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Archive for March, 2010

Management Development Secrets – Learning Away From Home

Great opportunities are all around managers in the workplace when they want to improve and grow their skills.

There are a range of people who can support them and sometimes, to add to the mix, there are opportunities to learn from further afield too.

Like never before, where managers have the vision to see the possibilities as they develop their skills and career, there are no end of opportunities they can experience, even aside from the usual workshops and training sessions.

As we become aware of the responsibilities we have to improve ourselves, we will listen to the wisdom of mentors, who have done the role we have and, as they say, ‘gotten the tee-shirt’!

If we are truly fortunate, we will enjoy the support of our own line-manager who will have the care to nurture us through their challenging coaching, which will draw through us our latent capabilities.

We will see and hear the works of employees, colleagues and our peer group managers who can share experiences and ‘what worked’ and ‘what didn’t’ too.

In the workplace therefore, there is much going for us where we can expand our basic abilities we have to become much, much more.

For those managers who care to look further afield, there are ideas and strategies for you that can pop up from the most unlikely of sources.

Here are three rather different places to look for a little enlightenment, in the broadest sense!

Similar Organizations

Where you can take a close look at what competitors or other like-minded organizations do, there are often useful insights you can glean from what they are about.

You can assimilate tactics from these, but to find out about their management activities that will help you develop personally, you need to know more.

It could be that you listen carefully to those of their people you come into contact with and extrapolate the management behaviors that drive their sharp-end employees’ performances.

Different Organizations

If you are confident enough, you can draw just as much valuable information from very different organizations and businesses.

By being very broad in your awareness of what other management teams do in their workplace, you can start to draw out ideas that might work in a very different environment.

Here, you need to be prepared to move away from tunnel-vision around your industry and prepared to take a risk or two with the integration of very different management behaviors.

Would Ricardo Semler’s ‘Maverick’ washing machine self-managed team tactics work in a retail organization? (The answer is yes, by the way!) How might the core activities of an ambulance service be paralleled with the creative team focused on new ice-cream flavors?

There will be links you can use, if you look hard enough and they will give you entirely new ways to consider some of the ways you and your people currently do things.

Other People

Even when you get a life and out of the day job, there are vital lessons you can learn. Where you are on a day off or vacation is the ideal time to make observations of anyone around you that might give hints and clues that you could find useful.

How does the deckchair rental guy make sure that no-one gets off without paying? How is crowd control balanced with the drive to give extraordinary entertainment at a rock concert.

Watching a child explore and be curious about the world around them can be incredibly revealing for you – and how can you add value to your own team from what you see there as the child plays?

How do your observations of these mini-scenarios fit for you in, say, your expanding coffee-shop business?

There are more – and the possibilities are only as limited as your imagination.

The key here for managers who really want to maximize their performance, is to be open to the possibilities that will ‘ring a bell’ for them from anywhere.

Then notice things that appeal as interesting just from the curiosity you have been able to show

And finally, work on how you can translate what you see and hear for yourself, taking care to be accepting of ideas that comes from unexpected sources, if even just for the heck of it!

(c) 2010 Martin Haworth. This is a short excerpt from one of 52 lessons in management development at Super Successful Manager!, an easy to use, step-by-step weekly development program for managers of EVERY skill level. Find out more at http://www.SuperSuccessfulManager.com.

Outcomes to Seek When Building Workplace Relationships

The relationships any manager builds with his employees is the critical factor that will decide whether they are successful.

No manager is an island and with the help and support of their team, they will be able to deliver.

There is work to do to achieve this.

Managers make relationships with the people in their team for a number of reasons. There is, however only one bottom line purpose for any of the activities that managers get involved in – and that’s to deliver the outcomes that are required of them.

Relationships are the facilitator of success and there are real and vital reasons for this. Working with a team of people opens up the scope of possibilities for managers, such that there is leverage in the simple numbers, as well as varied inputs from the different characters there.

When relationships are built based on trust, honesty and shared purpose, there are many simple outcomes that will lead to that end goal being delivered.

Such relationships are easy to create when you ensure that you spend at least some part of your day in easy conversations with your people. Once that’s in place, between you will find you are much more able to deliver:-

•    Openness – ensuring that each side is prepared to let the other in
•    Volume – the numbers onside will help to share the load
•    Creativity – from openness comes the ability to ‘think out loud’
•    Synergy – sharing ideas enables each to build on the other enabling more productive outcomes
•    Commitment – through the bonding that comes with trust and honesty
•    Morale – built through all working together in an open environment
•    Motivation – comes from being heard, fundamental in all good workplace relationships
•    Support – because they are open, they ask for help more
•    Drive – when people feel a full part and valued, they contribute more to the bigger goal
•    Understanding – knowing each other well, means there is focus on common expectations
•    Communication – always works better when there is a great relationship

There may be more of these in particular locations like yours and if the relationship is good, you will have a clear route to get to know them better yourself.

