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Saturday, October 24, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
How to Avoid Them Management Trap
Management Traps and How to Avoid Them
Much has been written about the secrets of good management and few will argue that the best managers are inspired, visionary, dedicated, industrious, energetic, energizing and display integrity, leadership, common sense and courage. So where is it that managers commonly fail or falter and lose their precious foothold on the corporation's top rungs? The following, from the career experts at bayt.com, are ten of the most basic management traps and tips to avoid them:
Weak managers set weak goals
As a manager your role is to get specific jobs completed by employees in the most optimal, efficient and innovative manner and in order to do that, you need to set clear objectives. Successful managers set SMART goals - goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based. They are able to communicate these goals clearly, simply and concisely to their employees so that none are vague or uncertain about expectations. By all means reach for the stars in your objectives but to do so without supplying employees with the training, resources, flexibility and freedom they need to accomplish their goals and a schedule of regular supervision and feedback is to set them (and yourself) up for failure.
Weak managers micro-manage - effective leaders inspire
The days of command and control organizations are long over - today's managers recognize that in order to leverage their skills and maximize their team's output they need to adopt a flexible approach and 'lead' their teams to excellence rather than closely supervise, instruct and control them. The best leaders communicate to their employees a vision and ignite in them the fire, motivation and desire to work towards making this vision a reality. Good leaders unleash their employees to innovate and achieve optimal solutions by communicating top-level goals and objectives and a suggested blueprint for success then leaving the employees to determine how to get there most optimally while ensuring they have the aptitudes, training, resources and work environment necessary to achieve superior results. While a program of regular feedback and supervision is essential, managers should ensure that their management style is not repressive, meddling or overly overbearing. The golden rule is to communicate the 'what' and the 'why' of the work that needs to be done and leave the employees to determine the 'how' without burdening them with strict instruction manuals or prescribed rules and patterns that are largely redundant and inconducive to speed, creativity, progress and innovation.
Weak managers are afraid of hiring/cultivating strong leaders
Strong leaders/managers have the self-confidence to hire the best people, take them to new levels and cultivate in them all the qualities needed to make them in turn effective leaders of the future. Weak leaders replicate themselves in their hiring decisions and hire mediocre players, mistakenly believing that an employee with more skills, acumen or industry knowledge than themselves will ultimately undermine them or make them look bad. The best managers are characterized by an ability to stimulate their employees to superior performance and through coaching, training, feedback as well as by example, inspire in them all the qualities needed to make effective managers. A good manager helps employees achieve their full potential and constantly raises the bar so that employees never stop learning, innovating and growing. Coaching, training, career planning and programs for ongoing growth and development of key staff are high on the priority lists of the best managers.
Weak managers belittle their employees
Bosses who favour the archaic 'tough' management style where employees are singled out for public reprimand and negative feedback is plentiful while recognition and positive reinforcement are scarce will fail to win the loyalty, respect and commitment of their teams over the long run. Without an inspired, fired up, self-confident employee base these managers set themselves and their teams up for failure. Effective leaders by contrast, respect their employees and give them regular feedback with intelligent constructive criticism and loudly laud special accomplishments in both public and private, while communicating any negative feedback ONLY in private and focusing such criticism strictly on the job performance, not the person's character. Strong leaders recognize and reward a job well done. These leaders inspire their teams to perform at their best and are able to elicit from them a high degree of loyalty and a 'hunger' to raise the bar and continuously excel. In such organisations, employees are not afraid to challenge their boss's ideas or upset the status quo in the interest of innovation and excellence and are encouraged to take risks to elevate the business to a new level. The autocrats and bureaucrats on the other hand sap their employees' self-confidence, drive and energy with their overbearing management style and fail to induce in them any motivation to raise the bar or excel.
Weak managers have obsolete skills-strong leaders constantly reinvent themselves
In today's knowledge-driven economies and highly competitive environment, skills, training and education rapidly become obsolete and effective managers know that they must constantly re-educate themselves and update their skills to maintain an edge. While over-confident managers with an inertia to further education fall by the wayside, good managers regularly take an honest inventory of their skills and abilities and upgrade their technical knowledge and soft skills wherever appropriate. They encourage their teams to do likewise with sound career planning and performance appraisal programs and an emphasis on training and self-education.
