practical – Page 11

Just Imagine…part 2

October 4, 2007 by admin

Stairway to Organisational Heaven?

Just imagine…

1. You work in an organisation where everyone gets 30 minutes every week 121 time with their manager to look at how the right work can be done more effectively and to work on communication, trust and respect;
2. Everyone is coached – every week – by their manager. They learn things on a weekly basis and use what they learn to create value;
3. Everyone gets feedback – several times a day. The feedback recognises, appreciates and encourages the good stuff. It also raises awareness around behaviours that people might want to re-think. Everyone knows that feedback is not an emotional big deal. It is just information that is designed to help;
4. Everyone delegates effectively. They expect to be delegated to at least every other month as part of their professional development. Managers ‘delegate and develop’ routinely so that they can consistently do the important (but never urgent) stuff well (stuff like strategy, RnD, customer contact, stakeholder management etc).
5. People who struggle to deliver on their role in the time that the organisation pays them are helped – through feedback and coaching – to find ways to get what they need to get done in the work hours available to them.

What difference would developing these 5 management processes make in your team?

Something for Nothing in Harrogate…

October 3, 2007 by admin

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 Manager’s Network at YMCA Training in Harrogate on October 19th 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.

Many thanks,

Mike Chitty

Communication: Companies need less . . . not more!

August 30, 2007 by admin

This is the title of a great post on the Slow Leadership blog. Dave Woods says:

‘I work with a large variety of CEOs, senior managers and key employees. If I ask about the needs and issues within the company, I almost always get the same response: “We need more communication.”

My reaction to that is that it is simply, WRONG!

Companies don’t need more communication. They need more clarity.

Clarity of the vision of the company.

Clarity of where the company is going (long term and short term).

Clarity of HOW the company will get there.

Clarity of individual roles and how those roles create value toward the vision.

Clarity of how roles must intertwine in order to achieve extraordinary results.

Clarity of how the company will hold itself and each individual accountable.’

Dave then goes on to argue that if you look at a great sports team they actually need very little communication from the coach. They know all the plays and they know what they have to do. In short they have clarity. Dave argues that it is not communication that we should be increasing – but clarity.

Amen to that!

However clarity only comes with communication that is frequent, 2 way and relevant to both player and coach; employee and manager. Surely there can be no clarity without communication?

When you watch a great team play what you are seeing is the result of dozens of hours of communication, practice, feedback, delegation and coaching. Typically tens of hours of this ‘management’ go into every hour of play.

Life in most businesses is not like that. There is no practice ground. It is always ‘game time’. And most managers find it incredibly difficult to pull players out of the game to them at all whether to clarify, give feedback, coach or delegate. It is all they can do to keep playing the game – never mind improve.

So I disagree with Dave – and agree with his clients. Most organisations do need more communication. But it has to be effective. It has to focus on performance and improvement. It has to be constructive. It has to keep both vision and values in the front of people minds. And it has to be frequent.

Sounds just like a recipe for 121s to me!

Some More Great Questions for Managers

August 7, 2007 by admin

First posting for over 2 weeks – courtesy of a family holiday – with no laptop!

I have been reading Drucker, again, and found another really useful set of questions for managers to ask of themselves. They are also the kind of questions that you should be able to answer for each of your team members. You might consider exploring them in your 121s.

What is your task?
What should it be?
What should you be expected to contribute?
What hampers you in doing your task and could it be avoided?
What are your strengths?
How do you work most effectively? (Think about the personal style you bring to the work you’re doing. Are you best with a team or by yourself? Do you like structure or are you better at playing it by ear? Do you work well with the predictable or the chaotic?)
What are your values? Are you in the right place to express your values through your work?
Where do you belong? – What kind of work environment suits you best?

This is all about clarifying roles, contributions and opportunities for development and improvement.

All meat and drink to the Progressive Manager.