Middle Management Blues

If you scroll down a bit you will see a section on the right hand side that has a few flippant sayings and decoders of things I occasionally say.   One of them is WIIFM, what’s in it for me, which I claim is the key to motivation.   Someone wrote in and basically told me I was full of it, because if people only did things that were best for them the world would be a shallow, greedy place.   In that context I absolutely agree.   But you’re missing the point… Motivation is a tricky business.   What motivates some is a downer for others.   What works today fails miserably tomorrow.   There is no sure thing.   There has been a lot written about it by folks with more pedigree than me, and they probably know what they are talking about (except for Lou Holtz ).   I’ll sum up many pages and many dollars worth of writing in one simple sentence: Know your people . Piece of cake, right?   Back when Bill Parcells coached the Giants, I...

I’ve always heard that batting is the hardest thing to do in sports.   The guys who are very good at it make it safely to base 40% of the time (aka on-base percentage or obp).   (According to espn.com, only seven majorleaguers have an obp above .400 at this point of the season.)   This also means that the best in the world FAIL 60% of the time. How about soccer (or football in the rest of the world)?   Argentinian Carlos Tevez led Man City in goals last year in the EPL.   He had 20.   On 120 shots.   About a 17% success rate.   Yes, I know that’s not really a fair judge of performance on the pitch, but strip it down and the guy only succeeds once for every six tries. American football?   There would be very little controversy if you proclaimed that both Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are among the best ever to play quarterback, and yet neither of them succeeds more than two times out of three, and Manning actually gave the ball aw...