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Letters to a Young Manager


Bureaucracy, #144
LTYM >

Please note that this letter is in-process; the following are my notes

Dear Sophie,
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Use an HR example. Also see this HBR excerpt:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item_sidebar.jhtml?id=5289#1

How Management Demotivates
by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, and Michael Irwin Meltzer

There are several ways that management unwittingly demotivates employees and diminishes, if not outright destroys, their enthusiasm.

Many companies treat employees as disposable. At the first sign of business difficulty, employees—who are usually routinely referred to as "our greatest asset"—become expendable.

Employees generally receive inadequate recognition and reward: About half of the workers in our surveys report receiving little or no credit, and almost two-thirds say management is much more likely to criticize them for poor performance than praise them for good work.

"Management inadvertently makes it difficult for employees to do their jobs. Excessive levels of required approvals, endless paperwork, insufficient training, failure to communicate, infrequent delegation of authority, and a lack of a credible vision contribute to employees' frustration."

Reprinted with permission from "Stop Demotivating Your Employees!" Harvard Management Update, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2006.
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References...

Takeaways:

Bureaucracy demotivates

Discussion Questions:


For Further Reading:





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