Fifth in a series of posts examining the Twelve Principles of Agile Software and how each of these tenets can (or can’t) be applied or adapted to technical writing.

*****

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The part of this tenet that really resonates with me is trust them to get the job done. Abby Fichtner recently posted a link to Scott Berkun’s open letter to micromanagers, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I think that Scott’s opening lines are absolutely brilliant:

Owners of thoroughbreds never stop their horses during a race, every ten seconds, to remind the horse and jockey how to run, where the finish line is, or that it’d be a good idea to finish first. Why? It would slow them down. Only an idiot would do this.

I once worked for a micromanager who wanted me to track a dozen different milestones for every single topic that I wrote, and send her a daily report on my progress. After working for several years for managers who wanted a simple weekly “my project status is green/yellow/red.” status update, I found this new system to be highly demotivating. I felt like my new manager didn’t trust me to do my job, and the constant status updates had a definite negative impact on my productivity.

I’ve usually been lucky enough to work for managers who checked in on me every so often to ask “Is there anything I can do to help? Need anything? No? OK then, carry on.” I am a trained professional, perfectly capable of planning and executing my work by myself. I understand my manager needs to report to upper management, and as long as they let me know what they need from me, I’m happy to provide it. But I don’t come to work to write status reports, I come to write user documentation.

The other, more difficult part of this tenet is Give them the environment and support they need… The physical environment is relatively easy to provide: powerful computers, comfortable chairs, a variety of caffeine sources in the break room, etc. What is harder to quantify is the cultural environment of an office and team dynamics. Over time I’ve come to recognize that there are three types of employees that can severely negatively impact a team:

• Incompetent employees who create problems for their coworkers
• Lazy employees who cause more work for their coworkers
• Toxic employees who cause morale problems for their coworkers

When I say incompetent workers, I’m not talking about people who are lacking in skills. Skills can be learned. I’m talking about people who present themselves as being experienced, senior-level employees, but they’re fooling either themselves or their employers, because they are incapable of working at the level that they claim.

I once had a project updating documentation that included examples of SQL for querying and modifying the database. I knew enough about recent database schema changes to know that the examples would no longer work, but didn’t know enough SQL to be able to correct them myself. I asked the product manager for help. Over the next several weeks he put me off, sent me the existing examples that I had told him were wrong, sent me old examples that worked against the old schema, and generally did not answer my questions. It finally became clear to me that while I didn’t know very much SQL, he knew even less. And wasn’t about to admit it. Finally his incompetence became so obvious that the company had to replace him with someone else. And I was able to get more accomplished in two weeks with the new product manager than I had been able to accomplish in several months working with the old PM.

I read a quotation that has stuck with me “Meetings move at the pace of the slowest person in the room.” I think that you can also say the same thing about teams. Incompetent employees slow down the team because their coworkers have to spent time cleaning up the problem worker’s messes and solving the problems they create rather than doing their own work.

The best example of the lazy employee can be found in the comic strip Dilbert: Wally walks around drinking coffee all day, but never seems to do any work. I suspect that we all have at least one Wally in our offices. I’ve worked with several over the years. Team members notice when someone shows up late every day, takes an hour and a half for lunch, then disappears for 45 minutes every afternoon to go pick up coffee at Dunkin Donuts. (And we also notice when managers continue to tolerate this behavior.)

If you’re a slacker, there is nowhere to hide in an Agile environment. You have to stand up every day and tell the team what work you accomplished the day before.

The third type of employee that can negatively impact a team is the toxic employee. And these are the hardest to deal with, as being toxic is less a matter of behavior and more a function of personality. A toxic employee may be a pessimist, constantly complaining about things. They may be combative, constantly arguing with people. They may spread malicious gossip. And sometimes the most brilliant people in an organization can be the most toxic, because of their arrogance.

I once worked with a writer who made enemies faster than anyone I’ve ever met before. She had usability training, and came into the company with lots of good ideas for how to improve our product, but she had no idea how to present her ideas effectively. It wasn’t so much what she said that caused her problems, but that she presented her ideas as criticisms, and often in a very insulting manner. For example, she invited herself to the UI team meeting and proceeded to give a presentation about what was wrong with their design. She wasn’t a member of that team, and hadn’t told the team leader that she would be attending, or that she wanted to provide the team with input. She just showed up, took over the meeting, and effectively told the team that they weren’t doing their jobs correctly. She was the sort of person that sends you running to the self-help section of the bookstore searching for books about how to deal with toxic coworkers. (I found strategies that saved my sanity in the book The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.)

