Managers manage and leaders lead - so it has always been. But the problem for managers is that sometimes they need to use their leadership skills as well.

Working as a manager, and by having the title, implies that all you do is manage what is going on around you. As they say, 'you can only manage people and not things', which is all well and good.

Yet good managers need to show at least some leadership skills as well, so that instead of picking up a series of tasks to 'do' each day, you are able to take a broader, longer term view as well.

But in recent years, control; processes; planning; rules; audits and more seem to have returned to the management culture after just a few enlightened years, as panic has set in over short-term profitability, at the expense of long-term cultural sustainability.

Now is the time for leadership elements to be revisited, in day-to-day management.

To simplify some of the skills that managers need to utilise from the leadership toolkit, here are ten ideas that will help with growth of longer-term performance, rather than mere survival.

   1. Look Forward

      You can be more than getting through today. By taking a little time to see what you are aiming for and why, you will enable a better framework for progress and have to fire-fight less over time.

   2. Succession Plan

      Once you have a better picture of where you are going you will be able to take a call on who you need and with what attributes. Then you can tell if you have the people you need - or not. And do something about it.

   3. Clear a Path

      In a leadership role you make it easier for your people to do their jobs and get the work done effectively and efficiently. Different from managing and just expecting the tasks to be done, you pave a way through the myriad of calls upon your people's priorities to focus on the long term goals as well as the day job.

   4. Be an Influence

      Your role becomes one where relationships are vital, both with your own people and those who directly impact on what they are striving for. You evolve excellent people skills by creating conversations where you listen, truly hear and take the actions you need to, with whoever and wherever you need to.

   5. Provide Resources

      With a better vision for the future of your business or organisation, you can 'get' that investment above the short-term is really important, so as long as that investment of people; time; resources is truly long-term value-creating, you have the clout to take that risk.

   6. Do Less Doing

      As a manager, you find it really easy to be part of the doing. Yet you have great people already. So to build on their skills you start to give them better training and support - and then get out of their way. Mistakes are OK - especially when learning comes from it.

   7. Utilise Team Strengths

      If you are able to stand back a little from managing in the day job, you start to have the time to recognise where your round pegs are in square holes. Once you spot this, you can realign your people so that they work best where their strengths are. With everyone valuing each other for what they contribute.

   8. Challenge the Norm

      With a better long-term vision for the future, you can truly see what is getting in the way of that achievement. You can raise questions up the management line which will make effort far more productive and focus on the outputs which are truly valuable and not remain in the historic.

   9. Develop Your People

      With the future in mind and the possibilities for your key people to fill that need, you can create opportunities to expand capabilities, though broader experiences; training; new responsibilities; role rotation etc. Managers don't tend to do this, because they are short-term survival focused.

  10. Measure Against the Big Picture

      Decision making become much easier because you have a clear future vision for your business or organisation (and even at team level). Every decision, big or small is measured against the longer term. And you are able to cultivate that characteristic in your people as you go.

Finally, Go with Your Gut, because leadership, encompassed within the day to day business you are involved in, gives you sensitivities which you can use.

By being clear in where you are going, you develop a sixth sense; a gut judgement about decisions which are aligned with goals. An invaluable tool which becomes second nature

Above all a manager recognising that there is another level to the day job, finds it hugely rewarding and developmental in itself. Building enthusiasm, commitment and focus into what can become mundane and boring.

A rejuvenated manager, using just a few leadership skills from time to time is a valuable asset.

Which won't do your career goals any harm at all either!

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com/

...helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Haworth

Would you like to avoid hiring mistakes, if possible? The following are tips from executives interviewed especially for this article.

The secret to hiring "winners" is: Know the job and your company's culture, then find the correct person to fill the job.

Hiring mistakes are very costly. Estimates range from 1-10 times the annual salaries, with the general consensus being 3 times the annual salary. This is based on recruiting and training the wrong candidate (the mistake), waiting for the productivity that does not come, removing the person, dealing with morale and sabotage, replacing and training the next candidate. If you have an engineer or mid-level manager that earns $80,000 - $100,000 this can be a cost to your company of $240,000 to $300,000 for just one mistake!

