13 Top Habits of How NOT to Manage

There is always plenty of advise about how to do things. How to bind a tie, how to lose weight, well even how to get pregnant. Also I described a few ideas recently, for example, how to improve your communication, how to motivate children, and how to fail.

Well, sometimes it's more helpful to see how NOT to do things (as described by Scott Berkun in has essay Creative Thinking Hacks, section "Inversion"), in order to come up with a clearer picture how to address things properly.

For instance, you might think about how not to do business. Part of doing business is also managing a business. Perfect examples of how NOT to manage can be seen in the great TV series The Office (UK), and it's US and German adoptions.

"I'm similar to God. He's not that visible all the time either, yet has a good image". Source: http://www.az-online.de/nachrichten/stars/buero-ekel-stromberg-seine-fiesesten-sprueche-fotostrecke-458009.html (translation mine)

Thus, I kept an open eye about what annoys me about bosses, what I hear others complain about, what I hear leaders and managers consider wrong (or they consider good, and I added it to this list nevertheless) ... I think in pretty much everybody's daily routine there are plenty of opportunities to witness something similar.

So, my Top 13 Habits of How NOT to Manage list is as follows (not in order):

1. Leave your subordinates in permanent uncertainty, about future projects, their position, their task
2. Threat them as resources, and ignore their personality and feelings
3. Just talk about yourself in a showing-off way all the time
   
4. Only contact them when something is wrong, but never praise them
5. Disturb them all the time when you have nothing else to do (preferably in order to talk about yourself in a showing-off way)
6. Strictly follow a Theory X approach of motivation 
7. Don't respond to their requests on time
8. If you do, by all means avoid a clear message, but rather use some cloudy (also relates to the "uncertainty" mentioned above)
9. Express yourself in a super arrogant, self-praising means in general
10. In case of immediate threat of one of your dear fellows leaving your company, simply suggest a raise in payment instead of asking for the underlying reasons for her dissatisfaction
11. Break your promises
12. Closely observe whatever they are doing, on a very frequent basis (that is, micro manage them)
13. Give unclear instructions

If you are in a managing or coordinating position yourself, do your colleagues the favor and think for a minute or two whether you might be guilty for some of the aforementioned. It does not mind that doing the opposite makes you a good manager right away, but it will definitely contribute to some improvement.

I'm sure I forget something, and there are several others absolute don'ts for managers ... so please let me know, which ones are you aware of? What annoys you most about your bosses or colleagues?

Just a Tiny Little Piece of that Tempting Cake

Every now and then, when I hear about some major invention, two things happen: First, I refuse using it altogether - I don't need this, nobody will use it, and so on (pretty much a non-early adopter as possible). Second, I finally yield, and then I cannot stop wondering myself why to hell that invention didn't come to my mind earlier. After all, it's that obvious that exactly this is needed by millions!

I remember that was the case when Google became big 'all of a sudden' (which I initially rejected in favor of that vintage thing called altavista.com), it was the same with Facebook (which I was very convinced I would never need), and it was the same with Twitter (which I'm still proud of not using!). All of them build on a fairly simple technical foundation, yet their usage and impact was straight amazing. I promised myself not to let it happen again.

When I was in Prague for New Years Eve, I was surrounded by my friend's smartphones all the time. Over a sample size of 14 heads and shoulders, smartphone penetration reached about two thirds. And the applications, holy crap! For example, you can make a panorama picture of your friends, whose heads are then automatically detected and used as moving targets for shooting (well, you can argue about the usefulness of that). And of course, games like Cut the Rope, Angry Birds or my colleagues' successful poker. Not to mention the actually useful applications. GPS sensor, camera, ... millions of possibilities.

And millions of users, too. Namely, over 200 million on iOS, and most likely by the time well over 200 million on Android, too. A few more impressive numbers from byterevel.com:

• 15 billion apps downloaded from the App Store
• 200+ million users of iDevices worldwide
• $2.5 billion has been paid to developers

So there we go ... in total, some 400 million mobile users ... or should I rather say, potential clients? As you might have anticipated by how surprised I am about the various possibilities and these amazing figures, I am totally new to the smartphone world. I am about adopting very late once again ... but I hope it will not be too late. The pot is simply too big and too tempting. Ladies and Gentlemen, let me hereby announce that I claim my appropriate share of the mobile development cake!

