By The Wanderer, on July 23rd, 2010
… or “Don’t cry for me. This is not a goodbye”.
Today I went through a terrific experience in my professional life: my former bosses were so spectacular providing me such a VIP treatment that the result was a couple of people dropping some tears for me. Guys, when someone cries for me, sincerely and altruistically, there can be only two things I can think about:
- that specific someone really cares about me
- I get nervous (from being touched, of course) because tears happen when feelings (or pain) are really strong
To those who today gave me that signal of pure caring, my eternal thanks. A new page was turned in the book of an already long life. Turning pages of our life’s book going through, once in a while, such demonstration of caring like the one I had the honor to experiment today, is always very much motivating. Big happiness is very often made of little things, I have learned. I’m touched, really touched…
I am not a man of easy tears. Life was, long ago, a stepmother for me. That made me tough enough or, sometimes probably, too tough. For some, I am an arrogant wall of steel. But, even steel walls have their own feelings!
Thank you for your tears. So long friends! May the gods (all of them) be with you…
… to be continued
By The Wanderer, on July 21st, 2010
Somewhere near the 51st constellation, year 2010 – I have to declare I have today been crushed by loneliness. Fortunately I had a conversation about deep considerations over life and the good reasons to be alive and be still working out good ways to see happiness through a lens of weaknesses and hopes!
I wrote something about “solitude vs. loneliness” in June 19th, 2009. I wrote and I meant it accordingly to my state of spirit by then. The nice thing of this life is that the state of spirit is variable, as long that is not that much variable and inexpectable as woman’s humor! What is life without a bit of salt & pepper?
Between loneliness and solitude there is a barrier called stability. What a human being desires most is definitely one thing called stability. I would call it “comfort” instead. Nevertheless, stability is something which is now called a thing from the past cause world, I mean generally speaking, is moving all the time and not necessarily clockwise. We are now, world wide, closer to the American way of life: a constant fight for survival or, instead and preferably, for the ultimate state of a luxurious life with lots of permanent pleasure and leisure.
In English
—
Repress and restrain
Steal the pressure and the pain
Wash the blood off your hands
This time she won’t understand
Change in the air
They’ll hide everywhere
No one knows who’s in control
You’re working so hard
And you’re never in charge
Your death creates success
Rebuild and suppress
Change in the air
And they’ll hide everywhere
And no one knows who’s in control
Change in the air
And they’ll hide everywhere
No one knows who’s in control
Em Português
—
Reprime e controla.
Suprime a pressão e a dor.
Lava o sangue das tuas mãos.
Desta vez ninguem vai entender.
Mudanças a acontecer.
Eles se esconderão algures.
Ninguem sabe quem controla.
Trabalhas tão arduamente,
mas nunca estás por cima.
A tua morte gera sucesso,
reconstrói e dissimula.
Mudanças a acontecer.
Eles se esconderão algures.
Ninguem sabe quem controla.
Mudanças a acontecer.
Eles se esconderão algures.
Ninguem sabe quem controla.
Today is my independence day, no matter what that can mean for every reader of this post. Ms. PA was “present” to make it even more intensive. Mr. RGAL wondered why was I today having lunch on my own. Deep thoughts, fluid decisions. I think fast and write easy. I do love things turning my life to an intensive experience. I usually try to make other’s experiences intensive enough. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes not. Yet, I keep trying…
New mind, new way. I hope. I shall not surrender. May the gods be with me, Ms. PA and Mr. RGAL…
By The Wanderer, on July 12th, 2010
… or, some mistakes a leader should never make! In some corporations, there is a bunch of leaders with very poor concepts of delegation, communication, team work, assertiveness and so on. Roughly speaking, a good leader is somebody succeeding to drive his team towards previously defined goals by using the less possible resources. For instance, a good football (soccer) coach is usually much more concerned to make his team scoring to win than playing beautiful and win. The ideal would be getting victorious scoring and playing beautiful but that is harder to achieve, isn’t it? Well, likewise, in managerial life, getting successful does not always correspond to be good. How about this?