90% of all hiring decisions are made by an interview. Interviewing is 14% accurate according to Michigan State University. This percentage can increase if you have hiring managers that are really well trained or if their intuition is very well developed. The training for interviewers must be extensive because as Victoria Perrault, VP of AFC says, there are "obvious problems" when the hiring interviews are a "fly by the seat of your pants" experience. She is leading AFC into a "Success Profile" approach to benchmark the critical success factors. Yvonne Myers, Director of HR at Legacy Marketing group (a 540 person insurance sales & marketing business), has found results to be "dead on" for their E.Q.I. Profile which creates a "footprint" (benchmark) which helps develop specific interview questions that determine the soft-skill competencies of their candidates for job success. These insure that the candidates will be the "right fit" for their organization.

More companies are assessing the competencies necessary for specific jobs within their specific cultures. Some companies are benchmarking their personnel and selecting the top performers and comparing assessment results with their poorest performers to discover the patterns of success that are required for top production and satisfaction on the job. More fortune 500 companies report that they are using assessments, which is up from 15% in 1985 to 30% in 1996 and expected to hit over 50% by 2002.

The assessments are also used for staff development, planning training, and to aid managers finding the ideal motivation for specific staff members.

Kent Sherwood, CEO of Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, emphasized the need for "integrity" as the highest quality for leadership candidates. He also looks for honesty, reliability, follow through, and straight talking. Good candidates must have the skill set necessary or have the "inclination to learn in a reasonable time" with the appropriate personality to blend with the existing culture.

Fred Philpott, VP of Human Resources for Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, uses a model to check for winning characteristics which include:
A.) Technical/experience
B.) Behavior: drive, urgency, ethics, Integrity, open communication, business acumen, global-strategic thinking, teaming-partnering, consensus, quick decisions,
C.) Bottomline ability to influence and persuade

Two of three companies either use recruiters or have used recruiters to get qualified candidates to interview. The other companies rely on internal referral and developing leaders from within the organization (which is a great retention strategy.)

Hiring Winners Checklist:
1. Know the job - skills, experience, soft-skills, competencies. Develop clear expectations.
2. Know your company's culture (Mission, Vision, Values)
3. Benchmark your top and bottom performers (assess the styles, behaviors and attitudes of your winners!)
4. Develop your interview process to adequately assess candidates' necessary soft-skills
5. Hire the Right People for the Right Job!
6. Support and develop your key talent. Get them to love your company!
7. Continuously re-assess your hiring process.

W. Edwards Deming said, "If a person is not performing as expected, it is probably because they have been miscast for the job."

Special thanks to all the business leaders who contributed their business wisdom and experience including (in order of interview dates):
Kent Sherwood, CEO of Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa
Deborah Meekins, President and CEO of Sonoma National Bank
Greg Peters, President and CEO of Mahi Networks
Victoria Perrault, VP of Administrative Services of AFC
Seritta White, CEO of S.K. White Consulting
Fred Philpott, VP of Human Resources of Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates
Rob Thorson, Manager of Human Resources of Westamerica Bank
Shirley Gordon, VP for Northern California of State Farm Insurance
Yvonne Myers, Director of Human Resources of Legacy Marketing Group
Martin Grove, District Manager of State Compensation Insurance Fund
Paul Herrerias, CEO of Herrerias & Associates

This executive summary is based on interviews and research conducted by L. John Mason, Ph.D. of the Stress Education Center.

For a detailed report on the Hiring Winners and Retaining Key Personnel please contact Dr. Mason at [email protected] or (707) 795-2228. Ask about a proposal for benchmarking your top performers with special assessments that are designed to help you match their behaviorals and attitudes with potential new hires.

L. John Mason, Ph.D. is the author of the best selling "Guide to Stress Reduction." Since 1977, he has offered Executive Coaching and Training.

Please visit the Stress Education Center's website at http://www.dstress.com for articles, free ezine signup, and learn about the new telecourses that are available. If you would like information or a targeted proposal for training or coaching, please contact us at (707) 795-2228.

If you are looking to promote your training or coaching career, please investigate the Professional Stress Management Training and Certification Program for a secondary source of income or as career path.

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Moving from staff into management for the first time is exciting—but it can also be scary.

There’s so much you don’t know. Somehow managing looked so easy from the outside, but now that you actually have to do it, you realize it’s more complicated than you thought. Before, you had certain tasks to accomplish and you knew you had the skills to do them. You still have responsibility for those tasks, but now you have to see that the work is done effectively by other people. That’s a whole new task in itself, and you’re not sure you’re up to the job.

