An article about how to manage employees caught my eye today. I liked what I read and I’ve practiced this for years. Find great talent, let them know what your expectations are and let them be stars and help enable them to do so. A snippet:

“Employees shouldn’t be sleeping in cubes to prove they’re “passionate employees.” I want to work with people who have a particular set of skills (and interests) who view themselves and one another as either professionals/craftspeople (programmers, designers, engineers, animators, editors, scientists, authors, educators, architects, entertainers, etc.) or as producers and assistant producers (the people who pull it all together, support the craftspeople, and make it happen).”

You can read the article in its entirety here.

A new year, a new start on life at various companies? Katie Fehrenbacher is reporting that Metacafe, an online video startup, is shaking up the CEO position. LinkedIn did the same thing late last week/early this week. I wonder who’s next?

Regardless of the company/industry/whatever, there’s a time when an owner needs to realize that not being the CEO/whatever top daily grinder position is the best thing for their company.  We dealt with this at one of my companies–and it was in fact the best thing to ever happen to the company.  After hiring competent people around you who know the company in and out; let them ride the horse.  Both companies promoted within and the companies took off like bats out of hell.  Soaring profits, higher customer satisfaction and double digit growth rates every year.  And this was no surprise, this was all a well orcastrated plan by the founders and existing management to do more and do better.

At a certain point a founder is no longer able to grow a company at the rate it needs to grow and founders become frustrated and make poor decisions.  At a point (hopefully prior to poor decisions kicking in) they need to hand the reins over to a more experienced management group who can push things hard.  A company is about success and growth– not ego.

Hoffman over at LinkedIn (exceptionally large social networking site for professionals) came to this realization.  If I want my company to grow, expand and make money for me and my shareholders (LinkedIn = lots of high profile angel investors), I need to let someone else drive my company.  And regardless of what anyone else says, growing the company from an idea to the point where the CEO decides to move to Chairman–half if not more business owners fail at this.  The most difficult part of any company is starting it and seeing it through the first couple of years.  Another point of interest–rarely does the company want founders to go anywhere (think company with VC money).  Founders can offer a great deal of insight into the industry which the company operates and perhaps expands into.

Robert May the Business Pundit has a short and sweet post about being a better manager. A short excerpt:

If you want to be a better leader, focusing on fairness is a good place to start. Here are some things to try:

• Be open and honest about the reasons behind your decisions.
• Create processes that are transparent, so that people understand how decisions are made.
• Listen to both sides of the story, and make sure everyone’s voice is heard.
• Communicate clearly