hArsh with A cApitAl A

My last post was harsh. A little too harsh, actually. I ended up scoring 29 points out of a possible 30 on my research paper. That ticks me off because my prof. neglected to let me in on the error that cost me a perfect score.

So, despite what the title of this post may indicate, me writes good.

2 Semesters Over

I just submitted my case study for Library Admin. I put together a budget for a surplus of money! Wow! I wonder when I'll be able to put those skills to use in the real world! Probably never...

I aced my Reference class. In fact, my Pathfinder project co-earned top score with some other classmate. I ended tops in my class. Does anyone else like the sound of me tooting my own horn? No? Oh well. That's the news!

Important Stuff

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because I have been pissed with my professor who does not know how to communicate effectively.

I just read a chapter in my book for Library Administration. It was about the human resource frame of management. Basically it talks about how a lot of companies screw their employees over for the sake of short-term profits, then they lose out in the long run because their company has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Think outsourcing to a foreign country where you can pay little to less people, give them a couple crappy resources and then in a few years realize that your customer satisfaction levels are scraping the bottom of the barrel. That's an example of poor human resource investment.

The flip-side of that are examples of good human resource investment. This is when companies give their employees the tools to do their job efficiently. They are compensated for their work. They receive a certain psychological fulfillment in the workplace. This investment brings a return that is much greater than the chop-house method. In fact, when employees feel that the company backs them, they tend to respond by working harder and innovating more. This is what we saw in the post-war boom. What we are seeing now results from the late-90s / early-2000s.

The crux of what I read relied on the psychological fulfillment of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This theory basically states that man is always trying to find satisfaction of some kind. The quest begins with basic needs--like food--and gradually the needs become more aesthetic and ephemeral, until they self-actualize. The workplace can, and should, be a place where some of these needs are met. Certainly, food and shelter are met via salary, but a sense of purpose is also closely tied to work. Do you really think that what you are doing is important?

Maybe yes, maybe no...

Values Are Always Applied

Question: In management, does one size fit all? Can you come up with a set of principles and apply them uniformly in all circumstances, or do you have to adjust your principles to the people and circumstances involved?



The evidence is overwhelming that there is no single-size solution for successful management. It is clear that managers must assess their situation and respond accordingly in order to motivate and innovate in the workplace.

However, one can argue for the fact that a manager may base their decisions on certain values that remain constant from situation to situation. The RO book touches on this topic while discussing Gladwell's "blink" process. The non-conscious, split second decisions result in what is called "affective judgments" which allow the manager to feel confident in their decisions.

I have read that these gut feelings are not at the mercy of a person's whim, but are tied into deep-seated values. These values are always present and part of a person's make up. This is from the Harvard Business Review Blog Network: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/decoding_intuition_for_more_ef.html

Granted, these core values do not exclude a manager from changing their approach when circumstances warrant it, but it does influence their decisions. While the article deals with CEOs, I feel that all people make decisions based on their values, this includes the choice that managers have in the style they choose.