Occasionally, a group member's negative behavior can derail a meeting. Reasons for negative behavior may include a meeting climate that avoids confrontation, personal style, or even the "rush" that such actions cause

Managing meetings is not easy and is not taught in universities. However, it is a skill that can be acquired.

Part one of this article ended with a discussion of politics in your department. We hope you have considered the questions and the implications of the answers.

Organizational politics involves trades, exchanges of favors, relationships, reprisals, obstructionism and coalition-building. This sometimes goes beyond the normal process of getting the job done and the normal interchanges with peers and colleagues.

We are all experts in customer service; after all, we are customers every day of our lives. Furthermore, as department managers, we need to ensure that our phones are answered quickly and courteously, that our clients and potential customers have short wait times and are treated with care and respect, that our customers receive accurate and timely results, and that we conduct periodic surveys to ensure that our high standards are maintained.

Tips for handling once-peers and others who seek to undermine your authority

Communication problems are all around us–two people talking about two completely different things and thinking they are communicating. People not paying attention to what the other person is saying–simply buying time to say what they want to say. Here are some tips on how to communicate effectively.

“Steve Jobs, technologist and tastemaker of modern digital culture, described himself as a captain of product design inspiring his teams of workers, as he once said, to go ‘beyond what anyone thought possible’ and to do ‘some great work, really great work that will go down in history.’”

There are managers who have learned to use psychological techniques to confuse, contort, and control members of their staff. You may never encounter one of these characters, if you are lucky. However, if you do run into such an unpleasant character, here are some tips on how to survive.

Structure drives behavior. The way your organization is structured—flat, crossfunctional, hierarchical or “siloed”—will drive the way your staff behaves. Think operationally, not correlationally.....

The only thing that changed was the title. The job, the responsibilities, even the pay were exactly the same, but when the title was changed to director, the relationships, levels of trust, gossip and impediments to getting things done were all out of whack for a couple of months. This is a situation that takes more than simple explanations to fix.

You have a wonderful staff. You have given all the assignments and now it’s time to sit back and wait for the results to roll in. Sadly, not in my world. There is a lot more to getting things done than assigning tasks.

Done well and consistently, performance appraisals can be one of your most important tools in becoming an excellent manager. Accuracy, truthfulness, objectivity and courage are the keys to effective performance management through performance appraisals.

A change in behavior, in attitude or in lifestyle is not easy to achieve, and some seem near impossible. However, the change process can be understood, and change can be implemented more successfully and more reliably by following a few rules.