As a starting point, I already purchased a tablet, an Acer A500, for what a developer do I make without any equipment (ha, finally found some proper excuse for myself to buy a tablet!).

I am totally aware of the fact that the aforementioned claim is totally naive and without any serious thinking. It sounds like a child having big plans to become a music star or actor once she's grown up. Well, I don't care. I simply feel that now is the right time to give it a shot, against all odds, so that's what I'll do.

I'm inclined to make some simple calculation:

400 million users. If, by any chance, I hit the jackpot and one of my apps turns out to be a super-super hit, and I reach only 0.1 % of the users, and if each of them only pays 1$ ... that's still some 400k!

Well, I already found it's not quite that easy. Furthermore, from a technical point, I'm starting at essentially zero. I do have some knowledge in Java and programming in general, though, so I expect this to be the smallest problem (I decided to start with Android first. For Apple development the initial investment would have been an additional development machine).

The major challenges I'm prepared for are as follows:

• Design, User Interface, Graphics ... I know that this is one of my weak points. Think I'll see how it goes, ask for advice here and there, and maybe look for a helping hand in case this turns out to be necessary
• PR, Marketing, and more specifically, buzz marketing. Literally, zero experience there. Contacts to magazines, blogs, online stores, Web 2.0 measures, psychology of the masses (animal spirits) and so on ... well, if I reach that point, I'll know I have reached a lot already, but then the real challenges begin.
• Though competition. Naturally, a huge pot attracts many others either. Roughly half a million apps on App Store speak a clear language.
• Ideas. I strongly feel that's the key point. There are several idea-provoking approaches, and I had a few ones already. For learning purposes, I decided to start with a simple currency converter. There are tons out there already, but as far as I could see up to know, none of them has that particular feature ... so stay tuned here if you're interested ;-)
• .. plus of course all the other unknown unknowns

So, TL;DR, why am I writing this at all? First, I wanted to let you all know about my new tablet ;-). Second, that's some form of PR either, right (even though I don't doubt any real PR guy couldn't stop shaking his head over what I'm writing here)?

Third and most of all, it is self-commitment! Ever since I stumbled upon Leo Babauta's 7 steps to turn your self improvement desires into reality (3. Commit thyself, big time), I found that it really helps me to stay focused onto something once I told others about it, which is what I'm doing now.

And staying focused and committed I want ... in order to get at least a tiny little piece of that tempting cake. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to facing all those challenges, and you are invited to join me on that journey.

P.S.: What do you miss most on your smartphone? In which regard do existing apps and games suck, where do you see some potential improvement? Got any other funny or useful idea? Just let me know!

Nothing Is Ever What It Seems - An Alternate View To The Globe

Recently I was given an atlas as a present by good friends. May not sound too surprising - unless you take into account that this atlas does not represent the world in the way we got used to since we were kids, but in a slightly different format. Something like this (source: petersmap.com):

Confused? Maybe even more so if you contrast it with the more traditional world map (source: maps.com, combined by the author; click to enlarge):

As you see, some areas on the traditional map (on the right side), appear bigger relative to others, when compared to the Peters map (on the left side), which presents areas exactly in the ratio they actually are. A few highlights of how areas are over-presented in the traditional map (all numbers: wikipedia.org):

• Europe appears only slightly smaller than Africa; in fact, it's only one third (10,180,000 km² vs. 3,221,532 km²)
• Greenland appears similar to Brazil, whereas actually it's only a quarter (2,166,086 km² vs. 8,514,877 km²)
• The three Scandinavian countries Norway, Sweden and Finland combined appear even bigger than Mexico, whereas the very opposite is true (835,216 km² vs. 1,972,550  km² )

So, what's wrong here? Well, the problem is, that we are apparently trying to represent a round, three-dimensional ball on a flat, two-dimensional sheet of paper. Kind of similar to squaring the circle, which is known to be rather difficult a task either.

