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So What Do You Want to Learn to Do?

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Progressive Manager Network Workshops are focussed on helping you to learn and put into practice management tools and processes that will make you a more effective manager. Each workshop will run typically for 2-3 hours.

Workshops currently available include:

  1. Using 121s Effectively
  2. Giving and Getting Great Feedback
  3. Practical Coaching for Progressive Managers
  4. Hold More Effective Meetings
  5. Effective Delegation – helping your team to grow and get more done
  6. Performance Improvement through Effective Recruitment and Retention
  7. Managing Virtual Teams
  8. Your Role in Effective Employee Development
  9. Putting Strategic Thinking to Work
  10. Making Performance Reviews Work
  11. Managing Your Boss – building a relationship that works – for both of you
  12. Effective Communication – Listening and Responding – especially when you have to say NO!
  13. How to work with Alpha Males, Alpha Females and Other Dominant Types
  14. How to work with Influencers, Persuaders and Sales types
  15. How to work with Steady Eddys’ and Edwinas
  16. How to work with the Rule Followers
  17. Coaching Under-performing Employees
  18. Using ‘Skip Level’ Meetings
  19. Receiving Feedback on Your Direct Reports
  20. How to Build a Network
  21. The Fallacy of Time Management – getting more done in a regular working week
  22. Using a Mentor to Develop Your Managerial Career
  23. Make Brainstorming Work!
  24. Preparing for Your Review
  25. Resolving Conflict Between Members of Your Team
  26. Managing During Mergers and Acquisitions
  27. When YOU have to train – how to do it well
  28. The Art of the Apology
  29. Accelerating Effective Internal Customer Relationships
  30. Developing Urgency in Your Team
  31. How to Make an Open Door Policy work
  32. Handling Peer Conflict
  33. Strategy and SWOT
  34. Clarifying Roles
  35. Using Goals and Objectives to Improve Performance
  36. Just What Meetings Do You Need? – Make Your Meetings Work for You
  37. Effective Influencing
  38. Using Emotional Intelligence as a Practical Management Tool

See something that you want to learn how to do?

Want to learn how to do something that is not on the list?

Then get in touch using the contact form

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.

Performance Improvement with Brilliant 121s

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One-to-ones are weekly, structured, half hour meetings held individually with each of your team members. They provide the bedrock for an effective trusting relationship that is essential for high performing teams.

The most common excuse that managers give for not using One to Ones is that they will take too much time. In practice, managers who use One to Ones effectively report that they actually save time – lots of time – and improve performance quickly and permanently.

Key Benefits

  • Improve your relationship and communication with all members of your team
  • Find time to coach every member of your team – every week – to improve their performance
  • Save time on line management to invest in thinking more strategically and working on your own projects
  • Shift the emphasis from fire-fighting to creating value
  • Close the gap between practice, values and mission
  • Improve effectiveness, whether in the for profit or third sector

If you would like to learn more about 121s then please click here to find out more about our events.

There are some great 121 questions in this post.

Recruit, Develop, Improve, Retain and Release

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5 simple processes. Do them well – or even just do them all adequately – and within a year you will have a high performing team that will be on its way to being one of the best.

Recruit – find people with passion, curiosity and a hunger to learn about your business. Find people who will add strengths and personality to the existing team. Do not employ clones. Have a reputation such that there is a queue of talent waiting to join your team – because this is where the action is. This is where people do great work and where people develop reputations and careers.

Develop – Take every opportunity to actively develop your people – knowledge, skill and commitment. Provide weekly one to ones. Provide feedback (both affirming and adjusting) by the bucketful. Delegate to them opportunities that will lead to their growth – and free up your time. Help each team member to improve their skills and their commitment and inspiration in a way that leads to improved performance. Provide coaching to all team members every week that will help them to improve their performance.

Improve – make sure that every team member is clear about their role and how to manage the tensions within it. Make sure that they have a few clear objectives some of them smart – but all of them wow! (A wow objective is one where when you achieve it you will just want to say ‘Wow!’) Review objectives regularly in the 121s and shape them according to the dynamics of the business. Keep score. Use targets.  Make it clear that improvement is an expectation of everyone.  Use feedback, coaching and 121s to help people to improve.  If they fail to improve then consider whether you are playing to their strengths.  Ultimately a team member who consistently fails to perform better has to be let go.

Retain – hold on to your best people long enough – but not too long! If you are doing a great job as a manager then your staff will perform while they are with you – but may over the course of a few years outgrow your team. Celebrate their successes. Celebrate your success. Help them move onwards and upwards – knowing that you have a succession plan in place. Carry out monthly litmus tests on all of your team to gauge how likely they are to leave in the near future and the risk that this carries. Have a clear understanding of who you need to retain and who you would like to see being successful somewhere else. Provide your team with the very best place in which to do their best work – in which to achieve their objectives (and yours).

Release – Release good people who have outgrown your team. If you can no longer provide them development opportunities then encourage them to move on. Help them. Work equally hard with the high performers and the under-achievers. Use the same management processes applied with equal diligence. Agree objectives, provide feedback, coach and use 121s. Document the process! If people fail to improve – after you have given them all the support that you can – talk to an HR specialist. Show them your documentation – 121s, feedback, coaching. Seek their advice about moving the under performing staff into ‘special measures’. Invite the under performing staff member to a meeting to discuss their performance and their failure to improve. Remind them of the investment that you have made in their success. Let them know that if their performance does not improve – you will terminate their employment. Coach them some more. Give them another 3 months (minimum) of your full commitment to help them to make it. If they don’t – then fire them. Acknowledge your failure as a manager. Sleep soundly knowing that you did everything you could to help them to succeed and that the process that resulted in their dismissal was fair, ethical and professional.

Reflect on these 5 processes.

How well are you doing as a manager in each of them. Give yourself a percentage score on how well you think you are doing in each. 100% would mean that you really can’t see any opportunity for improvement. 0% would indicate that you really could not think of any way in which things could be worse.

Sketch out a simple graph like the one shown below. What one thing can you do in the next week that will make things better?

Repeat the exercise often. Discuss your conclusions with your peers, your team and with HR. Start to do the hard work of pursuing excellence.

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