Communicate Like a Manager

    
     Don was a substantial person, in body and in manner. He was sure and solid.

     Burt was knowledgeable and precise. He always was on time, always accurate.

     Cove was commanding and demanding. You knew he was in charge, and he brooked no disrespect.

     Dick was reliable and supportive, respectful of people’s ideas.

     If you were going to assemble a pretty good manager, you could do worse than start by combining those four guys. Putting them all together would have been impossible, of course, not least because none of them would have put up with the others for very long. Independent judgment was a common characteristic of their management style.

     Each of them had his limitations, too.

     Don didn’t communicate well. Burt couldn’t manage larger issues. Cove was thin-skinned and prickly. Dick was poor at strategic thinking.

   

Bungling the Branding

    

   What you call something matters. It can matter a lot.

      “We don’t have time to help you build your monument to yourself,” they told the project manager.

     “Monument to yourself” is a brand, and not a good one. A brand establishes an identity; attitudes and assumptions gather around it. Organizations spend a lot of time, thought, money and effort to establish and maintain their brands.

     The “monument” brand is an example of what happens when you don’t make the effort. It influenced the attitude of the news staff of a small daily newspaper. Their managing editor had been tasked with managing the newsroom’s work on a special edition.

     Since the edition was his ego trip, they reasoned, why should they extend extra effort to accomplish it?