Welcome to my weblog!

Welcome to Management Craft, a weblog dedicated to finding, sharing, and discussing state of the art management. We will discuss books, products, business management news, and fresh ideas. Management is my passion. I know that sounds strange, but I have seen and experienced the hum of peak productivity and it can be a beautiful thing!

Enough with the introduction, how about some meat?

I call this blog Management Craft, because I believe that the art and practice of managing people (without controlling them), processes, and projects WHILE flexibly changing as needed AND considering short term and long term needs and opportunities is a craft.

When I use the word craft in this blog, I am referring to an honorable and worthy body of work that can mature and grow with development and practice. Of course, building our management craft is not automatic. To improve our ability to manage well (making a positive difference to the organization and team, getting results) we must acknowledge our privileged and important role and continuously grow.

Frankly, I get tired of hearing about how worthless middle managers are or how awful it is to be a middle manager. It can be the BEST job out there because middle managers can make a lot happen and have a significant impact on the business. To be sure, there are awful managers and undesirable management jobs.

And I wish we would stop comparing leadership and management. Leadership is often touted as the higher level work and management something less. Leadership is leadership and management is management. Just like project management and meeting facilitation are different type tasks, so it goes with leadership and management. Both are important although I have seen more companies struggle to meet their goals due to poor or missing management than I have because of lacking leadership.

Not to knock leadership, which I also consider a craft. It is just not what interests me most.

What do you think? Are you a manager? Are you having fun managing? What does management look like to you?