kSensei Blog

The 10 Beliefs of Great Managers - lifehack.org

What do the truly great managers of our world believe in?

1. Managers believe that people are innately good. Without this core belief and faith in people, great management is not possible.

2. Managers believe they do not work on their people, they work with them; they enable and empower them.

3. Managers believe that “empowerment” comes from within, and has more to do with self-motivation and innate talent than with the acceptance of authority. They get their cues from the person, not from the task or process.

4. Managers believe that all people have strengths which can be made stronger, and that their weaknesses can be compensated for to become irrelevant.

5. When it comes to training, the great managers do not believe they train people, they believe they train skills and offer additional knowledge.

6. Managers believe they coach and mentor people, and they love doing so — not “like,” love.

7. Managers believe that the people they manage are more than capable of creating a better future. They hold great faith and trust in the four-fold human capacities of physical ability, intellect, emotion, and spirit.

8. Managers believe in the power of positive, affirmative thinking, and they have a low tolerance for negativity. They are confident and eternal optimists.

9. Managers believe it is their job to remove barriers and obstacles so people can attain the level of greatness they are destined for. They believe that “can’t” is a temporary state of affairs, and that everything is only impossible until the first person does it.

10. Managers believe that their legacy will be in the other people they have helped to achieve worthwhile and meaningful goals. They believe that success is measured in people who thrive and prosper.

That’s why managers matter, and why management is vitally important.

First on lifehack.org

Peter Drucker - New Priorities

Knowledge has become the central resource. [But] the productivity of knowledge workers is incredibly low. Does anybody here believe that the teacher of 1991 is more productive than the teacher of 1900? The productivity of service workers is even lower…. Over three-fourths of our workforce are service and knowledge workers. By the end of the century, 90 per cent of total workers will be knowledge and service workers. Productivity of knowledge work and dignity of service work are the two great priorities

Muere lentamente
quien se transforma en esclavo del hábito,
repitiendo todos los días los mismos trayectos,
quien no cambia de marca.
No arriesga vestir un color nuevo y no le habla a quien no conoce.
Muere lentamente
quien hace de la televisión su gurú.
Muere lentamente
quien evita una pasión,
quien prefiere el negro sobre blanco
y los puntos sobre las “íes” a un remolino de emociones,
arriesga lo cierto por lo incierto para ir detrás de un sueño,
quien no se permite por lo menos una vez en la vida,
huir de los consejos sensatos.
Muere lentamente
quien no viaja,
quien no lee,
quien no oye música,
quien no encuentra gracia en si mismo.
Muere lentamente
quien destruye su amor propio,
quien no se deja ayudar.
Muere lentamente,
quien pasa los días quejándose de su mala suerte
o de la lluvia incesante.
Muere lentamente,
quien abandona un proyecto antes de iniciarlo,
no preguntando de un asunto que desconoce o
no respondiendo cuando le indagan sobre algo que sabe.

Evitemos la muerte en suaves cuotas,
recordando siempre que estar vivo exige un esfuerzo mucho mayor
que el simple hecho de respirar.
Solamente la ardiente paciencia hará que conquistemos
una espléndida felicidad.
Pablo Neruda

Creating Passionate Users: Crash course in learning theory

Crash course on some of our favorite learning techniques gleaned from cognitive science, learning theory, neuroscience, psychology, and entertainment (including game design).

First On Creating Passionate Users

Fixing the Requirements Mess - Editorial - CIO

Mishandled requirements can torpedo a project at any time, from inception to delivery. Start down the wrong road and you arrive at the wrong destination. And even if you’re heading in the right direction, making fumbling changes midstream can be almost as deadly. Not integrating requirements with your test process can have you racing back late in the game to correct problems that might have been solved early on (and more cheaply).

None of this is easy. Business users often don’t know exactly what they want, can’t prioritize what they do want, request things IT simply can’t deliver (because of complexity or cost), or can’t describe their desires in terms that translate accurately into code. On the IT side, analysts, architects and coders regularly try too hard to please and don’t set realistic expectations for projects; they don’t use every means possible to guarantee that what they’re building is what the user really needs, and sometimes they even fail to make sure that they’re talking to all the right stakeholders.

Writing requirements is hard. It will always be hard. But with a handful of smart decisions you can create a requirements process that will produce positive results—and maybe keep your next project from becoming another statistic.

Great article from CIO.COM

Mistakes are the portals of discovery

James Joyce
(1882-1941) Irish Novelist

Source: Gurteen Knowledge Quote