The Bluffer's Guide to Management

Book excerpt: Good management The secret of good management is avoiding bad management. Similarly, the test of good managers is that they cannot be observed or remembered for the deviations and idiosyncrasies which make bad managers so memorable. Real management The acid test of the true manager under pressure is that he or she is the only one not immediately doing something. The real manager is thinking before acting. Even if it's only a bluff. Proper management If you devote even a fragment of the working day to some thought about managing properly you can rise above the norm. Right management Good management is not necessarily about flair or excellence. It may often be about getting things right more than 90 per cent of the time, by avoiding the crass errors of your contemporaries. Simple management Good managers have every right to insist that presentations of all kinds, within and without the organization, be presented in words of few syllables which a child of four could understand.