Wagner's MBA Law of the Sabbath (7th Day) Rest

Wagner's MBA Law of the Sabbath (7th Day) Rest: If you rest every 7th day, as Jews and Christians learn about, you will be less likely to experience powerful chemical and process addictions, such as alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gambling, work, pornography, sex, Internet, video games, sports, fishing, hunting, and shopping, etc. Keeping the 7th day holy and for resting helps prevent addiction. Saying NO for one day means you control your life, and that your life doesn't control you.

Wagner's MBA Law of Expecting Narcissists to Behave Ethically

Wagner's MBA Law of Expecting Narcissists to Behave Ethically: Narcissists just don't understand the subject called "Ethics" and they won't apologize for all the damage they cause while society suffers their cold, self-centered behavior, as they learn "Ethics", which is a subject that seems to come almost naturally to everybody else.

Wagner's MBA Law of Correcting Group Errors

Wagner's MBA Law of Correcting Group Errors: Getting a group of people to accept the (even obvious) truth behind their own wrong thinking... is difficult! Each person in the group uses the group and others in the group to reinforce "the same" and reject "the different". Beware ye of groups!

Wagner's MBA Law of Hiring Friends

Wagner's MBA Law of Hiring Friends: Friends whom you hire are only a known quantity and maintain strict boundaries; hire a friend when the friendship provides a level of assurance that the predetermined position and performance requirements will be met or exceeded, and don't hire a friend if the job position is substantially changed or performance expectations lowered due to the friendship.

Wagner's MBA Law of Good Hiring versus Good Supervising

Wagner's MBA Law of Good Hiring versus Good Supervising: You can train a chimpanzee to hire people by matching the symbols of the job position with the resumes, but it takes the high order skills of a thoughtful and diligent leader to motivate and develop those employees.

Wagner's MBA Law of Updating Facebook During Church Services

Wagner's MBA Law of Updating Facebook During Church Services: Avoid posting or liking on Facebook during church unless you are actually at church; else your friends at church will see the time of your post or be cruising the FB Newsfeed themselves and start looking for you at church. Better yet, turn your phone off during church.

Wagner's MBA Laws of Dairy Farming (and management)

Wagner's MBA Laws of Dairy Farming (and management): 1. Feed, milk, and monitor the cows, and shovel concomitant manure; 2. If you are short on milk, you will be long on manure; 3. If you are long on milk, you will be even longer on manure; 4. Let "bulls" spread "ideas" through the opened gates; 5. Expect milk and inspect milk; 6. A dairy farm that doesn't produce milk is just a manure factory; 7. Don't blame the cows!

Wagner's MBA Law of Helping Manipulators

Wagner's MBA Law of Helping Manipulators: Manipulative people almost always want cash or control, no matter how complex their stories become, because these can feed their addictions; rarely do they want a sandwich or a sympathetic ear.

Wagner's MBA Laws of "Tending Burn Pile"

Wagner's MBA Laws of "Tending Burn Pile:" For you "City Folk" out there, you tend burn pile by: 1. DO NOT LET THE FIRE GET OUT OF CONTROL; 2. DO NOT FALL INTO THE FIRE -- remember that the fire does not know the difference between you and wood / leaves; 3. Move the un-burnt material toward the center of the fire, so it all burns up; 4. Only start a fire on official burn days; 5. Don't be seen throwing old couches and stuff that generates black smoke into the fire; 6. When the fire gets about 18 inches of flame on the top, you can throw green wood and leaves on it and the fire will burn it almost as well as dry wood; 7. When tending burn pile in the pouring rain, don't forget to turn yourself to dry the other side; 8. Pay attention to what you are doing and don't day-dream!

Wagner's MBA Law of the Future

Wagner's MBA Law of the Future: Think: Now. The Present keeps The Past from bumping into and even occluding The Future.

Wagner's MBA Law of Organizational Problem Responsibility

Wagner's MBA Law of Organizational Problem Responsibility: All problems are management problems (or opportunities). Managers who blame their staff for long term problems are insufficiently trained for their current positions... and being silly (in my opinion). Any problem that lasts for more than a few weeks is by definition a problem that should be addressed by organizational management. I personally and hereby scold you managers who assign blame to your staff for problems/issues/challenges for which you and you alone should be the one responsible. Shame on you. OK, that sounds a little heavy, but it is time to stop shirking your responsibility.

Wagner's MBA Law of U-Turns

Wagner's MBA Law of U-Turns: The moment and place at which you most need to make a U-Turn is usually marked with a "No U-Turn Sign"...

Wagner's MBA Law of Duck Hunting. Working with some people is like taking Stevie Wonder duck hunting... It is a wonderful and interesting experience with a marvelous and talented person, which you enjoy thoroughly up to that random moment when you are accidentally "shot with both barrels at point blank range" so to speak and he "can't see how to give you life-saving first aid."

Wagner's MBA Law of Corn

Wagner's MBA Law of Corn: "Plant corn by Memorial Day and if it is higher than a crow's back by July 4th, you will have a good crop." -- my Grandfather, David Campbell Wagner.

Wagner's MBA Law of Overcoming Incompetent People

Wagner's MBA Law of Overcoming Incompetent People: Keep up the great work! Don't let anyone, no matter how incompetent they are, hinder you from the awesome work you do! Go team! (Oh, and if I'm the one hindering you... I sincerely apologize!)

Wagner's MBA Law of Human Resources Department Emergencies

Wagner's MBA Law of Human Resources Department Emergencies: Emergencies in the HR Department do not exist and they do not exist for the duration and magnitude to which the HR department insists that they do exist. That is, there is no such thing as an emergency in HR. All this talk about HR being absolutely critical to a company's operation is the exact opposite of realty. In sum, don't run to an HR emergency. There is no fire. ALWAYS walk...

Wagner's MBA Law of Smiling

Wagner's MBA Law of Smiling: Dr. Seuss-ically speaking: Up and down, turned-around, a smile is not far or even hard, just a frown turned upside down... smile emoticon Or Dr. Geometrically speaking: A symmetrical, convex, and hyperbolic arc with a high inflection point, when inverted by negating the data points along the ordinate, simply becomes a concave, hyperbolic arc with a low inflection point.

Wagner's MBA Law of Worry

Wagner's MBA Law of Worry: We often worry about the unlikely, impossible, or even imponderable. For example: "And how will we survive the zombie apocalypse, if they mutate and evolve...?"

Wagner's MBA Law of Changing the World

Wagner's MBA Law of Changing the World: First, change the world for the better and, then, sincerely apologize later... Asking for permission often builds opposition rather than consensus...