Today, someone sent me a note that made me laugh out loud.

About 12 years ago, when I was a technical manager in a fairly large software development shop, I became pretty close friends with a number of other managers there. We still keep in touch. Well today, one of my former co-worker wrote to me that he was just talking about me. Here is what he wrote…

I was just talking about you yesterday! Had a VP yelling at me and was replying back with clear, logical answers. I learned that from watching you

Yea. I remember those days. Evidently I had gained a reputation of staying pretty cool in the storm.

And what’s the deal with managers yelling at their fellow employees? I have little respect for that kind of behavior. Surely there are more creative ways to motivate or express frustration. I can remember raising my voice to emphasize a point a few times when I was a manager. But it was a rare event. And the team members knew it. Yelling at co-workers was never an option.