What I have noticed in my last decades as a normal worker, regarding usual mistakes in Portuguese labor market, can be put in a list which will be more or less applicable worldwide. Some actual Portuguese companies, even being part of multinationals, suffer from all of them. Yet, they are profitable companies (at least, apparently), meaning, they sell a lot. …
Top 13 Management Mistakes
Managers come from different walks of life, possess various characteristics, and have their own philosophies regarding how to manage a business and employees. In a broad sense, there are common mistakes made by managers at different levels and in various types of businesses.
- Not making right the transition from worker to manager – I am talking here about promotion and not exclusively the vertical one. No matter which type we are talking about, any change at this level must be explained to, analyzed and planned with the worker
- Failing to delegate – I have not found many managers being able to practice delegation or, at least, practicing it correctly. Typical Portuguese managers see delegation as “just do it and shut up”.
- Not setting goals with employees – Setting goals with employees should not mean “my friend, these are our goals and I am pretty sure you will achieve them in the name of a good team spirit towards success”
- Failing to communicate – Portuguese managers, generally speaking, do not communicate. They dictate instead. When they want to practice “show-off” for statistics handling or political achievements, they invent information means, more or less clumsy, they (over) spread them all over the company’s facilities but are not expecting much from there in what the happiness of the workers is concerned.
- Failing to learn – a Portuguese manager is always too busy to dedicate time for learning. Majority of managers I have met are always with that facial expression giving the idea that all work in the world has been dropped over them. And they are always talking on the cellular, cellphone sticked to one ear, head inclined down to approximately 45º…
- Resisting change – innovation is not a concern of our managers. They usually think “if I am selling my product, why should I change?”
- Not making time for employees/Not standing by employees – No way! Why should they? Can you imagine? If you make time for employees you are taking the risk of hearing what you do not want to hear! Big corporations overcome that by creating bullshit like “employee dialogue” or “record of dialogue” just for… the records!
- Not recognizing employee achievements – Why should they? Are employees not supposed to be happy just because they are employed and they are doing it for a superb employer? Besides, they always say “my friend, if you are not happy with us, you know the way out, don’t you?”
- Going for the “Quick Fix” over the “Lasting” solution – This one is very Portuguese typical. We really suck, don’t we? Portuguese are, by nature, the bigger “Quick Fix” religion followers.
- Taking it all too seriously – Let us say only that it is not recommendable, if you aim a “far and fast to go” success, to laugh too much! Just do it at the right level to please your boss. He will appreciate…
- Feeling people are lucky just to have a job – Yep, another very Portuguese typical attitude from managers. I believe this has much to do with the 50 years of Fascism under what Portugal lived until 1974 (Carnation Revolution). Today, as of then, a Portuguese citizen must be first eternally grateful for getting a job. To have a job, as seen by Portuguese managers, is a big part of the earnings a Portuguese worker will get. After that, why should salaries be high?
- Ignoring rumours – Rumours cannot be avoided when there is at least three human beings within a short space. Portuguese love rumours (gossip). We are not happy without them and we are unhappy with them. It is a tremendous mistake to not take rumours into consideration because they are a strong feature of our nature as human beings. Behind a rumour there is always a good lesson to be learned.
- Saving the praise for last – …when it happens! Positive strokes are fundamental for workers motivation and should be practiced on a milestone basis.
