Management

Position Power vs. Personal Relationship Power

Albert Zenkoff

The recent years saw the quick raise of the so-called “Personal Relationship Power” into prominence to the point where some people preach that it is the only thing that matters. I heard some American and Japanese colleagues actually teach the young and hopeful managers that the personal relationships are the only thing that works and that any manager worth his salt will be able to do whatever he needs with just that – the power of personal relationships – without the need to rely on position power.

As is often the case, this is not entirely untrue, so it sounds believable. On the other hand, it is not entirely true either, so it sounds suspicious if you stop to think about it. What is the deal here? The statement contains part truth and part lie, so in essence, it is false in its entirety but it contains enough truth in it to sound true.

Personal relations cannot replace position power, that is a simple fact. Try imagining that your manager does not have any power whatsoever over you but has to convince you to do your job as a favor to him every single day. Yes, you would probably like …
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Insourcing – a new fashion trend

Albert Zenkoff

There is a new trend, a new fashion in the high-tech industry. They already coined the most natural term for it and it is called “insourcing”. A recent article was called “Insourcing QA to gain more control over the resources”. Yes, indeed, so outsourcing has outlived its hype by far and we need a new something for the managers to get bonuses about.

Not surprisingly, the new trend is a direct reversal of the previous trend. So, there is nothing new there really. In a decade or so we will be high on outsourcing again, so the Indians and others should just hang in there for a while and we’ll be back.

Reality is that neither outsourcing nor insourcing are the ultimate answer to anything. No magic bullet is going to cure an ineffectively managed business. The best one can do is ignore these fashions completely. Unless you are a consultant of outsourcing, of course, because now you will be consulting with equal vigour on insourcing.

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Buzzwords

Albert Zenkoff

We all know (but not all of us despise) that buzzwords are abound all around us. Especially in the business world, it seems one cannot do a thing without stepping into a leadership (think Dilbert).

Well, it is not only business. I just noticed for real for the first time what is actually written on the aftershave: “oligo-thermal ultra-moisturizer”. Well, it gives an impression of being cool and moisturizing, that’s all I can figure out. The actual meaning? Hmm…

Annoyingly, we understand less and less of what people say and have to hear more and more. The information flow is diluted, the quality of the information exchange is lowered, the time is wasted.

Think about it the next time you want to add those “management sounds” to your presentation, all right?…
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