Erudite Relics of Loc Huu Ho

This article is based on the following book:
The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork
“Embrace Them and Empower Your Team”
John C. Maxwell, author of ‘The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership’
Published in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001
265 pages

To achieve great things, you need a team. Building a winning team
requires understanding of these principles. Whatever your goal or
project, you need to add value and invest in your team so the end
product benefits from more ideas, energy, resources, and perspectives. Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott Berkun, June 1, 2006

In part one, I covered getting started, why managers are different and other essentials. Here in part 2 we get into tactics you need for the first few weeks.

Getting acclimated

Survival training of any kind teaches you one thing: before you act, know where you are. Say, for example, I dumped you, blindfolded and dehydrated, in the Swiss Alps. Your first move wouldn’t be to run around, tripping over stones, yelling orders at sheep. Instead you’d be best be served by figuring out how to remove that blindfold and get your bearings. Only then could you possibly find the direction most likely to provide you with shelter and drinking water (or at least some Swiss chocolate. Yum).

When you become a manager, even in an organization you’ve worked in for years, the landscape changes because of your new managerial status. Before you throw orders around and correct the mistakes of manager’s past, stop, look and listen. Observe what is happening today, right now. Talk to the people you’re working with and ask them what they see happening that you should be working on in your first weeks, especially the most experienced and respected people on your team. See what concerns or ideas they have that perhaps went unheard before. If nothing else, start building relationships from day one with those that work with and for you. Watch the clock in these meetings: make sure you spend more time listening to them than talking. If they ramble, ask them for recommendations. If they have nothing to say, invite them to follow up if they wish, but move on: there’s a lot to do. Read the rest of this entry »

The three essentials of the English language are: Purity, Perspicuity and Precision.

By Purity is signified the use of good English. It precludes the use of all slang words, vulgar phrases, obsolete terms, foreign idioms, ambiguous expressions or any ungrammatical language whatsoever. Neither does it sanction the use of any newly coined word until such word is adopted by the best writers and speakers.

Perspicuity demands the clearest expression of thought conveyed in unequivocal language, so that there may be no misunderstanding whatever of the thought or idea the speaker or writer wishes to convey. All ambiguous words, words of double meaning and words that might possibly be construed in a sense different from that intended, are strictly forbidden. Perspicuity requires a style at once clear and comprehensive and entirely free from pomp and pedantry and affectation or any straining after effect.

Precision requires concise and exact expression, free from redundancy and tautology, a style terse and clear and simple enough to enable the hearer or reader to comprehend immediately the meaning of the speaker or writer. It forbids, on the one hand, all long and involved sentences, and, on the other, those that are too short and abrupt. Its object is to strike the golden mean in such a way as to rivet the attention of the hearer or reader on the words uttered or written.