Who in your organization knows the most about how to make it better? Generally, it's not the managers or leaders -- it's the people doing the actual work.
You wouldn't blink if someone told you they needed to do a better job managing their company's "budgeting" process or "manufacturing" process, would you? But managing a "change process"?
Employees perform at different levels, when on different teams, in different situations with different people. Why do so many leaders spend so little time looking for synergies on their teams and so much time looking at individual performance?
It's strategy season and what you most need now is the truth. Here's the bad news: No one tells you the truth.
Given the uncertainty of the federal government budget and marketplace, we won't know the outcomes for these two companies until sometime next year. In fact it's quite possible that both managers will be forced to hunker down and shrink their company's footprints.
Have you ever been in a situation where everyone seemingly agrees on a particular strategy, but somehow it never happens?
To retain high-potential employees, the conventional wisdom is deceptively simple: identify, develop, and nurture them. But translating this into action is much more difficult.
Part of a leader's job is to help employees connect to and relate to that value so that the company's mission becomes part of their own dream. Without that connection, employees will, at best, go through the motions.
Rejection often triggers painful emotional doubts about our own competence, so we either try to avoid it or pretend that it doesn't matter. A more constructive approach is to remember that rejection can be beneficial.
Because firing is so emotionally charged, it's easy to act counterproductively. To avoid that, here are some guidelines for those times when firing an employee becomes a necessity.
In my experience, there are plenty of people who prefer to work on their own without input, help or even interaction with others. Sometimes it's appropriate, however, most of the time, working in isolation just doesn't work.
Let's look at several characteristics of successful consultants and determine whether these would be the same or different for successful leaders. Here are three such characteristics.
It's easy to use office politics as an excuse for a lack of achievement or an outlet for your frustration. But it may be a lot more effective to use politics as a way to get things done.
While many people complain about being micromanaged, very few think of themselves as micromanagers. But if nobody is a micromanager, then who is doing all the micromanaging?
Given these basic human dynamics, most of which are unconscious, it's often easier to talk to colleagues about what somebody else is doing wrong. At worst we'll get sympathy. At best, we'll convince someone else to take care of the problem.
Over the past few decades I've worked with hundreds of managers, and many complain that they work for micromanagers. But strangely, I don't recall anyone who ever admitted to being one.
Sometimes a promotion can suddenly change your relationship with co-workers from "peer" to "boss." It's not an uncommon scenario. However, when this happens it often creates an awkward and uncomfortable set of dynamics, and there's no blueprint for how to manage them.
People are generally classified as expenses on the income statement and liabilities on the balance sheet -- not as an investable asset. Thus, when CEOs seek to increase profit, they cut costs -- like people -- rather than investing in assets -- like people -- that can appreciate.
while managers love to engineer reorganizations, most managers (and their people) hate to be reorganized. So before you pull the lever, it will be helpful to ask yourself two questions.
This commitment-light management style is not only dis-empowering for the employee, it's debilitating for the owner or manager who, after promises aren't kept or tasks remain undone, feels like 'I'm the only one who cares around here.'
No matter what your company, you've probably encountered organizational politics. One of the most frequent complaints that I hear from managers is how...
I'll tell you this; you can't compare the results between work that people want to do versus when they feel as though they have to do it.
There are three areas where improved "questioning" can strengthen managerial effectiveness, and it might be worth considering how you can improve your skills in each one.
What if beating the competition was no longer the most significant key to success? How could we turn off our competitive nature, or use it only at the right times?
Few firms think as carefully about mentorship as they should. So for most companies, a wake-up call on the basics of mentorship is in order.