You also find that it’s hard to concentrate on the planning that is such an important part of managing, because emergencies large and small seem to arise all the time and people keep running to you to resolve them. The expression “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s hard to remember you were trying to drain the swamp” might have been written for new managers!

In these early days, you must learn not to be too hard on yourself. Management skills are not built into our human DNA—we have to learn them as we go. Promise yourself you’ll learn at least one management lesson every day. Set aside a few moments at the end of each day to think about that day’s lesson and how you’ll use it to improve your management skills. Sometimes these lessons will be hard, but each one will give you something to build on if you are willing to learn.

Each day will bring you new challenges, new experiences—and new successes. It’s easy to forget the successes and focus on all the things that didn’t go so well, so I recommend you keep a diary of all your new experiences. Then, on those days when you think becoming a manager was all a horrible mistake, you can read over your diary and remind yourself just how far you’ve come.

Becoming a manager is a journey. Like any journey, it offers both good and bad experiences, enjoyable and not-so-enjoyable aspects, positive and negative events. Just take it one stage at a time, learn from each experience—good or bad—and you’ll gradually find yourself becoming more and more comfortable in your management role.

Helen Wilkie is a professional speaker, trainer, consultant and author who has worked with hundreds of newly appointed managers and understands their special challenges. Visit http://www.TheManagersJourney.com and sign up for her series of free management skills teleseminars.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Helen_Wilkie

Want some guidelines for how you can definitely get under the skin of your workers? Here are some simple things known to irritate the heck out of them, time after time...

If you want engaged, co-operative, motivated and productive staff on your team, this is a not-exhaustive list of things you can constructively do to mess it up.

Here are just ten things you can do to really p**s off your people and almost guarantee failure in your workplace!

Good luck (see the end for an alternative!)

   1. Fail to Communicate Necessary Information

      Your people will feel vulnerable when they are not told things about their role, the business and other more general infornation. If they are customer facing they will just hate to be seen unable to meet their customer needs because they are short on what they need to know.

   2. Build No Relationships

      Guaranteed to develop resentment and a negative attitude, your own inability to get to know them and show an interest in them as real people is a real winner in turning them off you - and feeling pretty bad about your workplace too.

   3. Ignore Their Needs

      By avoiding finding out what is important to them, or what they need to do a great job, you truly get their backs up. They won't do their best for you, because, frankly, you let them down and are mealy-mouthed about supporting them. They cannot do their best without the best conditions to work in and resources.

   4. Get Their Payroll Wrong

      Firstly, make sure yu pay them badly - below the industry norm. Then to put the icing on the cake, regualrly and consistently screw up the payroll process. Works so well towards your quest.

   5. Have Favourites

      It might seem like the easy way out,by favouring some of your people, you feel liked. But what about the rest? No more certain a way to divide your people is when you treat some of them well and others worse.

   6. Be Consistently Inconsistent

      Working for a boss needs some clarity about what their expectations are. By chopping and changing, your people can't get a grip on reality - there are no established goals for them to aim at - so they certainly will get frustrated. And the frustration breeds a whole lot of discontent - you're doing well!

   7. Have Special Rules for Yourself

      Sure you are the boss. Yet if you 'pull rank' on your people with your own behaviours, you can only expect that they will model what they see in you - and when you then jump on them, it leaves them confused - and with that they are demotivated too.

   8. Show No Interest in Their Development

      Monkeys - you get them if you pay peanuts. We've already touched on getting their pay right. Yet your people want safe challenge. If you want automatons who show no involvement in the work, you will not only get that, but bored, disinterested and unempowered workers. A recipe for underperformance.

   9. Criticise (especially in Public)

      No one likes criticism. And everyone hates it in front of their peers. In fact all 'criticism' is awful, yet so many bosses use it as a sort of power-play, where they can show off their position. Humiliating people will actively encourage them to move elsewhere - or stay and be miserable. Perfect!

  10. Have no Empathy

      Earlier I suggested it winds people up the wrong way when you show no real interest in them. Want to go a step better? Show no empathy to them when they are having a tough time. At work or at home. You will make a huge difference to them by ignoring their troubles - and it won't be a good difference at all.

Just ten - hey, there could have been way more - but get these ten right and you will be well on your way to sabotaging the success of whatever business, organisation or even just a team you lead and manage. It isn't as hard to achieve as it might seem!

