Microstiff - Microsoft Outings of the Third Kind

Microstiff - In Praise of Mini-Microsoft

Nothing could be more gratifying than praise from your fellow reporters and writer friends. I am not necessarily speaking of me - Microstiff.

No, this praise comes from a recognized industry pundit, Rob Enderle of TechNewsWorld and I thought I would tell you about it because...well...it's good stuff!

Rob says it all here and I would like to highlight some of the things that struck me:

There are two guilty pleasures I've developed of late. One is reading "Mini-Microsoft," which is an unauthorized blog by a Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) employee that probably does more to provide a glimpse inside the company and humanize it than anything the firm is officially doing. Taking this beyond Microsoft, I wonder if there is a way to do this more effectively to help a floundering company from the inside."

And more:

So, I really sympathize with the guy who writes "Mini-Microsoft," as well as the guy who used to write (and probably work) for Apple. The "Mini-Microsoft" posts are insightful and likely reflect the feelings inside the company more closely than its own employee surveys do."

Yet more:

According to one rule for effective teambuilding, the ratio of praise to criticism should be 4 to 1. "Mini-Microsoft" suggests it's more like 1 to 2; there is praise, but there seems to be much less of it than criticism. When there is a variation from this rule, it should probably go the other way."

And finally:

If there is criticism, there must be actionable recommendations. I actually think "Mini-Microsoft," in general, does a rather nice job of this. The author does seem to generally consider the implications of what he is criticizing and discusses action items. In most cases, when I see posts like this, they are constant rants. Rants are just annoying, and I've never seen them accomplish much of anything."

A few points from Microstiff:

Readers of Mini, let's all keep up the "actionable recommend- ations" part of our bargain, unwritten, to dialog with Mini!

Regarding "Praise" - Three (3) simple techniques, used sincerely, not manipulatively:

"Praise in public, criticize in private" - Think about it. Sit down with someone and talk with them. If you're a manager, show them how they can improve. Too many times we say to ourselves, "his/her work sucks" and then, as managers, we don't try to correct it. It could be as simple, for them, as not knowing how something is done.
"You can't know what you don't know" - Manager, ascertain what the employee knows and doesn't know. Don't cast blame because the employee may not know the right answer/policy/procedure; simply work to correct it. Don't "should" on the employee.
Use the Sandwich Technique for behavior modification: "Praise (bread), problem behavior (meat), Praise again (bread). It works! Try it at home.