Tag Archives: employees

Performance Reviews- Best Practices

Performance reviews are a pain. In my nearly 40 years in business they have always generated the same complaints. Managers hate to do them. As a consequence, they are frequently over due. They provide the employee with little information on … Continue Reading

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Incentives, Leadership, Managing Employees, Strategy and Planning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cancer in the Workplace

It was my first ownership of a business. I had moved to California to take over a failing auto parts distributor, and the deal came with a minority share in the business. I was just 30 years old. The housecleaning … Continue Reading

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Your Fault. My Consequence.

My friend Larry Linne, the author of “Make the Noise Go Away” has a great saying about employee mistakes.”Your Fault. My Consequence.” A good employee will accept responsibility, and be accountable for screwing something up. Unfortunately, it is still the owner’s … Continue Reading

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The Peter Principle Goes All the Way Down

Every small business, if it is to be successful, needs a competent Second In Command (SIC). In many companies that position is held by dint of tenure or loyalty as opposed to pure ability. When we see a key employee … Continue Reading

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Employee Incentives that Work

After four blogs on the long term motivations for running a business, perhaps it is time to return to some more practical advice. One of the most persistent issues for a business owner is trying to motivate employees with incentives. You install … Continue Reading

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Humbug!

It happened again last week. I heard a business owner say “I’ve decided to terminate Bob, but I’m going to wait until the first week in January to do it. I don’t want to ruin someone’s holidays.” I go through … Continue Reading

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The Psychology of Fresh Paint

A bit more remains to be said about business owners who are gun shy about doing things in anticipation of an economic recovery. An owner mentioned to me the other day that he wanted to redecorate his conference room and purchase … Continue Reading

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Off to Planet Ten!

I confess to being a fan of really, really good “B” movies. What is a good, bad movie? It’s one that knows it’s a bad movie, and lets the audience know that it knows. I haven’t seen it, but Piranha … Continue Reading

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Whose fault is it?

In small business, we tend to give out titles with aplomb. You can be a manager. You’re a director. You are a vice president. When there are few levels to differentiate between, it seems meaningless to attach a lot of … Continue Reading

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No! No! Bad employee! No!

A very successful plaintiff’s attorney once told me that there were two keys to getting a settlement in a class action product liability suit. The first was to find the smoking gun. Somewhere, an employee had told someone not to … Continue Reading

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Accountability vs. Guilt

While discussing oil rig disaster in the Golf Of Mexico the other day a friend exclaimed “Someone needs to go to jail for this!” While I understand his anger about the massive economic and environmental damage involved, his comment illustrates … Continue Reading

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Technology- Investment or Expense?

I regularly hear one of my small business owner clients saying something like this. “Dammit! I have to buy another computer. I just spent (fill in) on this one just (fill in) years ago.” Why are we so offended at … Continue Reading

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