Remember, the resulting value of these small outcomes of great relationships is much, much bigger than a simple sum of the parts. Yet whilst we might look for and even actively seek much more, each component needs to be in place to enable the whole to be that bigger benefit.

The base of good interactions between managers and employees has to come from the manager themselves in the behaviors they show.

Taking the time to ensure this is a strong element of your management toolkit is an investment worth making and over time, be assured that little effort will be needed to keep the plates spinning.

The Importance of Management Attention to Detail

An eye for detail is critical in you want the best performances from your team. Your awareness skills need to be sharpened fully and noticing when there is something out of line, however minor, will serve you very well indeed.

When you create a sensitivity to the unexplained; unclear; silent and seemingly innocuous in your workplace, you find out more.

This works especially well when you get to know people, because you sense an off-day and become aware. You are not necessarily doing anything to start with. It’s just something you notice, log and perhaps raise later where it needs it. Having this innate sensitivity is very useful as you become and evolve as a manager.

When it comes to ‘things’ your sensitivity can be very valuable too. That unlabelled, seemingly empty box can be valuable product that goes out of date soon. It could be a time-sensitive audit that’s been sitting on someone’s desk for a while. It might be a wall that looks a little out of line or a machine that sounds a little unusual.

There are many, many opportunities to sharpen this awareness of yours, in all shapes and forms, depending on what industry you are in. It’s a talent that can be practiced by review after events as well as listening to the comments of your people and following through.

Sensitivity and attention to detail are skills that take little time and yet can be very valuable in the returns they provide, in efficient and effective uses of your time. Often any time invested here can be easily shown to be some of the most value-creating time you ever spent.

This is all about noticing and then gently investigating, through questioning and listening (those so valuable coaching skills that you learn), to focus in many situations where you need to know more – as well as raise the awareness of your team about the issue – and that you know!

‘How’s that audit coming along?’
‘What’s this here?’
‘What’s in that box?’
‘Who is dealing with this right now?’
‘When is product ‘x’ due in next’?

Being curious about things is almost as valuable as being curious about your people, important though that is. because ‘things’ give clues about the attention to detail of others, who have responsibilities that might not be as sharp as yours – in fact, they might not be as sharp as they need to be.

Not only will you learn much, your people will know that you are sharp too and through that, their awareness and attention to detail will get much better.

Funny, over a short period of time, not only will the number of empty, unlabelled boxes drop dramatically, but those that linger, you can bet your people will know all about them!

(c) 2010 Martin Haworth. This is a short excerpt from one of 52 lessons in magement development at Super Successful Manager!, an easy to use, step-by-step weekly development program for managers of EVERY skill level. Find out more at http://www.SuperSuccessfulManager.com.

Management Development Secrets – Easy Coaching For Your People

There are many ways to develop those employees that you have within your team. Some are more productive than others and depend on your own, personal management style.

The easiest way is to ensure that you use the momentum each individual has within themselves and radically multiply that for them – and you & your team.

When we manage, we use the services of the individuals in our teams, to pull together to create a valuable return on our investment in them.

A lot of a manager’s time is spent focusing on ensuring that they do what we want them to do and chasing them till they do.

We can fire instructions all day long – and then tomorrow, come right back for more which, frankly, makes for a day’s hard work, every day of your career.

Or we can coach.

Over the last few years, coaching has got a bit of a reputation.

From a weird and wonderful ‘mumbo-jumbo’ new age activity (the ‘life-coaching’ thing), right through to seriously expensive executive coaching at the highest level, coaching comes in all shapes and forms.

For managers, it’s a behavior; a style of way of working that’s useful and effective and doesn’t require loads of time one-on-one and face-to-face with someone sitting across from you in your office for a couple of hours.

Coaching is best done in the informal relationships you have with your people, in the easy and regular conversations you have with them all the time.

The truth is that it’s not hard to find out for yourself what coaching is all about – and as you master it as a skill, you will have all you need to be a very effective – and attractive – manager style.

There are books and programs out there that offer instruction and advice about what to do first and second and last. The truth is that coaching isn’t that difficult at all – the experts and gurus just make it out to be!

Forget the huge expense and months, if not years, of exclusive and extravagant training, be it online, via conference call or as many away-days that you can squeeze in.