I know this is a deeply heretical statement (especially when so many people are out of work through no fault of their own), but some people need to be fired. It is the only thing that will make any change in their behavior. Poor workers need to be taught that their behavior is not acceptable. Managers need to coach problem employees. Give them a short probationary period to correct the problem, but if there isn’t drastic improvement, fire them. Some people cannot hear the message that they need to change until it costs them their job.

Sometimes firing someone is the best thing for both the team and the problem employee. The bad team member will get the wakeup call that they must make changes in order to remain employable. And the team will be more productive without the problem employee dragging them down.

Build teams of motivated individuals. Then give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

I have this incessant need to apply cultural observations to daily life.  Once things get into my head, they run around in there for quite a while, existing in a continuous internal debate.  One of my favorite things to chew on is Voldemort, the evil villain from the Harry Potter series.  Voldemort is one of the great characters of pop culture, like Superman, Dirty Harry, Merlin, and Gordon Gekko rolled into one.  He is awesomely powerful, virtually impossible to defeat, brilliant, and driven to extremes.  But here’s the rub: he consistently loses out to the forces of Good.

Now, I understand that JK Rowling (his creator) is trying to impart time-honored lessons to a new generation.  The message of ‘Good triumphs over Evil’ is as old as the Bible, I get that. It’s hardly revolutionary.  But in real world terms, how does someone as overwhelmingly powerful as Voldemort keep losing?  Here’s a short list of reasons I came up with…

Arrogance – ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’ thinks he can walk on water.  The truth is that he probably has a spell that would do that for him, but that’s not the issue.  His arrogance is blinding, and it’s completely counter-productive.  It provides him with a sense of imperviousness that precludes scenario-based, ‘what if’ thinking.  Good leaders should always have an alternative in their back pocket in case things go off-track.  Simply put, it is difficult to assess different risks and concerns if you are convinced that nothing can put you at risk.

Leadership through Fear – If you thought failure would be punished by torture, would you want to commit to supporting a leader who always found a handy scapegoat?  Not me.  Better yet, the constant fear of torture would eventually gnaw at you, undermining your confidence and leading you to make mistakes.  These mistakes would give way to torture, which would increase your anxiety level. This spiraling is the textbook definition of a toxic work environment.  No thanks…

Recruiting Sycophants – Voldemort doesn’t want people who will question his leadership style or make creative problem solving suggestions.  This would undermine his position of ultimate authority.  He wants complete ‘yes men and women’ to worship and fawn over him.  No Death Eater is allowed to challenge his planning or his reasoning because of the consequences he constantly threatens (see the previous paragraph). This restricts the contributions of his team, and ultimately, limits his chance for success.

No Investment in Talent – Voldemort doesn’t actually provide any benefits for those who serve him.  He doesn’t give them any of his power or knowledge or magical skill.  The only compensation you receive is a tattoo on your left arm.  If you at least got something for your effort, like a salary, a training program, tuition remission at Hogwarts, or even health benefits, it may be worthwhile.  Not exactly a recipe for attracting top-shelf talent…

Delegation of Critical Tasks to Underlings –You want to capture and kill Harry Potter at all costs.  It dominates your every waking moment.  It is the crowning achievement of your career in terror, yet you consistently delegate the planning and execution of Harry’s capture to your anxious underlings who are not qualified for the job.  If a task drives your very existence, why would any leader worth following take a passive role and watch from afar?

I left out several other reasons for Voldemort’s continued failure (anger management issues, poor estimation methodology, no career path, no project post-mortems, and mommy issues) for future posts.  After all, there are 7 books to cover, and we only touched on the most egregious short-comings.  However, I would be curious to hear from you: what do you think causes Voldemort’s repeated failures?

Willard Woodrow is an Engagement Manager at MATRIX Resources. He has 15+ years of information technology experience in the utilities, recruiting, telecom, and insurance verticals. His professional expertise includes business consulting, system implementation, project management, application operations, and client relationship management.

