Category: Editorials

I seem to remember a time when I was young and thought I could do anything. When work was fun and I stayed at the office for countless hours and thought that hard work and dedication is all you needed to be successful. I was never more wrong, but hey, it happens. One of the naive notions I had was that if your technical, (that’s work jargon for saying you are smart at what you do), that would be enough to make you a great manager. In truth being a great manager is incredibly hard to achieve, and it takes some time to even become a somewhat good manager. Brilliance does not necessarily equal greatness. Managers do many things, and while technical skills are always a plus, if you ever want to be successful in your career, you have to constantly improve others and yourself in the process.

Lesson 1: Utilize Your People

It does not matter how smart you are, what matters is that you can motivate your people to work together. This means you need to know who your people are, what they can do, what they can’t do, and what they would like to do? Find out exactly who your team is, then give them the resources to be successful. If they run into obstacles its your job to get those annoyances out of their way. Remember, good managers are successful because the people that work under them produce, so ask your people how they can work better and then let them show you.

Lesson 2: Improve Yourself

Any business seminar will tell you that improving yourself is the best thing you can do to improve your company. Companies invest in people who invest in themselves. It is not what your company can do for you, it is what you can do for the company, and the only way to be innovative and progressive at work is for you to use all your available resources to learn more. This means taking extra classes, reading more about everything (not just your own field of work), and learning to be a better listener. You will find that by trying to be a better person, you also become a better manager.

Lesson 3: Seek Out Wisdom

Regardless of how the digital lifestyle has changed our work environment, we still live in a society and not in a cubicle alone with our computers. Now more than ever, it is important that you surround yourself with good people. To be a better manager, you need to work with great managers. Learning from others is something which we all do, so make sure that you pick up on the good advice from your peers.

Lesson 4: Accept Criticism

Everyone hates filling out surveys, but surveys are essential to business. They tell you a lot about the perceptions that people have about a business. In essence surveys are a form of feedback and criticism. As a manager you need to be open to criticism and evaluation from everyone. Without any feedback, how will you know what areas to improve on? No one becomes the perfect manager overnight. Good management skills are something you work on every day.

I’m in a battle of late with my body. It has fallen prey to the usual Fall cold season and I am suffering with chills, fever, a really awful pain in my throat, and as my girlfriend reminds me every now and then, I can’t stand: “The Agony, The Agony!” However sickness is part of life. When I’m dying of the flu, I usually remind myself how great it will be to lose six pounds and feel trimmer afterwards. Then there is God. The essential part of the Hebrew religion is that to the Israelites, their relationship with God was personal. Unlike those uncaring and prankster Greek Gods, the Hebrew God was always by your side, so instead of getting a text message from Zeus, God would actually stop by your house and see how you are doing. Faith is especially important when you are sick, because when illness befalls you, you are never more alone! Your pain and suffering is exactly that, yours! And no one in this world will be able to completely understand it, except you. Many people seem to shout and curse the world out when they get sick, in an effort to get some empathy or just to complain, but having faith means more than just caring about your own predicament.

I know this sounds especially harsh if you feel like I do now, with a sore throat that almost makes you believe you will never speak ever again, cause it hurts so much! However ill you may be, a person of faith still maintains a distinct level of composure, of dignity. This is not just the Christian belief, but a universal one. To face one’s own pain and not complain about it, that is what faith demands of you.

On the other hand, there is not anything wrong in asking your loved ones to get you plenty of ibuprofen and cold medicine. I’m faithful, but not crazy.

The November 2006 vote is fast approaching, and while I agree that the Iraq War is the number one issue in these elections, lets pretend for a minute that there are other things to consider. Here is a random list of issues which the politicians are not mentioning, or should I say neglecting. It would be nice to know what the political canidates think about:

Healthcare

No other issue effects more Americans than healthcare. The country faces a crossroads when it comes to healthcare. Regardless of your position on universal healthcare, one thing is evident is that we need to make healthcare records electronic and have them become the exclusive property of the patient. This alone would save millions of dollars and help modernize medicine in the immediate future. In the long term the federal government will have to eventually institute national healthcare. It is the only reasonable solution.

Education

For the sake of our economy and our future, we must as a nation commit ourselves to improving education. It seems that we argue constantly about religion in public schools instead of actually making education itself our focus. No Child Left Behind did not fix the problem, and it seems that Americans don’t really want to invest in their children anymore.

National Infrastructure

The concensus is that the housing market is crashing hard, and with it so will the economy go. Yet there are countless roads, bridges, and other infrastructure that needs repair. Government should invest in fixing this. Remember the powergrid needs work too. Why not make our own national infrastructure a priority and put our own people to work in their own communities. We could rebuild the nation and be more secure for it.

Corporate Greed

The corporations that have been on bad behavior of late are too many to count. It seems when any corporation gets in trouble, they go to Congress to bail them out. When is the private sector going to help government out? I’d like to see corporations invest in something more than just themselves. How about investing a national program of ideas? Let’s see the private sector come up with bold initiatives and execute them on their own. In return the patents could be shared and everyone could profit from the investment.