Thus, inherently all representations of the world on a map are wrong.

Each representation is a trade-off between keeping

• distance equality
• angle equality
• area equality

Unfortunately, you can only preserve two, but not all of them (for more background information, please refer to the Wikipedia article on map projection).

Since maps were originally mainly used for navigational purposes, it was rather useful to keep both distance and angle, and disregard area equality. (Just imagine where important sailors like Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Marco Polo or James Cook might have ended up on their long journeys home without proper cartographic and navigational equipment)

However, this "area inequality" is more severe the closer you come to the poles. Therefore, areas closer to the poles are more stretched and appear bigger relative to the ones around the equator. As it happens, this representation extremely favours areas like the USA and Europe - the western world, at the expense of Africa, Latin America, ...

This is not to blame "westerns" of using a "wrong" map - as I said before, all maps are wrong to some extent. Yet, I think disregarding economic power and political strength, it is fair not to draw any short-sighted conclusions based on a misleading representation of sizes.

Call me paraglider ... ehm, officially tested paragliding pilot!

Several weeks ago, I joined airdrenaline, a local paragliding club. During Monday's annual meeting of the club, I was awarded the "Diploma Pilot paraglajdera", rendering me an officially tested paragliding pilot!

In the weeks between, I got to know some of the guys from the club fairly well, and it's hard to describe how great a time I had. In the meantime, I

• scared away a cow which was calmly eating when I approached it from the air
• scared away a farmer who was taking a dump in the field
• literally found the pretty worst landing zone on the entire hill (some coppice)
• literally found the only tree on the entire hill

It's definitely no exaggeration to say that a big share of my amazing year 1 aftermath is due to you, dear colleagues from the club.
Admittedly, the ratio between effort and actual enjoyment is fairly high, similar to, say, surfing, or ... well, I guess you can imagine one or two more similar activities.

For those of you who are not familiar with paragliding: Basically, the only equipment used is a wing, to which you are connected with an awful lot of lines. Unfortunately, these lines have a tendency to get tangled whenever they can. This wing is made of ultra-light fabric such as polyester, and typically around 25-30 sqm. It is constructed in a way that it would fly without any external powers - as soon as it is inflated properly. Once in the air, you mainly control it via a left and a right line (brake). Pulling the left brake deflates the glider a little bit on that side, resulting in the air streaming faster through the right part of it. Consequently, you turn left.

Typically, you start by spreading your glider on a hill and turn your back to the hill, looking towards the glider. Under normal conditions, the wind blows up hill. Therefore, once you start pulling the lines, the glider inflates and, since it's constructed in a way to fly, it starts ascending above your head.
Something like that:

Useless to say, it also starts showing its own will, too. Thus, the first two days of learning how to handle a glider only consist of getting to know what the glider wants, and how to enforce what you want. Pulling it up. Glider going down. Pulling it up. Glider pulling you five meters in one direction. And pulling it up. Glider all of a sudden trying to take you off, and concerned instructor trying to hold you back. Packing glider. And again.

However, the moments where you gain control over the glider become more frequent and longer.
Until, one day, you are considered to be ready for takeoff. In order to do that, you pull up the glider until it is directly above you, turn, raise your hands in order to release the brakes ... and then you run. Remember, it's still takeoff against the wind, so you must run and pull really strong:

... until, all of a sudden, the wind just lifts you up, and you are flying .. woohooo!

Similar to some of the other activities from above, it's hard to describe it to somebody who never experienced it himself. For me, it's an awesome combination of freedom, calmness ... well, you best simply try it out yourself!

Even though I obtained the diploma now, I know there is so much and more to learn ... and I can't tell you how excited I am to spend some more time out there in the Bosnian mountains, together with some nice guys, doing something that is simply awesome...

P.S.: If you are interested in more pictures, check out the club's Facebook page. There are also some cool videos on youtube.

About The Freedom Of Goods

Chapter 2 of "TITLE I - Free movement of goods" of the Consolidated version of the Treaty establishing the European Community provides the basis for one of the four major pillars of what is referred to as the Single Market.

