the art of management

the last few days i have been working much more closely with my boss and his boss, and picking up lots of tips from them. work had been getting more and more hectic, and we felt that we had been working harder instead of working smarter, and that is a very irritating feeling. so we sat down and made out a few plans, so as to not fall in the 3-P trap.. piss poor planning.

thing is, i've been bombarded by so many cliched phrases which are actually very true.. "work smarter, not harder", "don't set yourself up to fail", "respect must be gained", "keep communication lines open always", "leadership cannot be taught" etc, but my favorite by far is
"you must be ready to kick someone's ass and buy him coffee, not necessarily in that order, and not always either"