Jon Weisman, who blogs about the Dodgers for the Los Angeles Times, gives a sample of Chris Jaffe’s Evaluating Baseball Managers: A Comprehensive History and Performance Analysis, 1876-2008 (McFarland) as it pertains to his home team.

Upshot: The book, as a whole, “is going to be as big as it sounds.”

In the last year or so several important reports have been produced that focus on well-being at work.  These reports all make the point that high levels of employee well-being are associated with beneficial outcomes for the organisation, including improved customer satisfaction, better productivity and lower sickness-absence levels.  One of these reports is Dr Steve Boorman’s review of the health and well-being of staff in the National Health Service www.nhshealthandwellbeing.org.  The interim version of Steve’s report contains a great deal of useful information, including the striking finding that indicators of staff health and well-being are linked to MRSA infection rates in hospitals!

This report and others, such as the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines www.nice.org.uk also stress the important impact that management and leadership have on employees’ mental well-being.  In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that shows how managers can affect the well-being of employees – in some quite extreme ways, including the discovery of links to psychiatric illnesses and cardiovascular problems.

All of this makes me wonder about two things.  The first one is why it is that more Boards and top teams don’t take decisive action to improve the well-being of their workforce.  Of course there are many organisations, such as AstraZeneca, Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline that already have great programmes for employee well-being but across the board things could be better.

So, in the light of the overwhelming evidence, why don’t all top teams prioritise employee well-being?  It could be for many reasons.  Perhaps they are not aware of the evidence; perhaps their HR/Occupational Health Directors are not influential or strong enough; perhaps they are aware of but don’t believe the evidence; or perhaps they would like to take action but are not sure how to improve well-being cost-effectively.  I suspect that the reasons may be a combination of all of these things.

The second thing I have been reflecting on is just how much we depend on managers and leaders and how much we expect of them.  It seems that almost every problem in organisational life, particularly the ones that relate to people, seem to be the responsibility of managers.  So the diagnosis is simple – it’s all caused by the managers, right?!  The solution is more of a problem. I don’t disagree with the point that managers have a significant impact on the well-being of their workforce – the evidence is too strong to disagree.  What concerns me is whether managers are really able to deal with everything that’s on their plate, or are these increasing expectations just making it more and more difficult for them – and probably having a serious negative impact on their own well-being?

A significant trend I’ve observed and heard from the personal reports of younger people in the workforce is that when managerial and supervisory opportunities open up, they are reluctant to take them.  They see the huge extra demands that come with relatively little extra reward – hardly the way to create a vibrant talent pipeline in our economy!

I realized I have not yet shared the glories of working in a restaurant in Los Angeles. I found a particularly fun place to work. Here’s one of the many joyful stories from my new job.

DAY ONE:

(Note: The names of people and food have been changed to protect all parties involved.)

It’s my first day out of training. I’m serving a party of four at one of my tables. One of the men at the table is disabled. He has MS and he is requesting that his walnuts be pre cracked, because he cannot crack them himself. He has MS. I’m almost positive we should be able to do this, so I tell him of course we can! Why the hell not?

I go to my manager, Becca, and tell her I have a disabled person at table x and I need to order pre cracked walnuts. How can I do this? She tells me we cannot do that, but I can offer him a nut medley we have. I go back to him and offer this new food and he agrees. The food comes out and because of the way it is prepared, he cannot eat it. I apologize profusely. He is visibly pissed off and tells me he will not eat anything, while the rest of his party eats these EPIC large entrees in front of him. I tell him that there must be something we can do for him.

I go back to Becca. I tell her, “Ok so the customer at table x cannot eat the nut medley. He’s refusing to eat. There’s nothing we can do for him? We can’t crack the walnuts? He has MS!” She looks at me and says, “You never told me he has MS. Of course we can make that exception for him.”

My mind is screaming, “I told you he was DISABLED!”

So…

Moral of the story:

Specify the disabilities of your customers. Apparently only certain disabilities can be accommodated. MS, we’re there for you… Diabetes, you’re on your own.

- Jordan.