According to europa.eu,

... controls on the movement of goods within the internal market have been abolished and the European Union is now a single territory without internal frontiers.
The abolition of customs tariffs promotes intra-Community trade, which accounts for a large part of the total imports and exports of the Member States.
Articles 28 and 29 of the Treaty establishing the European Community prohibit import and export restrictions between all Member States. However, if there is a threat to public health or the environment, Member States may restrict the free movement of goods.

This renders the EU a customs union, a special type of free trade area. Well, good and nice - as long as you find yourself on the lucky side of globalization, and as long as you don't happen to live in a country which is implicitly excluded from the union, by not being explicitly included. Like, say, Bosnia for example, in which case even purchasing a kindle via Amazon can become quite lengthy a process.

I will not dive into the pros and cons of free trade vs. protectionism now (oh, just found there is an entire article dedicated to the free trade debate on Wikipedia). Instead, I want to tell you how surprised I was again this week.

As some of you might remember, I bought a motorbike a while ago. Since I found that registering a vehicle can be quite complex a task for a foreigner in Bosnia (and, I assume, in most other countries too), this bike is now registered on a local friend's name. Recently, I talked to two Austrian custom experts, about me driving to Austria with 'my' BiH bike. Bang! Shake-heads, absolutely no, how can I even think about it (that's the young, naive European again), no way!

Just to be clear: Even with a written permission from the owner, I (as a citizen of an EU member state) must not 'import' any vehicle from a third-country ... and in that context, simply driving the vehicle across the border, and be it just for one hour, is 'importing' already.

I must confess, this requires me to rethink the entire idea of 'importing'. For me, that was rather permanent a thing, i.e., with the intent of using something for an extended period, or selling it. On the contrary, the liability to declare a good already arises by simply moving the good across the border, disregarding intended duration and purpose.

But, you might think, what happens if my friend rides the bike across the border, and I just use it afterwards? Well, I was informed, that's "abusive usage" then, representing a criminal act from both of us ...

Thinking the other way round, the same is true if I lend my Austrian car to a friend here - "abusive usage"! I'm neither a lawyer nor a customs expert (however I'm guilty of istism right now), and I guess there is some rationale behind that interpretation (am I also guilty of being naive now?), but my common sense simply cannot see anything wrong about it. It is my friends bike, and he is lending it to me, so why should I not drive to Austria, or any other place I want to?

I don't know whether the EU in general is too positively perceived at the moment, but giving me the freedom to lend my stuff to whomever I want, for whichever purpose I want, is clearly a great thing ... and that is what the Freedom of Goods is all about.

I Know That I Know Nothing

I know that I know nothing -- Socrates, Greek philosopher

Yes, I know, I used that quote in my last week's post about my first year in Bosnia already, but it is also related to what I want to talk about today.

The final sentence there is: "... having learned a few things already. At the same time, I know that I know nothing." After I learned a little bit about local habits, I reached a point where I knew enough to know that there is much and more to come. In fact, I tend to think that this is true about pretty much everything one learns.

Since I once ago took some courses in economics and economist are very fond of curves (the ones on diagrams, of course, what did you think??), I tried to compress and summarize my thoughts in a small graph.

On the x-axis, there is the "actual knowledge" in red, compared to "perceived knowledge" (by you, not by others) in blue, both as they are developing over time.

The actual knowledge does steadily increase over time. Of course, this is a huge over-simplification, because learning curves are different in different fields; the improvement might not be as steady as pictured out but stagnate or sometimes even decline (that is, you forget something); there are several difficulties related to accurately measuring knowledge. Yet, I think the fundamental principle remains more or less the same: Your actual knowledge does grow over time.

The perceived knowledge, however, does not. Depending on one's personality, perceived growth of knowledge is similar to the actual, or might even out-perform it. (Raise your hand if you never learned something new, thought you are a super-hero and natural talent after day 1 - just to fall flat on your face on the 2nd.)