Apparently, making many or all of the previous mistakes would bring companies to a low performing level, therefore low yearly profits, but that is not necessarily true. In fact, slavery does not live supported on modern ways of human resources management, where actually several actual employers are also very weak. In fact, it happens very often that “HR management” is easily replaced by “HR control” which, in a society of narrowed labor market like the Portuguese, is easier and cheaper. Let us say that employers very often abuse from closed labor markets which is something very much tolerated by governments of 3rd world countries or those, like Portugal, still presenting a remaining 3rd worldism…
Bossism is very often taken, by mediocre bosses, as leadership. The authoritarian way of leading teams, either based on power by weapons or by a defective country economical situation, drives normally corporation managers to practice crass mistakes like “getting in like a lion, getting out like a lamb”. As a matter of fact, when this mistake happens it shows how little clever are managers making it because such a mistake is already the result of several other:
- little knowledge about the other´s side situation: managers think that workers are already between the sword and the wall which gives managers motivation to step forward without properly measuring respective steps
- little knowledge about the impact of a failed attack: if workers succeed forcing back an attack from managers, workers will understand it as:
- my boss has no idea about what he wants to do, if he wants…
- my boss is not that much powerful
- little knowledge about what really strengths a leadership: a leader should never hesitate and, even though looking to be sometimes necessary, a withdraw has to be taken only as an action integrated in some strategy
Some people may ask: what is the alternative, when the attack fails? Should we keep troops in the battle field to be exterminated? Of course not. Let me say first that a manager should never take an action making it look like an attack. The answer for “what can be done when a management action fails?” will be given in a next post, some day, somewhere else…
This post is dedicated to Quinta da Malafaia, a place in Esposende Municipality, Portugal for entertainment, food and leisure, which is very much connoted to a management action, I have observed recently, looking like an attack. Going “In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb” is politically uncorrect and pretty much expensive, even if negative results are only medium/long term observed.
May the gods be with Portuguese workers….
By The Wanderer, on July 7th, 2010
I have been thinking about three trivial questions involving 2010 FIFA World Cup:
Why was South Africa, a country leading Apartheid practices where the sport king is rugby and cricket, was chosen to be the stage for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a football (soccer) tournament?
Why is FIFA against the intervention by governments, like Nigeria and France, in FIFA tournaments, when those governments are unhappy with [...]
By The Wanderer, on July 4th, 2010
There are people suffering. There are people screaming. There are people struggling. There are people praying. There are people singing. There are people talking. There are people surviving. There are people dying. There are people going down. There are people getting desperate. There are people disguising. There are people starving. There are drunken husbands hitting wives. There are lost souls waiting to be saved. There [...]
By The Wanderer, on June 27th, 2010
I have found out (lately) that it is still possible to go through truly friendship between two human beings up to the borders where people usually barily get into the conclusion if what they are feeling is friendship or love. I myself, an incurable “free speech” performer, very often get very much lost when I try to define concepts like love, friendship, passion, etc…
When I [...]
By The Wanderer, on June 23rd, 2010
I am celebrating the 5th anniversary of “The Wanderer” birth, a nickname chosen by a lousy blog writer who has had no guts to present himself before the gods with his own name, given by baptism in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit. Amen!
This blog was born in May/June 2005 (read here the very first post), right before I took [...]
By The Wanderer, on June 21st, 2010
It was not my intention to post here anything about 2010 FIFA World Cup and, in particular, about the national team of my country, Portugal. However, a score like this (Portugal 7 – 0 North Korea) it is not usual in football(1), no matter what Cup we are talking about. I am feeling, then, like leaving here a singular notice about this day when, despite [...]
By The Wanderer, on June 8th, 2010
… my new found!
Being a fan of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright and Jeff Buckley (among others of the same kind), I got immediately attracted to Mazgani’s first notes I heard, a while ago on TV. Finally, after some “contemplation”, I had to go to FNAC (one of my favorite shops, very close to my house) and make a contribution to Shahryar [...]
By The Wanderer, on June 6th, 2010
Hugh… what a title, isn’t it? I am pretty much convinced I wouldn’t understand it (the title, of course) if it weren’t written by myself!
Pedro Passos Coelho(1) is the name of the new leader of the old (enough) Portuguese Social Democracy party. Let us say that, finally, we have got rid of the latent fear of having the return of the “Old Lady”(2). He was [...]
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