for W3c validation

BusinessPundit brought up a great point in a post called Management Styles: Coach K vs Coach Knight. Managers need to make sure their words match their actions or else employees will see right through manager’s words. As a manager, do not tell your employee one thing only to go off and take action indicating something else.

What else is important? Trust and communication are vital to a successful employee-manager relationship in my opinion. Management is about connecting with people and pushing the right buttons on a one by one basis. Different people respond to different motivation tactics, but many managers make the mistake of managing the same regardless of the employee’s personal needs. Personally, I need to be challenged mentally. What’s the fun of doing something that doesn’t make you think? I love to solve problems. Give me a large problem…I’ll figure out how to solve it and make the solution happen. Some people need their hand held the whole way, some don’t. I have spoken with many people who try to do as little as possible at work and I just don’t get it. A paycheck is not what brings me to work. If I ever get to a point where a paycheck is the only thing motivating me, it will be time to find a new job no matter how much a company is paying me. What motivates you?

Luckily, I work for a great and experienced management team at Zillow and love my job. I have many friends who hate either their jobs or bosses- or both. I will touch on management quite a bit in future posts since I will start doing summaries of business and technology books I am reading or have read on this blog.