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Something for Nothing in Halifax

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Would you like to learn a management tool that is guaranteed to:

  • Save you time
  • Increase levels of trust in your team
  • Improve communication
  • Make you a noticeably better manager
  • Get more done – more quickly
  • Accelerate the professional development of your team, and
  • Reduce the pain of performance reviews?

Then come along to a free introductory session of the Progressive Managers’ Network at the Elsie Whiteley Innovation Centre on March 26th from 13.30 to 16.30.

At the event you will get a free gift to help improve your management worth more than £25.

Places are strictly limited so please book your place online here. Or call me for more information on 0113 2167782.
If you know of a manager who might be interested please forward them a link to this page.

How To Motivate and Engage Front Line Managers

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This is the title of an interesting post over at BNet and one that is especially pleasing for me as they reference one of my posts as a potential answer.

The BNet post, and a recent conversation with a Progressive Manager have led me to do some more thinking on the matter. The truth is that many of the managers I meet and work with are ‘accidental’. They have landed in management positions because they are ambitious, bright and have good interpersonal skills. But they have not learned what good management looks like. More importantly they do not understand the potential of good management to transform a mediocre team into an excellent one. ‘Management’ is perceived as a necessary evil that should intrude on the day job as little as possible.

So, if you want to motivate (I would prefer to inspire) and engage frontline managers give them a taste of what a truly great manager is able to do in turning a group of ordinary people into a truly excellent team. This is just about the most rewarding thing you can do. Developing other people and increasing your impact on the world by working effectively through them can be a real buzz.

Managers who achieve this sort of impact don’t do it by fitting in management around the day job. For them, management is the day job. They may still spend some time working in the team rather than on the team – but this is likely to be less than 50% of the time (in BMW I believe managers work in the team 10% of the time with other 90% on management and leadership).

What Gets Measured Gets Done – recognition and reward

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‘What Gets Measured Gets Done’ gets my vote for the single, most dangerous, least accurate, management ‘truism’ of them all!

Suppose we changed the expression to ‘What Gets Recognised Gets Done’.   What difference would that make to the way we do our business?

First of all managers and leaders would have to think about what they want to recognise in their organisation.  This is a big question.  It speaks to values, performance and ethos.  Recognition encourages consideration of many things that cannot be easily ‘measured’.

If Enron had ‘recognised’ more than short term financial performance would things have  turned out differently?  What are Goldman Sachs ‘recognising’ as they pay out £8.4 billion in performance related bonuses to their staff (UK employees of the bank average £320 000 in Performance Related Pay)?  Is financial performance the only thing that matters for Goldman Sachs or do they provide equally strong ‘recognition’ for other things that might matter like ‘ethics’ or ‘long term customer relationships’?

Secondly managers and leaders would have to consider how are they going to recognise it?  What does excellence look like, sound like, feel like?  You can’t just rely on the numbers.  You might have to go and observe people doing the work:

  • see how they speak to customers
  • watch how they contribute to meetings
  • understand how they prepare a paper for the board.

Feedback becomes a primary tool for recognising what works and what doesn’t.  It also becomes a primary tool for reward as people start to get recognition and validation for the good stuff that they do.

So the next time someone says ‘What gets measured gets done’  perhaps you should ask them if they really believe what they say.

Listening, 121s and Tom Peters

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I have been an avid reader of Tom Peters since in Search of Excellence.  Must be almost 20 years!

He put a post on his blog today that for me captures the purpose of weekly 121s.  It is about establishing a relationship in which you can listen respectfully- and in which the person you are managing can tell you important stuff.  Tom says:

“Listening may or may not be an “act of love” or way to “tap into people’s dreams,” but it sure as hell is:

  1. an uncommon act of courtesy and recognition of worth from which
  2. you will invariably learn amazing stuff if you can just keep your damn mouth shut and ears open with an expression of interest on your face and
  3. it will build-maintain relationships beyond your wildest dreams. “

Courtesy, respect and recognition.  Learn amazing stuff.  Keep your mouth shut.  be interested.  Build relationships.

Not a bad set of outcomes for a managers who is willing to put in the effort.