Managing Employees

Every working environment has a culture…the way they do business. Miriam-Webster.com provides this definition:

Culture - the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.

Our intuition reads the culture of a company, even without being aware of the stated values and practices of the company.  What would you say are the shared values, attitude, goals and practices of your company?    Step back, look at the employees, and ask how do they perform their work and react to you or other managers.  Do they seem empowered to do their work?  Yes, there are individual differences, yet overall we learn a lot by the way employees perform their responsibilities.   What about the customers?  How do they feel about working with the company?

With managing employees, negotiating with outside vendors, collaborating with other departments, balancing the budget and finding time to be creative, I know you are saying to yourself that you are “just too busy.”  I hear myself mumbling “I have so much to do” and I don’t feel that great when I say it.  So I’m assuming that you are not happy with your long list of ‘to do’s’ that consume your time.  

There is a strong belief that the more you have to do, the more important you seem.   Is that true?   I certainly don’t feel important when I face my long list.  Rather I feel more like an overworked, underpaid employee.  I work for myself.