The Case for Wasting Time and Other Management Heresies

About the Book

Understanding the basic tenets of management is certainly important, but following the conventional wisdom—such as not “wasting time”—is not necessarily the key to solving problems or achieving personal success. Providing advice that goes against that conventional wisdom is exactly what this book is about, whether it concerns how to get things done as you move up in a company or how to develop relationships and support both inside and outside an organization. In fact, not only is the advice unconventional—and in many cases heretical—so too are the subjects covered. For example, the importance of validating assumptions is not something you are likely to read about in most business books. But as Howard Pines explains, if you don’t, you are likely to make both embarrassing and sometimes costly errors. Similarly, while there are many books that will tell you how to get a job, there are virtually no others that explain how to determine the best time and way to leave a job and/or a business. In addition, even when discussing aspects of business that are covered in other books, such as negotiating or dealing with change, the author enables you to see those subjects in a way that is both different and helpful. “Wasting Time” does not, however, provide simple answers. Rather, based on the author’s fifty years of hands-on experience as a human resources executive, successful HR consultant, and business owner, the book shows how even issues that appear to be straightforward may, in reality, provide interesting dilemmas that require creative thinking and non-traditional approaches if you want to achieve the best solution!

About the Author

Howard Pines’ fifty years of hands-on experience in the business world has enabled him to develop a keen awareness of and a pragmatic approach to what is required to make the various functions within an organization work together effectively, efficiently, and profitably.

At BeamPines, which he co-founded in 1981 with Dr. Jerome Beam, he led the coaching and consulting practices, where both the company and its clients relied on his ability to coach senior executives, and a number of successful entrepreneurs utilized the business consulting services to locate, purchase, and operate their ventures. During his thirty plus years with the company he also co-founded the Beam Group, an executive search firm, and the BeamPines/Middlesex University Master’s Program in Executive Coaching.

Before founding BeamPines, he was corporate senior vice president of human resources for Standard Brands Inc., a Fortune 200 Company, where he held worldwide responsibility for all human resources functions. His previous assignment with Standard Brands, as vice president and chief administrative officer for their Consumer Products Group, involved restructuring and upgrading its U.S. food companies.

Previously at SBI he had partnered in the development of the corporate performance management system, which was used for determining and measuring the achievement of business goals for the three hundred most senior executives throughout the company’s worldwide operations, and became the basis for the corporation’s executive and succession planning activities. He began his career at SBI when he joined P. Ballantine & Sons, prior to which he worked at the Prudential Insurance Company.

Mr. Pines holds a law degree from Seton Hall University. Over the years, he has served as a director on several boards within the consumer products and financial services industries. He presently lives with his wife, Judith, on Amelia Island in Florida. While he still takes on an occasional consulting assignment, he now spends most of his time playing golf and writing a bi-weekly column for the Fernandina Beach News-Leader.