Tag Archives: Management

David Seidman The most important thing is psychological safety. If people can freely share ideas and criticize each other without taking it personally, the team will thrive. Demonstrate vulnerability. If you admit mistakes, your team will too. Any decision that involves someone’s career should be double checked for errors and miscommunications. When you deliver a […]

David Seidman First line: understands that their role is to make the team better. Listens a lot, delegates decisions and projects and focuses on skills and career development and team chemistry. Mid-level: creates a culture of trust and respect. Holds teams accountable for their performance. Sets a clear and correct strategy. Staffs the team correctly. […]

Ian Mathews I spent the first 30 days talking to every person in the region, one on one. I asked the same questions of each of the 70 employees who were doing the work. What do you like about working here? What frustrates you about this company? What frustrates customers about this company? What are […]

David Seidman I find this to be one of the hardest skills to teach. The best method I’ve come up with is to provide detailed, meticulous feedback on their work assignments. After about the third time I send back their doc with 30 comments, they start to figure out how to nail the details. I’ll […]

David Seidman Be fair in all things. Be as transparent as possible. Praise in public, give constructive feedback in private. Set a high but achievable standard and hold people accountable to it. Never compromise on hiring. Never compromise on ethics. Uphold a high standard of professionalism, but be a human, not a robot. Have a […]

David Seidman Answered Aug 21 There are several categories of mistake: Typo-grade human error: Low consequence: who cares High consequence: our systems should not allow a typo to have high consequence Serious mistake on something they should be able to do First time: make sure they learn from it Second time: warning Third time: performance […]

David Seidman Answered Aug 18 Generally each of my reports is always working on something that benefits the company, something that benefits the team, and something that grows them personally. Often I’m able to find one project that does all three. Occasionally a high priority project throws things out of balance. In that case, I […]

David Seidman Giving an assignment, then telling the employee how to do every single part of it Failing to set and maintain clear priorities, so employees waste time working on things that don’t matter Failing to correct performance issues early Failing to provide adequate training and tools Excess overhead in the form of status reports, […]

David Seidman You must have strong ethics. Management offers many opportunities to do bad things, but they all lead to ruin. You must realize that your job is to make others better, not to make the product yourself. You must care about your employees. You must think both short and long term. You should have […]

David Seidman All that matters is impact, so I’d discuss where their impact was falling short. If their hours were really egregiously short I’d mention that, without referencing the other employee, but usually I wouldn’t mention hours. Extension: Interview questions: What is definition of impact. impact on team, impact at organization, etc.