Well, forgive me for thinking that this round of mid-week fixtures was absolutely bloody brilliant. As a Spurs fan, of course I’m going to say that. Things could have been better (Burnley could have stuck another past Arsenal, and Sunderland could have put up more of a fight against Villa), but a 3-0 win against Man City just feels so good.

There were no other massive results; Birmingham continued their fine form (where the hell did they come from?), Villa again looked resolute and even Heskey got a goal, and Burnley managed to shut out a BIG FOUR team at home.

As for the whole Mick McCarthy/Wolves/Man Utd palava – just give it a rest. The Premier League have asked him to explain himself…And then what? Wenger’s claimed that McCarthy has damaged the international integrity and reputation of the Premier League. Yep. I’m absolutely sure there are billions of people turning off in disgust all over China because Mick McCarthy played a few young kids. McCarthy, for all his faults, did the best thing possible for Wolverhampton Wanderers. He knows they have a big game on Sunday, and he conserved his best players for this. Just because United, Chelsea or Arsenal can do this and still put up a fight doesn’t make it any different. If Fergie made 10 changes no one would have batted an eye lid.

As for the supporters asking for their money back…I’m afraid I’d be disappointed if I’d travelled up the M6 on a Tuesday night on December, to see Spurs put out a below par team. However, when you are supporter of a club, you have every right to moan, but at the end of the day, you pay the money for your ticket, and trust the manager to make the decisions best for the club. You may not always (or ever) agree, but unless you’re Ebbsfleet United, I’m afraid the supporters don’t have a say.

Back to Spurs!

Not only did Tottenham trounce Man City last night, they also defended admirably. Let’s put aside the fact that Hughes put out a side which consisted of: a 50 year old left back up against Aaron Lennon, 3 up front away, a lack of Vincent Kompany when Barry looked knackered, and Robinho (’nuff said).

After the 2-2 draw with Everton, I was afraid Spurs would be damaged not in the table, but psychologically. A defeat to Wolves at home did nothing to suggest otherwise. That’s why, even when we were 2-0 up last night, I was still biting my nails and shouting at the TV. Dawson (although he got away with a blatant handball) defended admirably, and for the first time this season, I felt like we went forwards very well, whilst also putting up a great rear guard action when not in possesion. Even with Tevez, Adebayor and Robinho doing their own thing, our defensive line looked pretty solid and diminished their attacking threat.

Robinho clearly wasn’t up for it. Sure, he says all the right things in interviews (in Portugese because he still hasn’t learnt enough English), but the way he mopes around and then trudges off straight down the tunnel when he gets substituted says it all really. He and Tevez are capable of moments of individual brilliance, and even watching them get beaten 3-0 last night made me realise that Tevez, at least, is probably better than any player in the Spurs side. He just does things with the ball that no one in the Spurs team is capable of. But what does that count for when you’re in a team assembled over a period of about 2 months and you can’t string two passes together?

I’m not going to say Spurs are going to finish in the top 4 after this result, because right now, Man City aren’t even our rivals for that position. You can twist the statistics to show what you like (ie they’d only lost once before this cf. they’d only won 1 in 10), but the clear fact is, they draw too much. It’s great beating them because everyone hates a team with a lot of money, but I’d have been 10 times as happy if it had been Villa we had beaten.

PS. check this article out by Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian – quite an interesting assessment of how football tactics have changed over the past 10 years

Management’s Dirty Little Secrets, by Gary Hamel. Mr. Hamel makes some excellent points. Indeed, if you merge some of the data he presents, you see a key truth emerge: people do not leave companies, they leave bad managers. Employees pay attention to the actions of senior leadership, but even egregious behavior by that leadership motivates only a few people to leave the organization. Those actions, in general, do not impact the lives of most employees. But the attitudes, skills and behaviors of the manager do affect the day-to-day lives of employees. Bad managers are poison, for morale and performance.

Why are so many managers bad? In my experience, much of the answer comes from poor hiring decisions. In a lot of organizations, great performers are promoted into management positions, without regard for their management and coaching potential. Smart organizations carefully screen manager candidates for specific management skills, like coaching and strategic planning. Proper screening would not completely eliminate the bad manager problem, but would severely curtail it.  

