Birds hate step-ups, but that doesn't mean that you should. They're an effective way to interrupt negative behaviors and show your buddy who's in charge. There's a few tricks when doing step-ups:

• You decide when the bird steps up; that means you need to vary the pace of the step-ups so that the bird needs to watch for your cues and commands.
• You decide when the step-ups end, so don't let your parrot get out of step-ups by flying away, acting sweet, etc.
• The flip side of that is you need to watch for cues to know when you're done with step-ups. You don't need to do 150 step-ups every time; just watch for a cowed parrot who's come back into his normal, sweet self (to the extent that normal = sweet for your particular bird).
• If you need to establish another individual's dominance, "hot potato" -- passing the bird back and forth -- can be a great start. The other individual, however, needs to be strong and not be intimidated by flapping wings or let the bird try to cuddle to get out of the step-ups.
• Do periodic step-ups so it's not always a punishment; otherwise, your parrot may just try to escape punishment when he or she has misbehaved, and a terrorized parrot fleeing around the house is not a good candidate for discipline.