I'll give you an example from my life. My son was born when I was twenty-six. I made decision to stay home with him first two years. But, I knew I needed brain stimulation and interaction with an adult world, so I decided to pursue my interest in writing. I wrote my first article, sent it to a magazine and waited. Every day I anxiously checked mail to discover if today would launch my writing career. When manuscript was finally returned with a regrets note, my aspirations of being a writer ended. I figured an editor knew better than I did what I could do. I'd been waiting for my career lightning to strike.

Twenty something years later, I know success has little to do with lightning strikes. So, when I left corporate world to live and work from mountains of Montana, I took with me that same dream of being a writer. For six months I studied writers and writing, read books, attended seminars and learned business of writing.

Good Cop Bad Cop

By Stephen Bucaro

Are you a manager who's wondering why other department managers don't have same personnel problems you have? Are you a supervisor whose manager thinks you can't control workers under you? In this article, I reveal a technique used by shrewd managers and their supervisors to maximize performance of personnel in their department.

- Note, if your rank is below supervisory level, please discontinue reading this article. This information is for managers and supervisors eyes only.

First, let's put a foundation under information you about to receive.

- The most difficult, complex, and critical resource to control in any organization is not business process, not materials, not technology ... it's people. People are much more complicated to deal with than even most advanced technology. The biggest budget item for any business is labor costs and cost of employee benefits. A business that doesn't get maximum performance from their people resources has little chance of survival.

- If you are a manager who thinks you have power in your department, let me educate you right now - workers can make or break you. The workers have power in your department. I have seen a situation where department supervisor and manager didn't get along. The supervisor conspired with workers to make manager look bad. Eventually, manager was fired.

As a manager, if you don't have rapport and complete trust in your supervisor, you had better sit down with that individual and come to an understanding, or get rid of them immediately. A manager and supervisor must work together like a well oiled machine or employees, not manager, will be running department.

Where manager and supervisor fit into organizational structure.

A manager looks after interests of company. The company allocates resources to manager and manager uses those resources to accomplish company's objectives. A manager needs to be diligent in use of company's resources.