The Lost Cause of GE and Jeff Immelt, by Evan Newmark. Mr. Newmark argues that Mr. Immelt has failed as Chairman and CEO of the conglomerate.  I tend to agree. If this evaluation is accurate, what does it say about the vaunted leadership assessment process at GE? That process, in existence for decades,

Main Street Was Bailed Out, by John Tamny. As always, Mr. Tamny offers a unique perspective on the current economic landscape. He makes a powerful point, that somehow has never been learned: when politicians try to pursue pet policies through the market, the law of unintended consequences always foils their aims.

Down With Big Business, by Rep. Paul Ryan. Rep. Ryan makes some complimentary points to Mr. Tamny’s. He cites the University of Chicago’s Luigi Zingales in distinguishing between pro-business and pro-market policies. Indeed, policymakers would be wise to keep this in mind, as they stumble over themselves to enact laws designed to drive small business hiring. Small businesses should hire additional employees when it makes economic sense for them to do so, not when a particular policy makes it momentarily attractive.

Throughout time, people everywhere have engaged in the great tradition of complaining about the workplace. But as a boss or an HR manager, how do you know when job complaints are general venting and when there is really something wrong? Part of your job is to make sure that employees are happy and productive, and that can’t happen in a dysfunctional environment.

If you’re having a hard time separating hyperbole from legitimate complaints, it may be worth reviewing the top 25 signs of a dysfunctional workplace. Note that all the examples below — listed in no particular order — are taken from real-world work situations, no matter how unlikely they might seem.”

1. Nothing can get done without the boss’s approval. Sure, the boss has the final say, but work should be delegated, with employees taking responsibility for tasks that do not require the boss’s personal time and attention. The organization will be much more productive and empowered if the top dog doesn’t have to sign off on every little thing.

2. Nothing can get done unless employees go behind the boss’s back. It’s one thing if the boss is overly involved, but it’s a serious problem if the boss is actually a roadblock to getting work done. It may be time to call in the consultants.

3. No one is sure who the boss really is. The titles may be clear, but so many people are jostling for the top post that employees aren’t sure who actually makes the final decisions. This can cause more than a little frustration.

Read more here.

Source: Scarlet Pruitt for hrworld.com

Christmas may be the busiest time of year for footballers, but there’s still room for celebration, look at the lovely snow on the blog!

In a style that has been common in almost all broadsheet newspapers, the blog follows three Premier League managers as they enjoy the winter festivities after I found their diaries.

By ‘found’, of course, I mean ‘fabricated.’

Arsene Wenger

My wife called me earlier. She was very upset.

“Arsene, the contractors we have in are far too young to do our barn conversion,” she whimpered.

“Calm down,” I said reassuringly, “they’ll come good.”

“They are sixteen years old!” She retorted… almost angrily.

“If they are good enough, they are old enough.” I thought this would shut her up.

“They aren’t strong enough to carry all the materials, they keep dropping it! And they’ve been stealing from us… they did it in plain sight as well, Arsene, you MUST have seen.”

“I did not see the incident that you describe.”

She hung up.

Alex Ferguson

An old school friend called today. Like with anyone I don’t like, I diverted the call through to Mike Phelan. He said some very offensive things about my family once.

That reminds me, I must go to the butcher and apologise to him for telling him his dog was fat.

It was the annual ‘Players vs. Staff Quiz’ today. A close fought battle, but the staff won it. Wayne was furious.

We nearly got beaten because the quizmaster laughably tried to tell me we’d “ran out of time,”  to answer before I pointed out that all the interruptions from the caterers and players conferring meant we had at least 3 more minutes.

Rafa Benitez

Cold. So cold.

All out to get me.

Everything black.

Even Fernando can’t help me.

What was that noise? Is that Jurgen downstairs?

He haunts my dreams.

by Jim Naughton, for The Harvard Law School Forum at Harvard Law School, December 14, 2009.

In our paper Sticks or Carrots? Optimal CEO Compensation when Managers are Loss Averse, which was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Finance, we analyze a simple contracting model where the manager is loss averse and explore to what extent its predictions are consistent with salient features of observed compensation contracts. In particular, we suggest a new approach to explaining the almost universal presence of stock options by assuming that manager’s preferences exhibit loss aversion as described by Kahneman and Tversky. More specifically, on the basis of experimental evidence they argue that choices under risk exhibit three features: (i) reference dependence, where agents do not value their final wealth levels, but evaluate outcomes relative to some benchmark or reference level; (ii) loss aversion, which adds the notion that losses (measured relative to the reference level)loom larger than gains; (iii) diminishing sensitivity, so that individuals become progressively less sensitive to incremental gains and incremental losses.

