---
title: "If You Never Want Your Team to Have a Bad Day Again, Start Here"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/83f4e6bf-a2b9-42a8-ac1f-510c6a6d260e
source_url: "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-never-want-your-team-have-bad-day-again-start-here-aferiat/?trackingId=HFwq%2BAgkQ%2B2%2BoxBcyU6UUg%3D%3D"
stack: https://stacklist.com/c/education/stack/3701d09f-5d84-426c-aef0-e129d294445b
summary: "Management principles for preventing bad days include avoiding micromanagement, making decisive meetings, and separating priority discussions from implementation. Key practices involve hiring thoughtfully, using effective tools, and maintaining a respectful team culture focused on productivity."
tags: "management, team-leadership, meetings, hiring, workplace-culture, productivity, decision-making"
key_entities: "Scott Adams (person), Philip Smolen (person), Trade Ideas LLC (organization), Dilbert.com (organization), Longhorn (location), Craig's List (technology), staff meetings (concept), hiring practices (concept)"
classification: "reference"
content_hash: "sha256:89448aaabc42c020a256ede4505b79553bb70aa06c719bda03da87ea6726c278"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 315
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# If You Never Want Your Team to Have a Bad Day Again, Start Here

Scott Adam, Dilbert.com I'm stepping aside to let my partner, Philip Smolen, Co-Founder and CTO of Trade Ideas LLC take this space to share pure wisdom on managing meetings and teams. Philip, a fellow Longhorn, is really a graduate of Dilbert and frequently shares its pearls of wisdom with us. Here he elaborates and distills greatness from his experiences: Phil’s rules of management: If you see people working, try not to get in the way. If you don’t want to do something, it’s your job to find someone else to do it. Buying the right tools will usually save money in the long run. Hiring is hard. Firing is hard. Hiring people you know reduces uncertainty. Failing that, try Craig’s List. There’s only so much you learn a lot about people’s job skills at an interview. Interviews are mostly to see if you can get along with someone. I like our staff meetings. People will usually reach out for help when they get stuck on their main project. But this is a good time to catch up on all the little things. Meetings are less annoying when you make a lot of decisions. That’s the opposite of droning on and on. Priorities and implementation are two different things. Separate the discussions. Meetings will be more productive that way. Don’t be a d**k. Enjoy.