Radio Shack has laid off 400 employees, notifying them by sending them an email.

Notified by email. You’d think organizations couldn’t go any lower.

Alas, they already have.  A British firm laid off at least one employee recently by sending them an instant message.

Yep, you read that correctly.

It’s creepy, it’s clumsy, it’s unprofessional.

But what does it say about the organization’s managers that they couldn’t be trusted to carry this water?

I can’t say that the company decided to do this because the managers couldn’t be trusted.  In fact, I would bet that thinking about how well the managers could handle this unfortunate task never crossed the minds of whomever made the decision.

But I will also bet that if the company trusted and respected its managers, so much so that it considered its management to be a key part of its success, the managers would have been trusted with this effort.

This was a sad day in the compact between managers and organizations.

Okay, after my recent post about us not doing interviews, we’re making an exception.
We’ll be interviewing Marshall Goldsmith in an upcoming cast.
Now, see?  Wasn’t that worth the exception?  If you don’t know him, rest assured is surely the most acclaimed executive leadership coach of our times.  His ideas resonate with Mike and I, and he is brilliant and insightful about the lives and work of managers.
Furthermore, Marshall has noticed that a lot of you go to his site from ours, and has agreed to do a series of casts with us.  Yet still further, he has offered to host a number of our casts on his site (and we did not undertake this agreement lightly).
Finally, he has asked me to allow him to include me in his Top 25 Management Thinkers list.  I accepted.
More soon as we work out the logistics.

Recently, someone asked us to consider doing an interview on one of our shows.  It was probably the 100^th such request, so I thought it would be appropriate to give you some background.
We generally avoid interviews because they don’t deliver the value you’ve come to expect from us on every single show no matter what.
There are some problems with this approach for us, unfortunately, as it relates to interviews.  The podcasting world is benefiting enormously from its leveraging of the network and blogospere effects.  Bloggers and podcasters on management and leadership have expanded their reach by linking to one another, and sharing promos, and interviewing each other.  Generally, it’s reciprocal, and a good idea.
And, I often turn down interview offers because I don’t think we could return the favor of interviewing someone else, because the purpose of these interviews is primarily to grow each site.  I know this could sound selfish, but we honestly don’t mean it that way.  It’s because of our pledge to each other to deliver specific value, in terms our listeners learning how to do something better or different.  We want other sites to grow… and ours too.  But we don’t think you ought to have to listen to marketing when you what you come to us for is managerial help .
Every show, helping you do something better, or different, tomorrow, in your work as a manager.  We’re committed to that, as a way to literally change the face of management worldwide.
And most interviews don’t fit that, regrettably.
I hope you see this as our way of paying homage to Peter Drucker, who liked to say that executives have 15 things to do, and of course that’s impossible.  Some try to do THREE, but he said that was a circus.  He said he knew “a handful” (in sixty years!) of leader-managers who could effectively handle TWO big objectives at the same time… but that everyone else should pick one and prosecute it fiercely.
We’re clear about our “ONE”.

Post Topic Sentence: We love hearing your show recommendations, even when we don’t immediately act on them.  Please continue.
Please don’t ever react to our lack of ability to respond by reducing the volume of your suggestions. (And we’re sure not in danger of that right now, thank you very much.)
Post Backstory: Recently, I was with a client executive and they recommended we do a specific show on a topic that they needed help with right then.  I demurred, as our loyal listeners might imagine.  We often have many shows queued up for publication, for various reasons.
Mike and I like to think of our casts this way: Not Just Timely …Timeless.   We have hundreds of casts to prepare for, and often we tackle a theme behind the scenes, to allow me to gather my thoughts and develop my ideas efficiently.
Hopefully, our casts come across exceptionally well ‘researched’.  I like to think that on every topic, you get the sense that we’re only sharing the first level of learning associated with the topic.  (I put ‘researched’ in quotes because it’s not exactly research that I do, unless you call reviewing all of my archives and figuring out how to communicate to a large audience concepts that I teach individuals ‘research’. – H)
If you get the sense that we’re only sharing the first level of learning associated with a topic, it’s because we’re only sharing the first level of learning with a topic. 
Nevertheless, we love hearing your ideas.  We encourage you to continue to let us know what you need and how we can help. Hearing what you’re wrestling with is one of the most helpful and enjoyable parts of our work.
Mike and I have talked about the fact that while we usually decline to take on a topic right away, we always add it to our list.  That list is constantly changing, and I think the combination of its size and its dynamism make it an interesting indicator about issues the world of managers are dealing with.
So, keep ‘em coming… and sorry we’re not more timely.

If you noted recently, or note in the near future, that I have created posts with spelling or grammatical errors, my apologies (again). I’m pretty particular about being correct in my posts, because I’m a writer and I think correctness of diction and accuracy are ways of showing respect for you, the reader/listener. I also think correctness is both efficient and effective.
To achieve that, I use a Google Toolbar spellchecker. Occasionally I forget, and if I find an error, I go back and edit later.

However, I recently moved my feed reader client software from Google reader to FeedDemon, and when I respond to posts in FeedDemon, the Google toolbar is not available in the FD window. I like FeedDemon because it makes posts available to me when I’m offline (sort of), and I am off line quite a bit – like now, flying from Chicago to San Antonio.
A free book from our list if you can solve this problem in Feed Demon (to my satisfaction.)
Until then, I will do my best to remember my proofreading skills.

In a previous cast, we talked about how many managers don’t understand the importance of taking recruiters’ calls, and walked through step by step (hey, this is Manager Tools) how to handle those calls. What to say, and what to learn, and how to proceed.

But there’s another side to the recruiting relationship, isn’t there? What if you want to contact a recruiter, without waiting for them to call you? Maybe you’re recognizing a change in opportunities where you are, or you want to move in a different direction, or perhaps it’s as simple as suddenly inheriting a terrible boss, and alarm bells are going off in your head.

How does one contact a recruiter? What are the basics to consider, and how does one approach them when you’re going to initiate contact? It’s easy if you do it step by step, the Manager Tools way!

Note: During the show, we mentioned we would post a couple of links to some recruiter resources. Hunt-Scanlon is a provider of information about the executive recruiting business - great resource for access to recruiters. Kennedy is a well known technology executive recruiting firm.

• Hunt-Scanlon Corporation
• The Kennedy Partnership