Slacker Manager: Slacker@Work

Bren Connelly wrote a very popular manifesto titled Slacker@Work, over a year ago. It is free and can be downloaded at Change This . Bren can be found at his most excellent Web site, Slacker Manager .

I first began visiting Bren’s site shortly after its initial launch and read his manifesto about the same time. One only has to listen and open their eyes to see Bren’s definition of slacker is not relative to the broad label that has been slapped upon folks who appear to be doing less.

 Bren says a slacker who is doing what is important to them, can realize the benefit of pursuing their own interests while simultaneously being seen as a superstar at work. A gentleman I worked with fits the slacker definition to a tee. In his mid twenties, Kurt is indeed a superstar at work. He also is passionate about pursuing outside interests. Your typical, unaware Baby Boomer manager would want Kurt to be even more involved at work. After all, he is that enormously talented, why wouldn’t he? But he doesn’t want to be. This is where unaware managers begin to apply the slacker tag. The key to dialing Kurt in however is to respect his outside interests. The key to dialing with precision is to introduce a connection to Kurt’s outside interests and his day job. It might not always be possible to do.

Bren offers a series of tips to hone in on slacker elitism:

• Living the Golden Rule
• Influencing work-related Mavens
• The Four Hour Rule
• Taking a Mental Health Day
• Office effectiveness
• Using lists
• Effectiveness resources
• Banishing procrastination

 

To enjoy Bren’s Web site and reap the most benefit from his essays on management, life and effectiveness, you must first read his insightful manifesto!

A special privilege that I am enjoying is to see how Bren has evolved over the last year. To begin with he continues to offer helpful ideas, points us in the direction of other helpful people and does it with consistency. Of even greater magnitude in my eyes though, Bren’s skills of developing his ideas and his writing have gone Chicago White Sox.

 

Comments

[Bren]

Thanks for the kind words! Though I don't quite understand the White Sox reference (I'm not reallly a sports guy)

[Dave]

Your welcome Bren! The White Sox organization has evolved over a period of time. Reward for that evolvement led to a World Series title last month.