Robert Miller

Its very simple, when I am under enormous job stress. I get the job done as quickly as possible to give myself a break before the next crisis. The time to find an opportunity to reduce stress is not when you need it to keep you focused and energized. The last thing I would want is to stretch the process out that is stressing me by taking a breather. That is best done when the job is in your bosses inbox.

I think clear communication is the key to keeping a lid on false rumors. You can't possibly stop all of them. But, you certainly don't have to contribute to them by failing to express yourself clearly and concisely. I found two areas of HR where the most anxiety grips the troops. One, is obviously in reorganizations where staff may find themselves moved around. The other is in physical moves to new quarters that will disrupt some people's commute. These are veritable minefields for management and lend themselves to employee paranoia. You have to communicate truthfully and accurately in such cases. The first time your information turns out to need to be corrected, you have lost all credibility.

I applaud those schools who are reintroducing the Bible into curriculum for students. If you are looking for moral education, I can't imagine a better place to look. This isn't necessarily about the dogma of religion. The morality of how to treat others and how to conduct yourself as a person with integrity is all there. I find Proverbs particularly useful in this regard.

Well, not to their faces of course. I was told that I was a good boss by good employees. I was not well liked by those who couldn't or wouldn't keep up. Supervision is stressful for both the supervised and the supervisors. Personally, I would not recommend people trying to go up the corporate ladder in a supervisory capacity if they had other choices at comparable pay. I eventually left supervision, got a nice Special Assistant position at higher pay. And lived happily ever after. P.S. Helen: Flies aren't very discriminating eaters. Honey is not all that attracts them.

Surely you can't be serious? My employees would be the last people I would ask for advice concerning organizational changes. By involving my employees all I would get out of that would be aggravation. If I thought the organization needed to be reorganized, it would most likely be in response to "weaknesses and threats" caused by my employees. If I were to ask them, they would say things were just fine. I understand this doesn't comport with the current "employee involvement" theories of management. But like a like of new theories of management, it sounds better in theory than it works in practice.

What I found working in couple of IT Offices is that managers who wanted certain software developed tended to Christmas Tree their requests with all kinds of nice to have bells and whistles that increased costs without really providing any substantial benefit. If my team had agreed to all these add-ons to please the customers and then the customers blanched at the costs, I would advise them which expensive drivel they had selected could be dumped without harming their overall objectives. I found that when you put it that way, managers decided they really didn't need all this stuff. They just thought as long as we were willing to give it to them, they would assume it was free. That is the problem with overselling IT gizmos.