It’s always best to find ways to make it easy for you, with relevant, quick and simple action steps to use every day, to help you make the most of this amazing skill.

When you seek the information you need to understand what coaching is all about, you want to find only as much as you need to make this work really well for you. The information and skills you seek will be geared to simple application and practice, leading to a growing confidence inside yourself with results to boot.

Coaching is not at all complicated, whatever you might hear, especially at the level a manager needs. Good questioning and listening skills, mixed in with a healthy dose of effective relationship building and you’re there.

And it is probably the most powerful management skill you can use, in whatever business or organization you are in, at whatever level of experience or skill you currently have.

Because having a coaching attitude, overlays everything we do in the way we support guide and manage those in our care as managers.

And that’s very powerful indeed!

Five Management Benefits Of Over-Delivering To Employees

Many employees have limited expectations of those that manage and lead them. Their life and work experiences tell them to be cautious about what might be realistic.

Giving your people what they expect from an employer is not a major challenge.

The simple things like getting paid the right amount and on time, having reasonable working conditions and being respected are pretty much the minimum (and so often what employers find a tough act to deliver on, simple though it might sound).

Going a bit further can have a profound influence on how employees respond. That extra mile will have a huge impact on how well they do their job, how long they stay with you and how they interact with each other and their customers too.

Over-delivering to your people has great advantages. They are ready and waiting for you to be like all the other bosses they’ve had before and as such, in a quirky and almost negative sort of way, they expect you to be no better.

So when you are, it’s a huge void filled. And they will love you for it!

Here are five key benefits that you will gain by going just that little bit further for them, each of which will make the difference!

• Building Trust - when you do a little more beyond expectations, it builds the trust between you and your team members. Trust is a critical aspect of the relationships that you build – and more. When you want to be trusted, over-delivery is a big plus, because employees recognize that you care for them more than they are used to.

• Developing Relationships – by doing that bit more than expected, the partnership is strengthened, extended even. With this you will be able to get back at least as much as you put in.

• Making Deposits – as Stephen Covey describes in ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, by going that bit further with what you do, you create a deposit in the emotional bank account between you. These deposits need to be in there before you can ask for withdrawals, especially when you want them to go that ‘extra mile’.

• Showing the Way – if you want your people to behave in a particular way, you need to be an exemplar of what you want from them yourself. By regularly over-delivering – naturally rather than just when you want something – you will start to see them emulate your behaviors too.

• Being Innovative – and often the way you over-deliver will show that you can be creative in the way you work with others. This creativity encourages others to come up with their own innovative ways to respond to other colleagues needs as well.

Overdelivery need not be rocket science for your people to feel special. If you are prepared to go a little further for them, there are rewards out there that will make it well worth your while.

Management Development Secrets – Time To Reflect

If you decide to be pro-active in your quest to develop your management skills, you might find that it’s not easy to make the best of what you take on.

Fear not, it’s the small things that work best and there’s one tiny trick that will help make all the difference to how effective new learning is for you.

When you seek to improve your performance as a manager, you will find that there are a number of areas that you find there is value for you to make progress.

Some of these will be more challenging than others, which could, in some cases be off-putting and cause you to lose some of your enthusiasm and motivation.

Progress though, comes in many forms and quite often there are really quite small shifts in behaviors, that will make noticeable differences to the results obtained.

Changes in the words you use – even a single word or two – can create a significant shift in the outcomes you achieve, because the impact on others around you can be so significant.

On other occasions, what might seem to be a daunting change in the way you do things to integrate what you have learnt, can be split down into bite-sized chunks that are more easily do-able and will build confidence as progress is achieved.

As you learn and practice new twists to the skills you already had (because you will have had some, of course!), you will see changes and results and appreciate that the effort has been very worthwhile indeed.

It’s possible to pretty much double the return that you get from enhanced skills, by using one easy tactic that will take little time and effort, yet will not only embed the learning, but also drive additional benefits going forward

Whilst it is relatively easy for you integrate simple, new behaviors in your work, to make these stick you need to go a further step whilst you are on the case.

By reflecting on the changes you made as well as the results that came from that you will go a long way to recognizing what happened and how to replicate it

If you go a little further and get to the bottom of just ‘why’ the different approach made the improvements that it did, you will begin to uncover a significant secret where many others fail to go.

Careful and deep consideration of the reasons behind the enhanced outcomes which happened because you changed tack will really make the difference for you.

That said, management development is such a huge beast that you will be surprised at how often some of the changes you make – especially in the early days – will serve you well in the endeavors to come in the future as you progress.