In my understanding, this parallel growth of actual and perceived knowledge continues, until one of the following things happens:

• You fall flat on your face
• Your knowledge is challenged, particularly in fields you were not yet that profound in (e.g., an exam)
• You meet, or read something from, somebody who you think you can learn something, just to be surprised how much there is still too learn

In any case, your perceived knowledge drops immediately, which actually is quite irrational a thing. You know that you've learned something already - on the other hand, only now you found how much more complex that field of knowledge actually is, and how much more there is still too learn.

Some people just give up on the sight of the remaining part of the path. Maybe you know the Simpsons episode where Homer tries to climb up the Murderhorn, at one point looking up to the top of the mountain like this (source: sharetv.org):

However, as I pointed out above: I'm quite convinced that this is simply part of the way to mastering any subject. Again and again, you will encounter such peaks of perceived knowledge - just to find that there is more to come, the actual top of the mountain is even farther. In such moments, just visualize one of the pictures from above (yes, both the curves and Homer may do) and remember: Your actual knowledge is still increasing. Yet, even who was believed to be one of the wisest men of ancient Greeks knew - that he knew nothing.

P.S.: I'd be interested in some other literature which covers that topic or goes into a similar direction, so I'd be very grateful for all links or suggestions.

First Year in Bosnia, Aftermath

I know that I know nothing -- Socrates, Greek philosopher

It's now roughly one year already that I'm living in Banja Luka and I'm amazed by all the various people I met and the interesting impressions and habits I was exposed to. So, just about getting time to sum them up, right?

I learned that Serbian orthodox people celebrate Slava on the day their ancestors accepted Christianity, and Christmas and other Christian feasts according to the Julian calendar, normally around two weeks after Catholics. They would typically attend funerals also of the parents of friends and colleagues from work, in order to share their grief - something fairly uncommon in Austria.

Furthermore, I was surprised to hear that school classes are typically held in shifts, that is, one week you attend school from morning till around noon, and the next week you have afternoon classes only. Apparently, this is mainly due to shortage in rooms in schools.

Probably most remarkable for me, I feel that people are generally much more flexible here than in Austria. (Of course, such generalizations are kind of stupid, but I don't claim I'm providing any scientific proof and just talking about my personal impressions. Ha, on the safe side now!) Austrians tend to (over-) plan and organize, think several weeks in advance, just to be surprised that in the meantime circumstances changed and therefore their entire plan needs to be adjusted. Not so here, though ... it will be fine, that way or the other, so why bother thinking and struggling today?

That flexibility also applies when it comes to appointments. Yes, maybe you agreed to meet somewhere at a certain time, but there are so many things that might arise between agreeing and actually meeting, so it's fairly possible that you just re-arrange five minutes before that.

Flexibility sometimes also manifests as simply not caring too much. Why ride your motorbike with a helmet and registration blades? After all, that's just a stupid regulation from police, and until they notice that you are driving without helmet, you have passed already anyway, and of course, they will not run after you.

Overall, I thought that I had gotten a fairly well feeling for the mindset of people around here, but just last Friday my naïvety hit me again.

On Monday, November 21st, there was the 16th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement. Since that represents the end of the Bosnian War, you might assume that both Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina consider that worth celebrating, right? But far from it! It's only a national holiday in the Republika Srpska, the Serbian-dominated entity. People in the Federation celebrate on November 25th, the Statehood Day of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Naturally, that is not recognized by the RS.

How can I still be surprised about this?

My impression is that, particularly when it comes to issues related to the war, my understanding is still quite poor.
Furthermore, when it comes to (not) doing business and working habits, I think that in various regards it's evident that I, a child raised in a capitalist country, simply lack the understanding of what drives people with a communist background.

Concluding, I would say that I met lots of interesting and nice people, and that I'm happy to watch my (not-so-) new environment with the curiosity of a child and having learned a few things already. At the same time, I know that I know nothing.

P.S.: In case you are enjoying already but don't yet value some of the freedoms granted to you by being part of the EU (as was the case for me), feel invited to visit me and experience being short of them. No visa regulations (that is, freedom of movement)? No need to pay customs on the border, or think about it at all when ordering something online (that is, freedom of goods)? Of course, I don't say these advantages come without prize and EU is purely a supercool thing but some of the key advantages became that natural for us already, so it is good to keep it in mind they are not yet for many others.