Manage a Challenging (and Valuable) Employee
Genius often comes with downsides. If you have a valuable (but disruptive) employee on your team, try these management tactics:
Harvard Business Review
Improving the practice of management and its impact in a changing world.
Articles from Contributor
When Working Hard, Make Time for Rest
When you’re on a deadline or have a particularly thorny project in front of you, it can be tempting to try to power through for long periods of time. But your brain’s ability to focus only lasts about 90 minutes before you need to take a break.
Prepare to Answer Customers’ Toughest Questions
No salesperson likes to take a hard question from a skeptical prospective customer. But since providing good answers is often the difference between winning and losing their business, it pays to get it right:
Make the Most of a Bad Job
If you’re unhappy at work, you don’t have to live with it. And you don’t have to quit. Here’s how to make the most of an imperfect job situation.
Get to Know Your Unknown Audience
People don’t fall asleep during conversations, but they often do during presentations — because many presentations don’t feel like discussions.
Toss the Old Rules for Selling
The recession challenged many long-held rules about how to boost sales. Instead of slashing prices and cutting customer support teams, try these counterintuitive tactics:
Reward Yourself for Doing the Tasks You Hate
Crossing something off your to-do list can be satisfying. But you may need extra motivation to get through the more dreaded tasks. Here’s how to motivate yourself to accomplish those difficult projects:
Try Crowdsourcing Your Performance Reviews
Employees, managers, and HR professionals have long questioned the accuracy and effectiveness of annual performance reviews. But is there a viable alternative to the often inflexible and infrequent formal process?
To Persuade a Listener, Establish Common Ground
It’s one thing to give a smooth presentation. It’s another to move the people in your audience to do something. To accomplish the latter, figure out what you have in common with the people in the room, and speak to the audience at that level. Think about the values, interests, shared experiences, or challenges that you share so you …
What to Expect If You Take a Bad Job
In this economy, many believe you’d be insane to turn down a job. Certainly, if you’re unemployed, you might need to take any position offered to you. But if you’re considering a job offer that you know isn’t right for you, think about the risks:
- Getting stuck. Once you’re in a certain job, organization, or field, it might
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Change Your Company’s Story
How many times have you heard someone say, “That’s the way we’ve always done it”? Narratives like these suggest inevitability, and can inhibit change rather than inspire it. They can be deeply ingrained and difficult to challenge. But people remember stories more easily than numbers, and if told in the right way and with the …
How to Practice for Your Presentation
Whether it’s your first time in front of an audience or you’re a seasoned public speaker, practice is essential. Make sure you build in extra time for it. Go through all your material each time you rehearse, including how you are going to stand and move, and how you will incorporate any visuals. To prevent technical gaffes, use the …
