. She essentially stops talking, and no one can figure out why because she refused to discuss the rape with anyone.
One of the things I really liked about this book is that I felt Ms. Anderson really captured the high school experience brilliantly. I have read other books where I felt that was not the case. But I could empathize with Melinda to a point – although I was never raped – but I did understand what it was like to be shunned by my peers.
In the book, Melinda finds that her only escape from life is art. She is responsible for making a tree throughout the semester in various ways, and her art teacher realizes she is quite talented. It is through art that she finds solace in the world and a way to get out of the daily pain she lives with.
There are a number of issues that Speak addresses, and one of them is the concept of teenage rape. I think we can all agree that no matter what kind of ending this book has, happy or not, there is no happy ending for a girl that is raped when she is a freshman in high school – or ever. That is why I would recommend every high school student read Speak. It was painful for me because part of the time I felt I was reliving the high school experience which was so hard, but it is a book that addresses such important themes for teenagers today.
Language Learning at Its Best
By Andy Heath
Some of you might know that I have a degree from ETSU in Johnson City, Tennessee, in Spanish. I have to admit I really liked that degree program, and from a career perspective it has served me well when I needed a job over the years. Though it is also difficult to move up with such a degree because people often want to keep you in the lower ranks of customer service to speak to the people that need your help because they can't find enough Spanish speakers to replace you – even if you're qualified for a promotion.
Still, for those that are interested in learning a foreign language, I have some advice for you that you might find helpful. My Spanish is a little rusty at this point, but it used to be very good, so I have some idea of what I'm talking about.
First of all, for most language you don't need to spend a penny to learn them. Not a penny. You see all these shiny, nice looking language learning packages at the bookstore – don't spend your money on them. Instead, go to fsi-language-courses.com and see if the language you want to learn is represented there. The more common languages like Spanish, French, and Chinese have programs there. Then you can go through these courses.
The FSI courses were designed by the U.S. government decades ago to train linguists for foreign service. They are in the public domain, so there are no copyrights being infringed. They're not pretty by any means. They don't have cute pictures, and they're not shiny and glossy, but they are quite good for language learning. I went through some of the Mandarin Chinese exercises and I feel fairly comfortable with the numbers in Chinese now.
The other action you need to take is to review the website How To Learn Any Language. This is an excellent website written by a guy that loves to learn foreign languages, and he has some excellent material on there that makes it much easier.
At this point, I'm not sure I have it in me to learn another language, but if I did, these are the two websites I would use. If language learning is something you're interested in, then try them out.
Possibly Joining the Peace Corps
By Andy Heath
I have applied to the Peace Corps, and it's a hard process. First you have to fill out an application, and that takes hours. They ask you all about your employment history, any illnesses you have had during your life, and there are essay questions about why you want to join the Peace Corps and what you feel you can contribute.
Then you have to fill out all kinds of other forms. You have to be fingerprinted, which involved a trip to the local police department. You have to speak to any debt that you currently have and how you will take care of it during your service. You have to send transcripts from college. And you have to get references from an employer, a volunteer supervisor, and a close friend – and these are not easy references. Your references must speak to your leadership skills, your ability to adapt to change, and many other things that they may not even know about you.
Then you have to go to an interview. I found out the other day – much to my surprise – that the Peace Corps does not reimburse travel expenses to the interview, so I told the recruiter that I would just have to wait until he came to Tennessee. Then he said I could do a phone interview. I think that is better because I don't have the money at this time to buy the gas to go to Atlanta, pay for a motel bill, and miss one or two days of work on top of that.
And after all that, they might even tell me that I'm not accepted into the program. And even if they do tell me I'm accepted, I may tell them I don't want to go overseas.
For those of you that aren't familiar with what the Peace Corps is, it's a program sponsored by the U.S. government that will allow you to go overseas to make a contribution to a foreign community for two years. They can send you to any corner of the globe, and it's a hard life. You could live in a mud hut in Africa or an apartment in downtown Beijing. A lot of times you don't know where they'll send you and you don't know what you'll end up doing. But I guess that is part of the adventure.
