Two quick-reads to help wash down a cup of something hot:

Lencioni Offers Help For Managing Your Boss

Author and business consultant, Patrick Lencioni offers some practical guidance for a vexing problem in How to Manage Your Boss in the Management column at the Wall Street Journal.

Almost everyone at one time or another has wondered how to “improve” their boss, and as Lencioni points out, the two most common approaches: launching an attack because you are fed up and going to help the boss see the error of his ways, or ingratiating yourself by sucking up, are both ineffective and risky.  Instead, Lencioni suggests that you win the day with empathy and honesty.

Art’s perspective: dealing with difficult leaders is one of the most common challenges highlighted by mid-level leaders in my workshops and programs.  Lencioni offers cogent guidance.  I’ve used it myself in prior lives, and the empathy and honesty approach can work.  Of course, as the old psychologist/light-bulb joke goes, “first the light bulb has to want to change.”

On the Lighter Side: Authors Encourage Cutting the Budgets of the Slogan Writers

In a lighthearted piece entitled, Kill the Slogans Dead, in the Made to Stick column in the December/January Fast Company, authors Dan and Chip Heath make a strong case for the inanity of most slogans…and by association, most slogan writers. Their bottom line: “When you have a big idea, make it come alive with a story. Make it real, color in some details, let it be something people can care about,” is advice worth heeding.

Art’s perspective: I chuckled through this entire article.  We are bombarded by ridiculous attempts to create something that sticks in our minds, and I’ve caught myself muttering something under my breath like, “What $%$%$% idiot or team of idiots thought that up?”

The Heaths appropriately skewer the executive authors of a slogan to support an attempt at a major cultural change with: “360-Degree Leadership: Because we all matter.” Yep, there’s a  good way to make certain that your employees realize what a half-baked joke your latest initiative is.  Good grief.

Didn’t Deming have an opinion on exhoratations?