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The Mindset of the Progressive Manager?

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This morning I was inspired by a piece that I read from the AGM of Senscot – the social entrepreneurs network in Scotland, written by Lawrence Demarco. In it Lawrence is talks about the role of the social entrepreneur and how they are found beyond the ‘not for profit’ sector. His writing helped me to think through more about what I believe a ‘Progressive Manager’ is all about.

Progressive Managers have a mind-set which says:

‘I am a business person, an entrepreneur, a risk taker and a learner. I will not engage in work which damages people or our planet. I will treat my customers and staff honestly and fairly. Profits and revenues will not be used just to enhance personal wealth – but to do more for the common good. The desire to create a better society, combined with the skills to provide a wonderful product or service will drive my work.’

This ‘Progressive Managers’ mind-set has the potential to change society. To build a culture which holds the concept of social justice as paramount, and which believes that social justice can be measured in the gap between the rich and the poor.

Progressive Management represents an evolution of capitalism. Profit is seen not as an end in itself, but as a means to drive social change. Perhaps the very best of the ‘for profits’ already recognise that driving positive social change is what will drive future profits?

Managers who understand and use the power of this idea will play an increasing part in the future of our world whether they work in the public, private or third sector.

They will be Progressive Managers.

Being Effective – Not Busy!

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Over worked!

Here are some interesting pieces from The Standard, a Hong Kong newspaper, reporting on a seminar for corporate executives held there last week.

“We believe long working hours are a sign of loss of productivity and efficiency,” said Ambrose Linn, Hong Kong manager at Dutch mail company TNT, which enforces a maximum 48-hour week on its employees with no more than 12 hours’ overtime.


. . . a survey by local non-profit organization Community Business found that employees work an average 51 hours a week – 25 percent higher than the maximum working hours set by the International Labour Organization. A third of respondents said their productivity was being affected by long hours while 31 percent said long hours were causing health problems.


“Senior management has to change its mind-set, especially with the new graduates coming out of university. They don’t want to work 60 hours a week, and companies won’t attract the talent,” Shalini Thakur, associate director of diversity at investment bank UBS, told the seminar.


BP says it has stopped making it mandatory for senior management to be supplied with smart phones and e-mail devices because constantly checking and responding to messages goes against the company’s philosophy of promoting work-life balance.

 

Does this sound familiar?

What about reflecting on these obvious – but frequently overlooked questions:

  • Do we have enough people to do the work required?
  • Do they all know, clearly, what they are expected to do?
  • Do they have the time, the tools, and the skills to do it?
  • Are they rewarded enough to make what they do seem attractive?
  • Do they enjoy what they do and give it their best efforts?
  • Are the working conditions suitable to a civilized community?

 High performing organisations focus on maximizing effectiveness in a pretty fixed working week.  They know that regular long hours, fire-fighting, lack of focus and attention are all symptoms of bad management.  And the only thing that you can manage is you!

By improving the way you delegate and prioritise it is always possible to start getting back to something more like a 40 hour productive and efficient week.

Pepper’s 5 Leadership Lessons

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I was reading a great post on the Leading Blog about 5 lessons that the outgoing CEO of Proctor and Gamble, John Pepper had distilled from his career.  I won’t recount the details in full, but in essence they are:

  1. accountability for creating leadership results – attracting winners to the business who then feed of each other
  2. seeking input from others without losing direction
  3. leadership is personal and intimate.  It is about being true to your own passions.  It is about influence through trust not control through power.
  4. positive authentic feedback and honest communication builds respect and trust.  Respect and trust provide the foundation for outstanding leadership and team performance
  5. convey trust and high expectations regularly

Weekly 121s are the best tool that I have found to help managers and leaders to develop and apply these lessons.

121s and Reducing Interruptions

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 If you have recently been to one of the PMN training sessions on introducing 121s you will know that I reckon by committing to weekly 121s with all direct reports you will actually save time.  I amsure this is the case from my own observations and reports from people that have tried them.  But if you are the kind of person that needs more data to be sure then have a look at these two blog posts here and here from the wonderful Slow Leadership blog

Building An Outstanding Organisation

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This post was inspired by something Tom Peters’ wrote in his blog.

“In business, you reward people for taking risks. When it doesn’t work out, you promote them because they were willing to try new things. If people come back and tell me they skied all day and never fell down, I tell them to try a different mountain.”

Mike Bloomberg – Mayor of New York City

Steps to being outstanding?

  1. find something useful that turns people on – a cause that is worth working on
  2. give people a lot of room to try their own ideas and plans in pursuit of the cause
  3. offer them the respect they deserve for participating in the cause with commitment and determination
  4. provide the most powerful relationship that you can to support their development (121s, feedback and coaching…)

By nurturing passion for the cause, and enabling people to try things, the journey to high performance can begin.

It takes courage and excellent management skills – but it works – in for profits, non profit distributing and third sector organisations.

Not sure the recipe can get any simpler?