Kaveh Kalantar's Blog

Burn out is theoretical, psychological, a fuzzy thing. Burn out is standing at a lathe for 10 hours doing the same thing. (In) an exciting job, you are turned on every minute and wanting more and more and more.... Jack Welch Jack Welch has never been one to pussyfoot around when it comes to discussions of leadership, and he doesn’t break from form during a lively give-and-take with MIT Sloan Dean David Schmittlein and an audience of Sloan students. Schmittlein starts with a series of questions involving the reasons why some top corporations lose their market leadership positions. “Complacency and arrogance,” Welch believes, clearly lie behind these drops in stature -- believing you “know it all” when in fact you always have to “know somebody’s doing it better than you.” Managers and their staff must understand “somebody’s always shooting at you,” and “you have to always find a better way of doing it.”

I am a chatty guy. Catch me while I’m not overworked and I will gladly jump into discussion. If you happen to be my colleague, it may be a discussion about our company. That’s perfectly fine for me. I believe in transparency so I won’t keep all information as they were top secret. This means I’m likely to tell you more than your manager. Not because I don’t know how to keep a secret but because vast majority of managers talk with their teams way too little. With this approach I usually know a lot of gossips told in companies I work for. Since I also happen to fulfill rather senior roles I have another perspective too. I know what is discussed on top management meetings.

I have read this article for several times since 2006 and still I love to read it. Especially what Peter Drucker said about Marketing. Unfortunately in many organizations this is not the case. Example is GM: 1958, Frederic G. Donner (a finance man) became CEO and Chairman and literary destroyed what Alfred Sloan had created. (From Nig Brands, Big Troubles by Jack Trout)

Kenneth Blanchard wrote a very small book called "Leadership and the One Minute Manager". Have you ever read it? If you are a student of business (Undergrad or graduate level) or if you are a manager of one to several thousands personnel, then you MUST read it. If you are a manger with years of experience and you are reading this blog then I bet you need to read "Leadership and the One Minute Manager" more than anybody else out there. Actually start reading it today before destroying your team and loosing your key people and your face again ;)