'Management 101:' Set a fire. Wait until it escalates. Resolve it. Tell everyone you put out a fire.

The headline pretty much says it all here, but I was thinking about this at the end of last week. This really is how most people manage in small, medium, and large corporations. The essential step process is:

• Set a fire: You do this by lobbing some new concept out, or adding new people to an e-mail that don't really need to be there but will still want t…