Yet, if you take these as a check-list of areas you might want to develop your skills and your short-to medium-term focus, then maybe, just maybe, some good will come of this catalogue of horrors!!

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com.

...helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Haworth

When your enterprise decides to undertake a new endeavor -- whether it's designing a new training program, planning a new service, or revamping an existing product -- this endeavor is called a project. It involves people, funding, resources, schedules, requirements, testing, fine tuning, and deployment, plus a host of other activities.

You may have seen this phenomenon by now: projects are risk magnets. Why is that?

There appear to be several factors involved. Managing project risk is a process that seems to be poorly understood by business owners and project managers. As a result, projects frequently experience problems with understaffing, schedule overruns, cost overruns, and unmet requirements. This article (the first of a series) explains six common traps that, when not fully recognized, can lead to unpleasant surprises.

Here's what I've observed over many years as both a project leader and participant:

1. Each project differs in some way, shape, or form from the last one.

If all your projects were exactly the same, you could simply use a cookie-cutter approach to crank 'em out without losing any sleep at night. Although projects may share some similarities, a new project could very easily introduce several new, unfamiliar elements that can completely throw off your sense of balance - often without your even realizing it until it's too late.

2. Projects are often constrained by finite conditions.

Initially, you might hear limitations such as, "We only have $1,200 and three weeks to have you complete all 18 training modules for this project." (What? You're thinking that based on the requirements you've heard so far, this project should take a year and a half and cost three hundred grand!)

Speaking of constraints, it's not unusual for project sponsors or clients to ask for 1) low cost and 2) fast completion and 3) high quality and 4) many features in the final project deliverables. Although it's understandable to want the greatest value for the money, unless the project is blessed with an infinite schedule and an unlimited budget, tradeoffs become necessary.

Usually it's only possible to achieve two or three out of four of these goals on a typical project. The tradeoffs might constrain the number of features, limit the quality, or both.

3. People chronically underestimate their time and effort.

Whether it's because of a perceived social stigma or a cloudy crystal ball, people typically have a difficult time deriving realistic project estimates. Given the number of project unknowns, coming up with accurate predictions can be tricky. (Smart project managers know this and frequently add buffers derived from records of actual past experience, commonly known as "fudge factors," to project bids.)

To complicate matters, people often feel pressured to further "reduce the truth" -- that is, to minimize whatever their already low calculations tell them it should take when they put together a bid. Whenever management pushes people to underestimate this way -- perhaps for fear of losing the project -- the risks can easily overwhelm and even destroy the project's success.

4. Project requirements are typically fuzzy at the beginning.

Whether you're talking to a client, your boss, your colleagues, or your clients to figure out what the project should produce, whatever they say initially may sound as clear as a bell in some areas but very sketchy in others. Getting clarification on the fuzzy parts might entail many conversations with many people, and much more time than anybody ever imagined.

5. Requirements invariably shift over time.

The minute after you've cemented the requirements with everyone's agreement, "scope creep" begins. This means that the project needs may expand, shrink, or morph into something altogether different! These situations arise because the very act of creating something new can produce a result (or a series of results) that may exceed or differ from what people were capable of imagining at the start. And even when the team guards against it, pressure to include "add-ons" can stretch the scope beyond its limits.

6. Nearly everything else about the project is dynamic!

Aside from the requirements changing, many other things can stop, start, or fluctuate during the project. Experienced people may leave and new people may come on board. Budgets could get chopped. Schedules might get slashed or -- sometimes even worse -- delayed. Resources may evaporate or not materialize in the right forms. Politics can sneak in and remove support, or require skipping critical steps such as testing. The list goes on and on.

Studies of failed projects have revealed how difficult it can be to detect all of the red flags in advance. Unbridled optimism can block everyone's ability to see clearly. Yet turning down an iffy project may be better than letting egos rule.

What to do? As we've seen, projects can involve several highly dynamic variables. They often operate under tight budgets and schedules. People tend to miscalculate time, effort, and resources. Requirements frequently expand, shrink, or change. And shifting circumstances can pull the rug out from under everyone's plans. Add these together and many projects will cook up a recipe for failure.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You and your team can learn to avoid project pitfalls by paying close attention to the cause-and-effect relationships among these six important keys!

Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the creator of the award-winning "Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" success program. To learn more about her tools and resources and sign up for other free tips like these, visit her site at http://LearnShareProsper.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adele_Sommers

The inability to delegate is one of the most common problems of managers. Management and leadership is all about getting results by organising and supervising a workforce. Poor delegation or no delegation is inefficient and expensive. And the worst thing about not delegating is that managers are losing wonderful training opportunities for their workers.

Managers have many reasons for not delegating:

    * They feel at ease doing routine tasks rather than supervising the work of others
    * They aren't familiar with the skills of their workers and therefore unsure of other people's ability to take more responsibility
    * They hate correcting other people's work
    * They know they can do some things better than others

Delegating is hard work, but it's work that is needed to help an organization grow and improve. You can tell people what to do, you can show people what to do, but by far the best way to teach people is to simply let them do the work themselves. Delegation provides that training avenue.

There are basically two good reasons to delegate:
One - It gets the job done more efficiently
Two - It provides training and new experiences for members of workteams

Writer Andrew E. Schwarts says, "Too many managers waste both time and energy performing tasks an employee could perform just as well, thereby lowering productivity while raising operating costs. The answer to the problem is easy--delegation. However, many managers still limit their own effectiveness, create imbalances in the organization, waste their department's time and energies, and fail to develop their subordinates by either ignoring or mismanaging the techniques of delegation."

The ability to delegate tasks and control productivity simultaneously is an essential skill for managers. It's kind of like juggling three or four balls in the air, while ordering fastfood out your car window and talking on a cellphone at the same time. There are many pitfalls that can undermine efforts to delegate, but there are also some basic steps to help managers ease their workload through delegation while maintaining control.

There are six functions of an effective delegation and control system:

   1. Planning and Goal Setting - If everyone is involved in the planning and goal setting of a project, it is more likely that everyone will buy into the work involved to bring the project to fruition -- which makes delegation easier.
   2. Responsibility and Authority - Before delegating, everyone needs to know which way the responsibility flows. Who reports to who? That question must be answered for effective delegation. James G. Patterson, a business writer and faulty member of the University of Phoenix, advises, "Be prepared to supervise. All projects require regular monitoring - especially in the beginning stages. So do all employees. But some projects require more scrutiny than others, and some employees demand more direction. Here, too, it's a matter of matching the task with the person."
   3. Negotiation - "Can you do this?" Give and take is part of the delegation process.
   4. Management by Exception - Only the unusual problem or case is brought to the top.
   5. Consultation and Coaching - Think of consultation as a the bedside manner of a physician taking the pulse of a family member. The manager needs to know how the patient is doing, and must make suggestions to improve the overall health of the individual.
   6. Review and Control - This is kind of like consultation and coaching, but from a step back. Reviewing project aspects and controlling the work and schedule insures continued progress toward worthwhile goals. In reviewing the project the results should be addressed, the methods that were involved should be not critized very much, if at all.

Delegation can result in some mistakes being made, but mistakes can also be learning opportunities. Praise should be given for jobs well done. Each time delegation happens there is a chance that everyone will improve their standing in the organization.

Justin Tyme is an internet reporter and published author. He writes for print media and industrial video productions and is a contributor to Ideas and Training (http://www.ideasandtraining.com) and Human Resources Radio (http://www.humanresourcesradio.com).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Justin_Tyme

Recruiting the best people into your organisation is the easiest way to get the best performance.

Starting off well, is by far the quickest and simplest method of having the right employees in the right places. So here are a ten steps to getting it right...

   1. Be Clear on What You Want

      Having a vision for what you want from your organisation, business or team is vital in the first instance. Then you can get really clear on who you are looking for, what they will bring to complement existing team members and how they will be a step (or two!) above the people you've already got.

   2. View Existing Employees Objectively

      Whilst you may have befriended some of your existing people (well, it's nice to be liked, isn't it!), built great rapport and made some progress in developing them, don't be tempted to go easy on candidates from your existing pool. If you want to make giant leaps, you have to do it firmly and very, very honestly. This is no time for getting soft. Internal promotion of the wrong people is the biggest reason for businesses underperforming - and the biggest reason for discord.

   3. Be Clear on What's Not Happening

      With the vision you have and the people you've already got - check with yourself - what's not working right and who am I looking for to make that happen? What experiences will they have? How will they behave? What key questions do I need to hear answers for? What will they bring that will be different and much, much better than I have already?