We develop a stylized principal-agent model with a loss-averse agent and show how it can be calibrated to individual CEO data. In the first part of the paper, we consider piecewise linear contracts that consist of fixed salary, stock and one option grant…(continue reading)

Former Celtic and Manchester United striker Henrik Larsson takes his first managerial role, at Swedish second division club Landskrona Bois…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: football games. The blog is also related to: soccer betting.

Are you committed to educating and developing your people? Or, as so often is the case, do you see training as an expense? Why not take the approach that training and development are investments.

When I taught high school economics, one of the first concepts we covered was this fundamental: the four cornerstones of capitalism (land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship). If I were to go back into the classroom today, I would emphasize that, in our current economy, the importance of land and capital are reduced–and that labor and entrepreneurship are increasingly intertwined.

Everywhere in our digital economy, people are generating incredible revenues with no real up-front investment in land or capital. And, within organizations–even large ones–it is increasingly important that employees are empowered to be creative and entrepreneurial.

Decision-makers, you must find ways to empower your workers. Check out Daniel Pink’s site (and his many books/articles) for a whole new perspective.

Yesterday morning the news broke that Brian Laws (pictured below) had become the 20th managerial casualty the top four divisions of the English game, so far this season.

It’s only December, for crying out loud.

His now former employer, Sheffield Wednesday, released a statement siting the club needed ‘fresh energy’ and ‘motivation’ for a club, which, on Saturday lost 3-0 at Leicester City.

Taking a win less streak back almost two month and included 12 matches in the process. This coincided with, Plymouth Argyle changing manager last week when Paul Sturrock was relieved of his duties, after 100 games in charge in his second stint in charge.

This begs the question; Will the next managerial incumbent actually fair better at these clubs and the other 18 who have changed before them.

As the old saying goes only time will tell!

When looking at some of the clubs who have decided a change was needed, several are not really fairing much better.

Namely, Tranmere Rovers, who currently have club physio, Les Parry in charge, after the dismissal of England legend, John Barnes after a mere 14 games in charge. Another example is, Darlington, who sacked, Colin Todd after only 11 games in charge.

Idiotic to say the least, especially considering his replacement, former Irish international, Steve Staunton has driven the club to a new low, with 8 defeats in the past 9 fixtures.

As an avid follower of Middlesbrough football club, the club recently following masses of fan pressure removed Gareth Southgate from his role as manager and replaced him with the colourful character, Gordon Strachan.

The teams fortunes have gone from bad to worse to almost worrying woeful, is this Strachan’s fault, the players fault, Southgate’s fault. Who knows? But it proves that maybe the managerial change hasn’t been affective – yet!

I recently wrote a blog entitled When Is The Right Time To Change? in which I stated that there is not always a correct time to change and sometimes changes are negative.

Sadly, we live in a world were instant success is what the blood hungry fans, board members and newspapers demand from teams or all three quickly clamber against the manager and his players.

It’s scary and worrying for the current crop of managers trying to play their trade in football management. None more so than the English Premier League which, is an ever evolving product, built on money and the success it brings.

Portsmouth recently sacked Paul Hart (pictured below) afer in my opinion he was doing a fine job, his replacement, Avram Grant, had a couple of disastrous games to begin with and then a couple of very good results, namely a win and a draw is his last two matches.

Is this due to Grant? Probably not. It is the same players, the same system and the same tactics as used under Hart. It was wrong to sack Hart, in my opinion but that is the demands put on the chairman and chief executives of football clubs.

Actions speak louder than words!!!

Instant success is never long-lasting and Manchester United are proof that sticking with a manager four years in to his reign after a run of poor results. This manager has since built an empire, a global brand and several of the worlds best players since.

For those who don’t know who I am talking about, it is, of course, Sir Alex Ferguson.

