Author: Brian Smyth

Doughnuts can be dangerous – especially if the hole is on the Outside!

Doughnuts can be dangerous – especially if the hole is on the Outside!

Posted by | Jun 8, 2016 | |

Performance Reviews – more harm than good? Performance Reviews –  or the ‘Performance Development System (PDS)’  as we call them – are of immense importance to people’s development and welfare as well as to the welfare of organisations to which they belong. However, most times they are poorly designed, badly handled and very often do more harm than good. Just one way in which this happens is around expectations. “I felt I had a very good year,” a manager told me recently, “but I got quite a shock when I was told in my Performance Review that my performance...

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Getting a Grip on Managing

Getting a Grip on Managing

Posted by | May 31, 2016 | , |

It’s hard to fault management on their efforts to improve how they manage. There is hardly an hotel I visit where I don’t run into badge-bearing managers on some course or other wandering off for coffee or lunch.  (I was going to add ‘bored’ but was afraid of being possibly unfair and overdoing the alliteration! But it would not be too unfair to add it.)  In 2014, expenditure on executive training worldwide exceeded $130 billion. No shortage of effort and commitment there, but, for more than financial considerations, I wonder and worry about the return on investment.  If you...

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Something Rotten in the State of Transdev

Something Rotten in the State of Transdev

Posted by | May 30, 2016 | , , |

Transdev, by its own reckoning a world leader in public transport, has been in dispute with its drivers on the Dublin (Ireland)  light rail system for the past few months. Now, this is not about taking sides and not about defending the Little Red Riding-hood train drivers against the big bad wolf of Transdev. It IS about claiming that something is rotten, very wrong, when two groups of people in the Company are failing to reach agreement on how key employees of the company should be rewarded for their contribution.  Something is always very wrong, I believe, when people...

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Hey! A bit of Respect Please

Hey! A bit of Respect Please

Posted by | May 17, 2016 | , , |

I heard someone remark on the radio a few weeks ago that we might have an epidemic of the blue flu again. He was of course not referring to anything blowing in from Africa but to the creative way the Gardai have used, in the past, to express their dissatisfaction with how they were handled and rewarded. The current dissatisfaction is around unequal treatment of some categories of Gardai within the force. It is hoped that a new review of Garda pay and conditions will address these and other concerns. I have my doubts. I believe that any review...

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