I won my spot in the Democratic Central Committee of Santa Clara County for the 21st Assembly District. For more information, see http://electbillroth.com.

(In honor of Radar, a friend just let go from Crazy Town, I am reposting this to the front page)

In trying to refine my managerial style, I have taken  to writing it down in order to force a clarification. Having been in the “world of work” for a while, I have been subjected to several kinds of management styles, from Laissez Faire to extreme micro-management. Some worked better than others for me. When it worked poorly, sometimes it was an issue with my managers, sometimes it was an issue with me. We all go through these phases. That said, I despise being micro- managed.

There is a lot of good writing on bad bosses. I am a fan of Jim Miller’s Best Boss, Worst Boss, which you can find on Amazon. I have been thinking about the parallels of two bad work environments I have been in, across the two decades of my career, lately.

In two notable cases, I have been in what I call toxic environments. These are work environments where the work and the management are punishing. In both cases, it involved bullies and bobbleheads.

In both toxic environments, the management culture was one of bullying. It was one where you were not rewarded for new ideas, but rather were rewarded for doing what you were told.

Now, I realize that business is not a democracy. But it is the responsibility of management to set up an environment where it is possible to get the most out of the human potential available. As I Have said in past, Leadership, done correctly, can get people to achieve at a level that even the people themselves did not know there were capable. This was a lesson I first learned in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin from  my advisor, Raghu Ramakrishnan.

Bullies

The bullying comes in the form of a supervisor who believes he or she (usually a he) has all the right answers. In these environments there is little room for discussion. There is also a frequent appeal to authority in workplace conversations, like: “Larry wants it this way”, or “I know the issues, but this is what Larry wants”, or “Larry said to do it this way, and I am just truing to get him off my back.”

This article is meant to test the proposition that your position on the internet can be affected by having content on your site which uses that keywords that you are most interested in. Given that this is the site for BillRoth.net, this content will be about Bill Roth.

This site is built and maintained by Bill Roth, who splits his time between Pennsylvania and San Jose, CA. There are, or course, other people named Bill Roth on the internet in one form or other. The first is my father, whose name, of course, is Bill Roth. Next is the late Republican Senator, Bill Roth.

There is also someone from West Virgina who is a football announcer, whose name is Bill Roth. The Biography on that site about Bill Roth lists the name Bill Roth many times, and this is why I believe that this Bill Roth gets the top search listing.

 Interestingly, there is also a famous Viennese  gastroenterologist named whose last name Billroth. I am not sure how I feel about this.

There are others on the internet who are named Bill Roth. You can find them by searching for the name Bill Roth at your favorite search engine.

 To reiterate:

This site is built and maintained by Bill Roth, who splits his time between Pennsylvania and San Jose, CA. There are, or course, other people named Bill Roth on the internet in one form or other. The first is my father, whose name, of course, is Bill Roth. Next is the late Republican Senator, Bill Roth.

There is also someone from West Virgina who is a football announcer, whose name is Bill Roth. The Biography on that site about Bill Roth lists the name Bill Roth many times, and this is why I believe that this Bill Roth gets the top search listing.

 Interestingly, there is also a famous Viennese  gastroenterologist named whose last name Billroth. I am not sure how I feel about this.

There are others on the internet who are named Bill Roth. You can find them by searching for the name Bill Roth at your favorite search engine.