Weak managers have poor communication skills
Good communication includes cultivating and maintaining open channels of communication with the team and others in the organisation, giving constructive, intelligent feedback, eliciting ideas through brainstorming sessions or otherwise, articulating the company vision and mission in no uncertain terms, setting clear objectives and listening attentively with an open-mind to employees grievances, suggestions and any other issues. Effective leaders have an open-door policy that welcomes input, suggestions and feedback from employees and recognize that good ideas and the next best idea/process/innovation can come from anywhere. Strong leaders listen; weak leaders talk. Strong leaders pay attention to their employees and encourage them to express professional opinions and ask for more responsibility; weak leaders think they are above such open-door policies. Employees who are not listened to and are not made to feel important or respected as professionals or individuals are unlikely to innovate or express any exciting new ideas that can move a company forward.
Weak managers blame
Everybody makes mistakes and strong leaders protect their good people from taking the fall when they err. Good bosses recognize that the occasional slip-ups are inevitable and can be learning opportunities and are ready to take personal responsibility when the team makes a misstep. A good boss realizes that his most promising employees want to succeed, will grow as a result of their mistakes and are unlikely to repeat the same mistakes. They do no set their people up as a negative example for the rest of the organization nor point fingers when the going gets tough. Good bosses are personably accountable for their actions as well as the actions of their subordinates and do not allow a culture of blame to permeate the organisation.
Weak managers take full credit for their team's accomplishments
While weak leaders usurp all the credit for a job well done by their teams, the strongest leaders will give the full credit to the team as a whole or the team member responsible for the project. Strong leaders motivate, energize and inspire by giving credit where credit is due and being generous with reward and recognition wherever appropriate. Strong leaders publicly thank their employees for a job well done and recognize that a motivated, successful, energized team will reflect directly on the boss.
Weak managers thrive on bureaucracy
Weak leaders are fond of, augment and live well with the layers and bureaucratic shackles that tie an organisation down; strong leaders remove them. Today's effective leaders recognize that in order to compete they must operate like a small company with a high level of speed, responsiveness and flexibility. They realize that to maintain their edge in today's marketplace their organization needs to be responsive to changing market conditions and remove the shackles, boundaries, layers, clutter and obsolete policies, procedures and routines that get in the way of the freedom and free flow of people, resources and ideas.
Weak managers are divorced from their teams
Effective managers genuinely care about their employees and take the time to get to know them and to understand their strengths, weaknesses, what makes them tick and their goals and ambitions. They also take the time to learn something about their personal life. While weak managers will maintain an outdated aloofness and a formal distance from their teams, exceptional managers are able to bring out the best in every employee and win their loyalty and respect by understanding their unique needs, motivations and abilities and showing the team that they are important and personally significant. Strong managers are team players and through their constant involvement with their teams communicate to them that they are there for them and supportive of them. Effective managers by building a supportive work environment, build a camaraderie and team spirit that enthuses and excites the team to new levels of performance.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
High School, College and University Building Designs
High School, College and University Building Designs
If all high school, college and university campuses looked like this, attendance rates would skyrocket. Some may argue that it’s what’s inside that’s important, but there’s no reason for school buildings to be bland, boring boxes. From a big open high school where students lounge on big pillows all day to a university building created by Frank Gehry, these 15 incredible campus building designs may just inspire a whole new generation of innovative architects.
Green Roof Art School in Singapore 
One of the most amazing green roofs in the world is at the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. From a distance, you can barely even tell that the 5-story structure is a building, it blends in so well with its environment. A plethora of glass walls allow plenty of natural light to illuminate the interior, and the grassy roof is used as a meeting space for students. The green roof also insulates the building, cools the surrounding air and harvests rainwater for landscape irrigation.
Gehry-Designed Stata Center at MIT 
The Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences at MIT was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, and it shows. The lively building features Gehry’s signature adventurous, surrealist style with tilting towers, unusually angled walls and whimsical shapes. The building houses classrooms, research facilities, fitness facilities, a childcare center and a large auditorium.
