The following techniques were written by Ross Lonstein nearly two years ago. He was rather unsatisfied at the time with his work. Those of us in the computer industry have probably seen plenty of these in our daily work environments, and could better be titled Management Techniques NOT to do.


Staffing

  • Hire the best employees you can possibly afford then ignore their input, micro-manage them and second-guess their decisions.
  • Recognize employees who develop new or extend existing skills by putting others in charge of related projects.
  • Keep staffing levels critically low.
  • Hire consultants to "relieve" the workload. Temporary employees do not raise head count and rumors of exorbitant hourly rates will engage staff as their new co-workers "come up to speed".
  • Criticism must be public to be effective.
  • Reward successful and overachieving employees with increased workloads. reduce the milieu of other staff accordingly.
  • Reward poor employees, beyond keeping them on the payroll, by offering them the same education and advancement opportunities as your stars.
  • Choose your subordinate managers carefully. Skilled, savvy people with good interpersonal and organizational skills can threaten your position; never promote these employees and they will leave under their own accord.

Cooperation

Project Management

  • Prioritize all tasks and projects equally.
  • Delay action on major and minor projects then make snap decisions.
  • Set arbitrary deadlines and stick to them.
  • Keep "top level" information to yourself and deluge staffers with innumerable details.
  • Publish standard operating procedures that are neither standard nor the procedure.
  • Define "corporate goals" near mid-year.
  • Use your investment portfolio as a handy guide for decision making.
  • Involve subordinates in the decision making process by having them attend a merry-go-round of unrelated meetings.
  • Establish a corporate Project Management Office then ignore it.

Corporate Culture

  • Maintain an atmosphere of crisis.
  • Recognize best practices by ignoring them, they'll go away.
  • Define "opportunities" in terms of additional work.
  • Require non-critical work to be performed after-hours, on weekends and over holidays.
  • Stratify management and encourage bureaucracy.
  • Create a "culture of meetings".
  • Base critical decisions upon incomplete or inaccurate information.
  • Encourage subcommitees.
  • Embrace the status quo. Decay is preferable to change.
  • Lavish praise on minor accomplishments.
  • Buck the trend by curtailing perks.
  • Silently live by the motto,"No policy is the best policy."
  • Keep the rumor trade busy by not stating objectives.
  • Publish costly, colorful, and content-free internal bulletins.

Reproduced with permission from Mr. Lonstein from http://www.lonsteins.com/management_techniques.html. Permission Email from Mr. Lonstein: "Sure keep a copy and display it. I appreciate that you asked. If you will indulge the vanity, I would like if you link back to my site (www.lonsteins.com) in the attribution." Permission was requested using the All-purpose, handy-dandy Copyright Release/Permission Request Form.

Hot dang! This thing's CST Approved!

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