Stress is obviously the greatest issue that a modern football manager has to deal with but the current heads set for the chopping board have to deal with this, it is part of the jobs demands.

The questions remains; How many more will lose their jobs before the season ends? The answer is probably several of them; Phil Brown (Hull City), Gary Megson (Bolton Wanderers) and Roy Keane (Ipswich Town), to name but three under immense pressure as I write.

This is a difficult time of year for all, especially with the modern climate we live in and football in some respects is an uglier version of ‘dog eat dog’, but the games are coming thick and fast.

Time is definitely running out for some of the managers in the game today, but I will leave you with a couple of thoughts; would you seriously want someone to lose their job, no matter what the occupation is? It seems this is allowed in football.

The other thought is; in the Italian top division (Serie A), there have been 15 managerial changes since the end of last season and now (December 14th), in a league which contains only 20 teams. Astonishing!!

Whose your money on to be sacked next? I think it maybe Gary Megson as the Bolton faithful have never taken to him and their current plight is precarious.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Gaffers

P.s. A huge well done to Ryan Giggs on winning the BBC Sports Personality of the Year last night at the awards ceremony in Sheffield.

Check out my recent blog on Giggs entitled, Is Giggs The Greatest? a must read, even if I do say so myself.

I was listening to the radio on Sunday morning on the way to a race (5 live of course, what else for a football blogger?), and they had Graham Souness phoning in. He once again asserted his lack of desire to return to football management – that’s funny, I bet the job offers had been pouring in.

What his point was, however, is that modern-day footballers are notoriously difficult to control. The argument is that, because they earn more money, they are consequently more valuable assets to the club than the manager, and the man who is supposed to be in charge now lacks authority.

This is an interesting notion. Souness also declared that managers from the ‘old school’ such as Ferguson and Wenger have to bite their tongue on a daily basis. I can’t see that to be honest. For one thing, Wenger can’t be declared as part of the old school. As much as I hate the man, when he arrived at Arsenal in 1996, he helped to revolutionise management. He couldn’t of marked a bigger contrast to George Graham, the man he replaced. The other top clubs and managers (including Ferguson) had to adapt to better Wenger’s tactical style and handling of the club. Fergie being Fergie, he did this with aplomb of course.

And Fergie is a law unto himself. He doesn’t bite his tongue in front of the cameras about referees, so do you really think he bites his tongue walking round the club that he has been in complete control of over the past 23 years? Doubtful. This is the man who had ’spies’ all over Manchester in the 90s, and would notoriously turn up at parties to drag his younger players out by the scruff of their necks.

It’s the younger, less successful coaches which are going to struggle in this regard. Why would someone choose to take orders from a young man yet to achieve anything, who is also on less money on them? It’s a bit like a graduate scheme, or a plucky young officer coming out of Sandhurst at 22. Only the most authoritative and charismatic young coaches are going to get anywhere now it seems. We can see how Southgate and Ince have already suffered – their players just didn’t do the job on the pitch. In Ince’s case in particular, his exact same squad and almost identical team performed miles better under Sam Allardyce almost immediately.

Does anyone really believe that managers lack authority in the dressing room? I’d like to know. I’ve recently started a bit of coaching, and I think it’s worrying that disobedience in the dressing room or on the training ground might filter down to the youngest level.

The reason this was on the radio, of course, was the alleged fracas between Tony Pulis and James Beattie. I’m sure players standing up to coaches is nothing new, but as countless ex-players will tell you, before, it just didn’t get out. What makes it more worrying is the fact that Pulis was apparently naked at the time. Beattie must have bollocks to be able to stand up to him.

Five Minute Management Course

Lesson 3 (of Six)

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.

They rub it and a Genie comes out.

The Genie says, ‘I’ll give each of you just one wish.’

‘Me first! Me first!’ says the admin clerk. ‘I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.’

Puff! She’s gone..

‘Me next! Me next!’ says the sales rep. ‘I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.’

Puff! He’s gone.

‘OK, you’re up,’ the Genie says to the manager.

The manager says, ‘I want those two back in the office right after lunch.’

Moral of the story:

Always let your boss have the first say!

–Posted by (but not written by) Paloma Pentarian

Part II:  On Being Well-Informed

Part I:  Timely Communication Skills