Maybe at this point in my life I'm getting past my adventurous state of mind. I think now I would just like to have a little money in my pocket and live a pleasant existence, but then, I just don't see that happening anytime in the near future.
So on the whole, my thoughts are that I will not go overseas at this point. I've had enough of heartbreak, loneliness, and boredom. I'm tired of living a hard life, and that would just make life even harder for me I think. In some ways, I'm not even entirely sure why I applied to begin with. I wish I had given it more thought before I did it, but then, as I said, I can always turn down the assignment.
The Concept of Facebook
By Andy Heath
Well over a year ago, I set up a Facebook page. About six months ago, I actually started working with it from time to time. It was interesting. You could check on friends and find people that you haven't talked to since the dawn of time and put updates on your mood, the music you're listening to, etc. You can even take these little quizzes such as "How Well Do You Know 80's Cartoons?" and things of that nature.
I am not unsavvy in technology, but I have to admit Facebook took some getting used to for me. It took me forever to figure out how to put a picture of myself on there. And then I could not figure out how to post things and do all the normal things that you do with Facebook.
But I have found it interesting. I have reconnected with some people that I used to hang out with at the ETSU Wesley Foundation back when I was in college. It's fun to talk to them now – and it was then too, but perhaps more fun now because I don't see them all the time.
I guess the biggest challenge with Facebook is the fact that you have to be selective in what you put on there. You can have "friends" on Facebook and all of them have access to the same information. So if your hot, steamy lover is your friend and so is your mother, then they're seeing the same information. It can be a scary concept. I have to say, my friends from the student Methodist center in college are not terribly happy that I read Tarot cards now, but I suppose that's part of the fun of Facebook. It seems people really get to know you as a person because you don't discriminate in what one person can see and another cannot.
But now I don't spend as much time on there. I get on there whenever I get an email that someone has "written on my wall" or sent me a message. But to be honest, I would rather just connect with people in other ways. I like having tea at Starbucks with friends (decaf, of course) and just reminiscing about old times. I would rather do that than sit glued to a laptop – not that I am never glued to my laptop.
I would not mind all of you asking me to be friends on Facebook, but then I don't know how to post the URL of my facebook page. In ways, it seems so much more complicated than MySpace – I always knew what my URL was when I had MySpace.
I think if I am ever to get used to Facebook, I will just have to sit down and learn it – but I doubt I ever will.
I Want to Take the GMAT
By Andy Heath
I have given some consideration to taking the GMAT. For those of you that don't know what the GMAT is, it is a test that you take to get into business school to get an M.B.A. I have to admit I am dreading it though because it is a test whose material you generally cover in advanced high school math and English classes.
The GMAT covers such topics as high school Algebra I, high school geometry, a little probability, as well as the tester's verbal abilities such as the ability to read critically and understand material read.
The highest score you can make on the GMAT is 800, and the lowest is 200. In order to get into the top tier schools such as Harvard or Yale, you would generally need to get in the mid 700 range. Lower ranked schools usually require a score in the mid 400's.
To be honest, I'm not even sure why I want to take this test because I'm not even sure I want to get into graduate business school. Still, I think it might be interesting to relearn all the algebra and geometry that I have forgotten over the years. Who knows, I might do very well at it now. I was not a great student in high school, I have to admit.
The best way to study for the GMAT, in my humble opinion, would just be to buy an algebra and geometry review guide and go through them, as well as buying a GMAT verbal review guide, which you can find at just about any bookstore. I had started the process a year and a half, but then abandoned it when I decided to move from Phoenix, AZ, back to Tennessee. Now, I'm thinking about it again, and wondering if I am going out of my mind.
I guess at this point, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with myself. What do you do when you're 31-years-old and have accomplished essentially nothing in your life other than writing two unpublished novels? I guess that is the question I must struggle with over time. Still, I leave the option of the GMAT open.
