HTNet - A Notepad of Tech, Business, Science and Self Improvement

I just spent the past 30 minutes or so reading The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard, Ph.D. and Spencer Johnson, M.D.. I must admit, it has been one of the more insightful books I’ve read for the past few months.

Most management books are filled with corporate-lingua-bable, that when something like The One Minute Manager landed into my hands, I’m quite suprised at the frank, down-to-earth, and straightforwardness of the composition.

More importantly, the advice given were not delivered in a preaching manner. The authors used a short but nevertheless interesting story of a young man’s quest to find good managers and learn from them. Over the years, he found that the good managers are either:

• Concerned for the company’s performance, but neglects the need of his subordinates.
• Focused on keeping his subordinates happy, but pays scant regards to the company’s bottom line.

After some time, the young man heard about a really good manager that not only ensures his company performs really well, but also keeps his subordinate very happy. This guy is known as The One Minute Manager. He wants to learn the secrets of the One Minute Manager, and thus begins his journey of discovery.

I’d like to divulge more information regarding this excellent book, but this would be an injustice to both the authors and yourself. The content of the book is light, but trust me, the lessons that can be learned from it is priceless. I have absolutely no problems recommending this book to managers and aspiring managers.

I’m going showcase some of the interesting links I’ve visited for the past week, and I’m going to start now

First off, I checked out PostSecret. What’s it about? Here’s how the site describes itself:

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

Some of the postcards are really funny, while on the other side of the spectrum, quite a few are somewhat disturbing. All in all, a very worthy web site to visit.

For those of you who are more business minded, check out The CEO Refresher archives. There are tons of useful and interesting articles to read ranging from Education to Strategic Planning.

Remember my posting on Google ranking secrets? I manage to find the paper written by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, describing the PageRank™ algorithm.

While on the topic of search engines, have you ever wondered how one would sound like? Yes? Well, try Speegle, the search engine that not only display your search results, but speak it as well

I came across these articles describing incidents where an interview can go wrong or right.

Some of the experiences highlighted in the interviews gone wrong are hillarious, while some are really insightful. Although the articles are really condensed, they are still an interesting read.

I can especially relate to the tips that many of the HR managers gave in the second article. Interviewees nowadays, especially fresh grads, don’t really do their homework when preparing for the interview. Sometimes, I don’t think they really know anything about the position offerred. Their questions are almost always based on the “what’s in it for me“ mindset.

Employers want someone who is passionate about the tasks to be carried out in the capacity offerred. And when you’ve spent a whole day interviewing people who I put in the “parasites” category, it can really get on your nerves. At the very least, show sincere interest in the position offered, if you’re not, then don’t apply! Trust me, forcing yourself to apply out of desperation will definitely reflect poorly on you.

Well, at the very least when its results are actually made known to the appraisee. For those in the Malaysian civil service, they still haven’t got their results after 10 months. Yet another stumbling block in the government’s plan to cut red tape and improve efficiency… and as usual every party involved in this facade is pointing their fingers in every direction except at their own noses.

The point of appraisals are so employees will know what is expected of them and how their current performance are perceived by their superiors. It is also useful in identifying areas of strength, and those in which improvement are needed. What I particularly like about appraisals is that it is a reflection of how others perceive you. Most of the time, the results will never fail to suprise.

I had recently been reverse appraised by staff in my company, and the results were unexpected, to say the least. What really made me curious about the results was that different people perceived different things about me. Some areas for which they rank me highly, to me, was really suprising. I don’t even think those were my strong points.

The same things could be said about what they perceived to be my weak areas. I’m sure as hell I’m really good in these areas, but hey, I always respect people’s opinions of me. This has been a constant cause for conflict between people. When somebody starts questioning aspects of your life where you feel very certain you’re really good at, you tend to get defensive about it. Fortunately for me, I have developed sufficient “skin thickness” to focus on improving such areas rather than dwell on why people feel I’m so weak in the area.

I’m still a firm believer that reverse appraisals is a useful tool to use to assess key personnel. The very fact that it is reversed means that senior staff will get a clearer picture of what their subordinates think about them.

…at least, they’re admitting to purposely doing so on their new joint-venture Chinese MSN portal according to this article on MSN Money, and linked from Slashdot.

Other banned words and phrases include; freedom, demonstration, “democratic movement” and “Taiwan independence”. The clincher here is that, officially, according to existing Chinese law, it isn’t illegal to use these words.