Reading murray's blog this morning, I was interested to see his post on good bosses and bad bosses. As usual, Mike had great insight objectively and a healthy dose of self awareness. As soon as I read the title, I expected no less. :)

Also as usual, our thinking was very similar, but I do see one part of his post in a very different light:

"I have always believed that management is a responsibility that can be measured by a single factor: staff retention."

I think there's some truth in that statement - untimely and/or unexpected attrition is a bad thing - but I don't believe that staff retention is a powerful enough measurement to capture the success of management as a single factor. One of the most important things that you can do as a manager is to support the growth of your people. Behavioral growth, skills growth, creativity growth. In many cases, this leads to your most talented staff being capable of more than the job they're in. For those who evolve with the team, retention becomes much easier. For those who don't, attrition is not always a bad thing.

There is an impressive list of *extremely* talented people who have worked with the VERT team over the years, and in most of those cases the decision to move to a new challenge has come on the heels of *good* management (myself excluded perhaps?). Staff retention is one of the highest priorities for me as a manager; keeping my team energized and happy is the most rewarding part of what I do.

For the record, Mike is one of the best coaches I have ever worked with. He does a phenomenal job of promoting growth in his staff. Maybe he doesn't give himself enough credit when thinking about his former staff who have moved on.

Perhaps that's a sign of a good boss.