New York University’s Department of Philosophy Interior 
You would never guess, looking at the elegant yet unremarkable historic exterior of NYU’s Department of Philosophy, what was housed inside. Designed by Steven Holl Architects, the renovated interior features white walls and a seemingly complex set of stairs edged with perforated railings that cast interesting patterns of light around the building. The light effect changes according to the seasons and time of day.
Victorian College of the Arts School of Drama 
Most of the buildings that make up the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia are stately and historic. Then, you come across the façade of the School of Drama, designed by Castles Stephenson + Turner Pty Ltd / Edmond & Corrigan. The unique, colorful design makes it clear that this is a place of creativity.
Arcadia University’s Grey Towers Castle 
In contrast to the many modern school designs featured here is the Grey Towers Castle of Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania. The castle was built starting in 1893 as the estate of William Welsh Harrison, and was acquired by the university in 1929. The castle is rumored to have secret passages behind the fireplaces as well as a series of underground tunnels built to connect the main house to stables and outbuildings. It now contains various offices, including that of the President, as well as student residences.
Oppenheim’s Miami-Dade College Campus 
The concept for Miami-Dade College on Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami would add a lot of reflective shimmer and interest to the city’s skyline. Designed by Oppenheim Architects, the glittering glass and steel tower has an unusual shape with an interior grassy corridor. It’s projected to be completed in 2012.
Henning Larsen University Campus Concept in Kolding, Denmark 
The Danish firm Henning Larsen won a competition for a university campus in Kolding, Denmark with this airy, open concept design along the Østerbrogade river. It features an exterior screen that is meant to allow sunlight to pass through to the banks of the river and is situated in a triangular fashion rather than parallel to the river. It will contain a large, open atrium, public café, offices and classrooms.
Ørestad High School, Copenhagen 
Looking at this campus in the new Copenhagen suburb of Ørestad, it’s hard to imagine not wanting to go to school. Ørestad College – the Danish equivalent to a high school – has an open, modern design with colorful transparent glass shades that liven up its boxy exterior and rotate automatically with the sun. The interior is full of swirling staircases and platforms upon which students lounge on big orange pillows.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Investing in real estate
Kerala is truly the undiscovered India. It is God's own country and an enchantingly beautiful, emerald-green sliver of land. It is a tropical paradise far from the tourist trial at the southwestern peninsular tip, sandwiched between the tall mountains and the deep sea. Kerala is a long stretch of enchanting greenery. The tall exotic coconut palm dominates the landscape. Kerala is a green strip of land, in the South West corner of Indian peninsula. In length 360 miles, the state is only 20 to 70 miles in width and comprises 1 percent of India's total land. It is a purified world in Kerala, the land of trees. A big, spreading tree purifies as much air as a room air-conditioner. And the former is never switched off. The prolific, bustling, vegetation acts like a massive, biological, air-filtration plant working round the clock, round the year. Hence spending days in Kerala countryside is as if spending in an air- purified environs; some times better than it. Kerala may be divided into three geographical regions:
• High lands
• Midlands
• Lowlands
People now realized that investment in the stock market, with its ups and downs has its own related problems whereas bank deposits and mutual funds are restrictive in returns. Investing in real estate is a guarantee that the returns at the time of disposal will definitely be higher making it is a very safe mode of investment. Independent Villas in Tripunithura and houses in Tripunithura are expensive but if one can afford it can make you feel like a king. There are many builders who carry out construction on contract basis and with totally transparent terms and conditions. This helps avoid the headaches one would have to face while building homes. It is obvious that land value is going up day by day but good plots are fast becoming scarce. Rates have quadrupled in the space of five years, and in some cases even doubled in one year. The best time is to buy now as tomorrow would be too late
Friday, May 8, 2009
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
THE CONSTRUCTION OF
THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING 
Empire State Building: Made by Hand
Cable Connection
The 102-story Art Deco tower in Midtown Manhattan known as the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world from its completion on May 1, 1931, until the World Trade Center eclipsed it in 1972. It was the product of the labor of 3,400 men.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
A Derrick Gang at Work
Most of the men who worked on the building were European immigrants. They were joined by hundreds of Mohawk iron workers, many from a reserve near Montreal.
