dispatches from the new world of work

Strategies: First-line Supervisors, the Video

On 24 February Tom gave us his "First-line Manager20/1LM20" and declared the choice and nurturing of first-line supervisors a Peerless Strategic Opportunity. In this video, Tom explains why choosing first-line supervisors is among the most important decisions a business can make.

You can watch the video on YouTube (time:
2 minutes, 38 seconds) or download a PDF transcript.

Cathy Mosca posted this on 03/03/10.

Comments

Nice to see the front line guys get some props. In my more years than I'd like to count of supervising and now defending companies my experience is, it is almost always the first line supervisor who gets you into trouble or keeps you from being in trouble. Despite this, supervisor hiring and development is one of the most overlooked areas of management development in most organizations. Keep beating the drum. If you are interested here is something I wrote on this a while back.
http://negotiumlex.wnj.com/?p=41

Posted by Steven A. Palazzolo at March 10, 2010 8:39 AM

Steven, nice blog post. The fact that you have 'pre-law' training should make you a much better lawyer!

For those 'higher ups' that struggle with showing empathy and concern to employees at the risk of being seen as insincere or faux, I think it is even more important to have a good front-line supervisor.

Good points also about the 'three things' not including wagesvar topWin=window.dialogArguments||opener||parent||top,uploader,uploader_init;function fileDialogStart(){jQuery("#media-upload-error").empty()}function fileQueued(b){jQuery(".media-blank").remove();var a=jQuery("#media-items").children(),c=post_id||0;if(a.length==1){a.removeClass("open").find(".slidetoggle").slideUp(200)}jQuery("#media-items").append('

'+b.name+"

");jQuery("#insert-gallery").prop("disabled",true)}function uploadStart(){try{if(typeof topWin.tb_remove!="undefined"){topWin.jQuery("#TB_overlay").unbind("click",topWin.tb_remove)}}catch(a){}return true}function uploadProgress(a,b){var c=jQuery("#media-item-"+b.id);jQuery(".bar",c).width((200*b.loaded)/b.size);jQuery(".percent",c).html(b.percent+"%")}function fileUploading(c,d){var b=100*1024*1024,a=parseInt(c.settings.max_file_size,10);if(a>b&&d.size>b){setTimeout(function(){if(d.status==2&&d.loaded==0){wpFileError(d,pluploadL10n.big_upload_failed.replace("%1$s",'').replace("%2$s",""));if(c.current&&c.current.file.id==d.id&&c.current.xhr.abort){c.current.xhr.abort()}}},10000)}}function updateMediaForm(){var a=jQuery("#media-items").children();if(a.length==1){a.addClass("open")