I almost titled this post “A Classic How To…NOT”. But then I realized, the article I mention truly IS a classic ‘How To’…because it doesn’t tell us How To.

I read in the WSJ recently an article entitled, “How To Delegate to Others and Lower Your Stress Level.” You can find it here:

http://www.careerjournal.com/myc/climbing/20060627-schaefer.html

It’s a classic example of what passes for How To articles these days. There’s a lot of discussion, and then some vague notions about being direct and stating a deadline. The acid test for me is, “would I learn enough to help me do this thing?” The answer is almost always NO.

This is what frustrates Mike and me about management development and training in general: even “how to’s” are short on how. This is why we started Manager Tools.

If you run across an article that purports to be a “How To” when in fact it is not, please let us know, and we’ll share it.

And, to try to accentuate the positive, if you run across one that really DOES HELP, why, let us know that as well. A breath of fresh air would be nice, no?

Situation: a manager accepts a new position that includes a five figure bonus from the hiring company. The bonus is designed to defray bonuses lost at the company he is leaving. Further, part of the bonus is withheld for taxes. This signing bonus includes a stipulation that if he leaves voluntarily before one year of employment, he has to pay it back. But the job is different than promised, and he’s now been contacted by another firm, and he wants to leave before the year is up.

Can his present company make him repay the bonus? Would he have to pay the full amount, or just the part he received? What if he found a way to make them fire him - would he still have to pay? What would you do?

I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts. I’ll post my answer shortly.

Part of the reason I found this trenchant is the job market has been heating up. Hiring bonuses are coming into play more than they were a couple of years ago. But of course, you knew that. (FYI - this idea came from a WSJ question to one of their columnists, but I have a different take on it than they did.)

I mentioned I would do better about posting so that our international members would get posts on the Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays schedule. My intern informs me that India is 10 hours ahead of Texas time. This means that I will USUALLY start posting at about 2 am Texas time. Indian members will get posts at noon. Europe at about 8 or 9 am. I had been shooting for posts to be available first in the morning and then throughout the day, and this moves us in that direction. It’s likely, though, that some posts later in the day will go up the day after in India.

Our international members make me better at what I do. Thank you.

Our thoughts are with our many Indian members, after the bomb blasts in Mumbai. We hope and pray that you and yours are well and safe.

The Manager Tools community is not about nationality, it’s about professional management and leadership. Nevertheless, our community is part of the community of mankind. You cannot be an ethical manager without caring for others.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were…: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

My apologies to our international members regarding my late posts today. I admit it - I forgot how early “Tuesday” starts in certain parts of the world.

I will do better.

Another topic I’ll recur to here periodically is ideas from Peter Drucker. Many of you have written us thanks for recommending his masterpiece, The Effective Executive. One of the saddest moments in my quasi-professional life was when I (somewhat recently) allowed someone to borrow my first copy of TEE, the one I read and marked up. I regret that it has not been returned. I look for it 3-4 times a week, and then remember, and then am sad, and then KICK MYSELF. This week, to make it worse, there is not a single copy on my shelf - I gave my last extra copy away. There’s something good buried in here… but all I see now is that hole in the bookshelf.

Here’s something that Mr. Drucker said that sums up so much of what I see: “The first question an executive must ask is not, ‘what do I want to do?’ but rather, ‘What needs to be done?’

Drucker recently gave two examples of this thinking: U.S. President Truman, upon assuming that role, discovered that his interest in focusing on the social programs of President Roosevelt was to be denied by the growth of the tensions that led to the Cold War. Because he asked the right question (above), he set up DAILY foreign policy training sessions for himself with experts. (He had no experience to speak of in this area). He became what the role demanded of him.

Similarly, Jack Welch intended, upon assuming the CEO role at GE, to make international expansion his mission. But he asked the right question, and realized he should focus elsewhere, and is now lionized as a great CEO.

Ask yourself: what does this role I’m in require of me? What must my primary focus be? Your answer will lead you to greater effectiveness.

Your job is not a fiat giving you power. It is a burden of responsibility. Wear it well.

It’s what a Manager Tools manager would do.

I’ve recently been testing/enjoying my subscription to PMClinic, a weekly project management discussion forum (but not like ours). It’s run by Scott Berkun, and you can find it here:

http://www.scottberkun.com/forums/pmclinic/

I recommend it.

Scott sends out a weekly “situation” and then invites subscribers to answer/post about the situation. I’ve found the situations to be very real-world.

If you’re a Project Manager, I urge you to go over and subscribe. If you’re a passive member, you’ll get a weekly problem and then hear 20-30-50 folks’ opinions and guidance thereon. That’s easy learning, I think. I encourage you to go further and contribute and share your ideas - taking the time to write them will help you hone your own approach.

And, you can benefit even if you’re NOT a Project Manager. There is a general management feel to the discussions as well, particularly if you’re in the technical arena.

(And hey - Scott lists all the previous situations on the address shown. So you can browse/catch up by topic.)

It’s worth your time.

If you haven’t gone and registered yet for our Discussion Forums, please do so. We’re getting great questions over there, and a lot of members helping other members. Someone mentioned to us recently that he didn’t know he had to register separately -sorry for any confusion.

Registering is worth the (simple!) effort.

Also, Mike has recently made a slight change to our Discussion Forums. He’s made it so you have to be a member to post. I guess THAT will help, huh?

We’re not trying to be exclusive, per se. We did it primarily to address spam. We have reached the point where we’re a target, and some of the attacks are enough to be problematic. The issue is that as we add more software-driven spam protection, more legitimate posts are caught. (This is just like your PC). Mike was spending hours every week de-spamming posts to be moderated.

Also, I’m getting overwhelmed by private emails wanting answers to questions. Alas, I just don’t scale well. If you want an answer, we’re asking everyone to post on the Discussion Forums. That way, everyone benefits from the answer.

In HBR last December, I read a great sidebar entitled, “Those Who Can’t Don’t Know It”. Marc Abrahams wrote the piece, and he is brilliant and quite funny - which are good qualities for him to have as editor of Annals of Improbable Research, a scientific humor magazine (some of which is not politically correct, to be fair).

Mr. Abrahams cited a great research paper [a link to which is below - but be careful - it’s a RESEARCH paper], “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self Assessments”.

The key findings? Incompetence is far more pernicious than we realize. “Incompetent people don’t perform up to speed, don’t recognize their lack of competence, and don’t recognize the competence of others.”

Bad managers not only don’t do their “work” well, they also don’t realize it, and thus are hard to change. What’s even more deadly, perhaps, is that they aren’t effective judges of talent.

If you’re a Director, and have a weak manager reporting to you, NOW is the time for feedback and coaching. It’s not just about them - it’s about the damage they’re doing to their team.

http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

In today’s fast and flat world, ideas are becoming critical competitive advantages. Managers - and many others - need to be good at getting the most and best ideas from themselves and their teams.

And, if you ask a hundred managers what are some of the tools they might use to generate ideas, the ONLY tool that would get 100 votes is brainstorming. The funny thing is, we’ve been in lots of meetings where folks said that what they were doing was brainstorming, but it wasn’t. It was solution development, which is a completely different thing.

Since many managers don’t know how to lead a brainstorming session, this cast (the first of 2 parts) tells you how.

Note: Apologies to all on the audio quality of the show. Mike was on vacation, working with broken equipment, and a less-than-ideal recording environment. Despite all the audio editing and enhancements within our limited abilities, the audio quality falls short of our standards.