Barney, a senior manager, said, “I need everyone to return to the office. I’m okay with what they’re doing, although I miss the buzz of people doing the work. But I don’t know how to build the human connection with them when they’re not here.” I nodded. “You’re always telling me to have empathy with […]
All kinds of people are talking about “back” to normal. However, I see several problems: Many of those same people think there’s a talent shortage. (Management can’t hire people for the same salaries they used to pay.) Or, that while managers might want people “back” in the office, not everyone wants to work in an
Are you a manager accustomed to Management by Walking Around and Listening (MBWAL)? You can use MBWAL with collocated teams. MBWAL doesn’t work for distributed or dispersed teams. Remember, working remote is Not Business as Usual. (And won’t be for a while.) And, you might still have this question: “If no one’s in the office,
If you wondered why I’ve been so quiet here on the blog, it’s because I’ve been managing my own product development. This announcement is that Esther Derby and I have teamed up to offer online workshops based on Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. Go to Your Management Mentors to see our first offering: A
© 2003 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Crosstalk, Dec 2003. This article is the outgrowth of my original talk/article, Successful Engineering Management: 7 Lessons Learned Successful managers realize that they need to balance the needs of the business, the employees, and the work environment to be effective. In this article, the author
by Johanna Rothman. © 1999 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the