June 11th, 2006
Typically I write articles about energy related subjects; however, today I will diverge from the main thread of energy topics and discuss my other interest which is management theory. When it comes to managing people or resources or both one phrase that really stands out is this, "Knowledge is Power".
Take a personnel manager charged with managing a group of employees. How could a manager effectively and efficiently manage employees if he or she can not communicate and understand or think as the employees communicate think and act? Well a good manager must be able to stand in their employees shoes with competent knowledge. So considering levels of employee's, the more advanced the employee the more knowledge the manager must have. With this thought in mind I have read many books and articles on leadership. Here are a few of the better ones that I'd like to recommend to anyone interested in advanced management theory:
On The Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B: Steven Kerr
http://www.lions.odu.edu/~dnethert/Courses/oted762/presentations/folly/tsld001.htm
The Great Disruption: Francis Fukuyama
Power Shift: Alvin Toffler
Transforming Leadership: James MacGregor Burns
Against the gods, the remarkable story of risk: Peter L. Berstein
Beyond Greed and Fear: Hersh Shefrin
Images of Organization: Gareth Morgan
The interesting thing here is that all that can be done with the information in these books is to draw parallels among the situation you're situated with and then use the guidance of the information contained within the books or articles.