Photo: George Eastman House/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1930
Corner Riveters Hold Steady
Two construction workers rivet on the edge of a steel girder on the mooring mast of the Empire State Building in 1931.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
Triangular View From a Rival
A view of the uncompleted Empire State Building from the Chrysler Building. The Chrysler Buidling, which is 1,047 feet tall, was the tallest building in the world for 11 months before being surpassed by the ESB.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
On the Level
An engineer makes sure everything's on the level as the Empire State Building is constructed. In a wind of 110 miles an hour, the building moves only about a quarter inch on either side.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
Empire State Pulley
A worker lifts an object with a pulley. The building houses 2,500,000 feet of electrical wire, and some 9,000 faucets
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
Made by Hand
Working on the Mooring Mast
Workmen ready themselves for more construction on the mooring mast. On a clear day, you can see five states from the top of the building.
Photo: George Eastman House/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1930
Construction Team From Above
A construction team establishes a corner joint of the mooring mast. At one time, there were 255 carpenters, 290 bricklayers, 384 brick laborers, 107 derrick men, 285 steel men, 249 elevator installers, 105 electricians, 192 plumbers, 194 heating and ventilating men, and trade specialists, inspectors, checkers, foremen, clerks, and water boys at work on the building.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
Wrenching Work
A worker uses a wrench on the edge of a beam high above the city, with the Chrysler Building in the background. It took 10 million bricks and 200,000 cubic feet of Indiana limestone to build the ESB.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
Holding on for Dear Life
A worker clutches onto a steel girder high above the city. Five men died accidentally during construction: one struck by a truck; another who fell down an elevator shaft; a third hit by a hoist; a fourth in a blast area; and a fifth who fell off a scaffold, according to records. More than 30 people committed suicide by jumping off the building over the years.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
Riveting View
Workers rivet a steel girder on top of the mooring mast. The building is struck by lightning about 100 times a year.
Photo: Lewis W. Hine/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1931
Celebrating the Completion of the Iron Work
Construction workers celebrate the completion of the iron work in 1930. When the building was fully complete on May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover pressed a button in Washington, D.C., that turned on the building's lights.
Photo: FPG/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1930
Empire State Night
The Empire State Building glows in 1932. When it opened, the Great Depression had just begun, and the ESB struggled to find renters. Now it's the second-biggest office complex in the U.S., with 21,000 workers and its own ZIP code.
Photo: Fox Photos/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1932
Crash by a U.S. Army B-25 bomber on July 28, 1945
On the foggy morning of Saturday, July 28, 1945, Lt. Colonel William Smith was piloting a U.S. Army B-25 bomber through New York City. He was on his way to Newark Airport to pick up his commanding officer, but for some reason he showed up over LaGuardia Airport and asked for a weather report. Because of the poor visibility, the LaGuardia tower wanted to him to land, but Smith requested and received permission from the military to continue on to Newark. The last transmission from the LaGuardia tower to the plane was a foreboding warning: "From where I'm sitting, I can't see the top of the Empire State Building."
Confronted with dense fog, Smith dropped the bomber low to regain visibility, where he found himself in the middle of Manhattan, surrounded by skyscrapers. At first, the bomber was headed directly for the New York Central Building but at the last minute, Smith was able to bank west and miss it. Unfortunately, this put him in line for another skyscraper. Smith managed to miss several skyscrapers until he was headed for the Empire State Building. At the last minute, Smith tried to get the bomber to climb and twist away, but it was too late. The Crash
At 9:49 a.m., the ten-ton, B-25 bomber smashed into the north side of the Empire State Building. The majority of the plane hit the 79th floor, creating a hole in the building eighteen feet wide and twenty feet high. The plane's high-octane fuel exploded, hurtling flames down the side of the building and inside through hallways and stairwells all the way down to the 75th floor
The plane crash killed 14 people (11 office workers and the three crewmen) plus injured 26 others. Though the integrity of the Empire State Building was not affected, the cost of the damage done by the crash was $1 million. 
The Empire State Building Today.
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