In management, learning always keeps it interesting...for everyone involved.

Management is thrilling. It has been enormously fun and interesting, but my favorite part is how much I've been learning. I got a call from a colleague that I was going to be a member of CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education). This was great because I've always been involved with professional organizations. I had left academia for a couple years and I think this is a great way to re-introduce myself in a formal way. Professional organizations are always worth it and this one appears to have a lot of interesting and relevant resources.

Also, last week I went to a Fred Pryor seminar called "Essential Skills for First-time Managers or Supervisors." I went on the recommendation of a colleague and it was awesome. It was particularly awesome because in three months I got a smorgasbord of issues to deal with as a manager and heard about how to handle them at this seminar. I was happy to hear that in a lot of ways I was actually doing okay. Afterward, I was looking through my notes and found a few quick snippets that were covered at the seminar:

• One must be CRYSTAL clear.
• Document everything.
• Give employees the priority list.
• Get creative with incentives for your employees.
• Hire people smarter than you.

The first three things I think I've accomplished and continue to make a regular part of my work day as best I can. The last two are a couple of nuggets that I picked up at the seminar and I'm particularly intrigued by the last one and it makes perfect sense.

My favorite part of the seminar was the importance placed on reading. One of the essentials was "Read, read, read." It made me think about how I could role that into an employee incentive. By giving them time to read, they can back away from the computer and learn on company time should the week's workload allow for it. Giving them this time could also lead to increased creativity and enhance their knowledge on topics like philanthropy, business and higher education.

Inspired by the message to read, read, read, I totally got pulled into buying something. It seems "too good to be true" but this is my second Fred Pryor/CareerTrack and I've heard amazing stories about the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics System. Both speakers said they've shared this with their families; both swore it changed their life and one of them told me they've never, ever had one returned. It's supposed to drastically improve your reading speed and, more importantly, increase your retention. So I went for it. I love reading, but I use that lame excuse "There's no time to read." I've been trying to carve in time, but now I'm going to try to take it one level further and give this a shot. I will definitely post my experience once I'm done with the program.