Saturday, January 19, 2008

A Boss Like Dogbert?

It's quite normal, or essential, for a manager or leader to read various management books like those from John Maxwell. For some, it helps to underline and mark salient points so that it is committed to memory or sometimes it is something which one would think is important enough to try to inculcate into one's life for one's improvement.

Okay, now based on the assumption above, I will proceed to explain why I am bringing this up.

Assuming you know the cartoon Dilbert. He has a boss called Dogbert. Now, I will assume here that you know about Dilbert. Otherwise, go Google him.

I have with me the Dogbert's Management Handbook, which was passed on from an acquaintance who is a manager. In this book, I swear to you, there are asterisks and underlines on some of the "management principles". Here are some:
- Clothes make the leader. Employees probably won't ever respect you as a person, but they might respect your clothes.
- ...as a manager, your pay is not linked to the quantity of your work. Your pay depends on the appearance of work plus the intangible qualities you bring to the job, such as "leadership" and "motivation".

And there's a tick beside this one:
How can we make the employees work harder for less money?

I'm just glad she ain't my boss!

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