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Bizarre Behaviors

My manager wants everything boiled down to the minimum, especially meetings and reports. The other day he asked me to find the two most important words to be an excellent manager. How do I answer this? There's communication, fairness, recognition, and much more.



It is important for your manager to remember that when items are boiled down to a minimum, many of the nutrients can evaporate. There is no question that it is helpful for managers to expect their team to provide them with streamlined information. Not only does this save a manager's time, it also forces the employee who is preparing the information to truly think and cut to the most important points.

However, as important as succinctness may be, it is possible to go too far down this path, and this can lead to oversimplification and dilution of meaning. This applies not only to meetings and reports, but also to requests to simplify an entire body of knowledge, such as management, down to two words.

Nonetheless, if you want to give it a try, many management theorists emphasize the importance of "respect" and "trust" as the heart of successful management. By placing them at the core of a manager's approach to his or her team, many of the other characteristics of effective management fall into place.

One key question then remains: would a manager who treats his employees with respect and trust ask them to boil all of management down to two words?






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