   4. Dump Your Assumptions

      When interacting, and even interviewing, keep objective. You have to be really strict here with yourself (in fact you are probably the biggest problem you have, but that's another piece altogether). Be factual and dump any prejudices you have. In fact you might not even realise you have preferences, but you have. Now is the time to recognise absolutely what the role needs, not you personally. Though you might also defer to 11 (yep, there's an 11!), below.

   5. Concentrate on 'I'

      Make sure that when you are hearing answers from your peotential recruit, that they tell you all about them. Keeping them to 'I' answers is far more revealing than 'we' or 'they' or 'us'. It is in your interest to dig at this and ask them precicely how they were involved themselves. Then you start to find some of the real truth. This enables better judgements and consequent decisions.

   6. Be Supportive at Interview

      Yet you want to get the best from them. Take time to put them at their ease through a few general questions to get them talking. You are not there to catch them out - you want success for you in recruiting well and for them to show you truly what they've got to offer. This is your job, not theirs. So often interviewers get this the wrong way round.

   7. Listen Hard & Question Deeper

      At interview, most of your time will be listening closely to what they are saying. If, in an interview situation, you catch yourself saying more than them, you have the balance way wrong - it needs to be you 30% max and them at least 70%. And when you listen, listen out for the things they say and notice where there is a moment you would want to know more. This comes up several times in a response. All you need to do is note these and pick a few in relation to the role offered - and ask a little more! 'You mentioned x, tell me a little more about that...'

   8. Pick for Difference

      It's easiest to pick people like you. You gel better with people you like and you tend to like people, like yourself! Yet sometimes it is a wonderful asset to have someone who grates a bit! Someone who has a different philosophy. Someone who is not afraid of you or to challenge and question back. Sometimes, challenging for you though it may be, it is a risk worth taking. And a very valuable asset.

   9. Keep on the Lookout

      By developing great ways of building rapport with people, you create intelligence networks in your own workplace, that frequently serve to provide solutions close to home - often from unexpected sources. Sometimes, if your natural state is to relate well with others, you'll spot people outside your own business who will fit exactly what you need. Make the best of this - it is a huge asset and you will build your 'perfect team' quicker and more efficiently.

  10. See Them in Action

      Where you can, work out a way of assessing them in action if possible. Use your eyes and ears to absorb how they perform in an experiential situation. Get clear what you need to know and let them do their thing. In a work experience it's hard to fudge, so you get to see more
  11. (A freebie!) Go With Your Gut (a bit!)

      Despite all the myriad of psychometrics, experiential based assessments, handwriting and facial analysis etc. that you employ, remember that sometimes you have an instinct worth listening to. Don't be frightened to go with it sometimes. It generally pays off more times than not and is a risk, through experience, which is worth taking.

It takes a lot of effort to get the right people. It takes a whole lot more energy (and focus and bitterness sometimes), to manage poor performers; square pegs recruited for round holes. Taking time, when you have the opportunity, to start from scratch is an opportunity not to be wasted.

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com.

...helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Haworth

In many management situations we find in our consulting and coaching environment we are brought in to solve particular problems. Management and their teams have tried everything they could but like our boiled frog they can’t get out of the soup. A consultant is brought in, wearing his bright red cape and carrying a magic wand. After several months’ intensive analysis and study a resolution is found. Plans are developed to implement a solution. Staff is communicated with; the involved members are trained in the new processes, policies and metrics written, a change management procedure is developed and all is being returned to normal. The solutions are implemented and the problem is over. Productivity is up, quality raised, staff is motivated, and costs are down, customers happier than ever before. Management is impressed they chose such a great consultant

STOP Rewind… Not so fast whizkid, MBA wonder boy.

How long do you think it will take for that self same problem to reappear? OK it might not be a week. You can rest assured it’s coming back within the quarter.

Taking snapshots of processes, looking at pieces of the whole and not developing an understanding of the structure of the problem in terms of the interactive systems and people’s input is not going to solve problems.

People develop a habit for doing what they think is right. Even when it starts going wrong they are not going to appreciate this. Managers will push harder, longer hours, more staff. Success , things improve, then they slump again. People get tired, new staff are not well trained and petty politics comes into play. Initial success at pushing eventually produces the opposite effects!

So the act of pushing growth actually inhibits the process! It reminds of a phrase we have in aviation. Pull back on the controls and the houses get small – keep pulling and they’ll eventually get big again. Yeah you’ll loop right over and scare yourself into diving right into the ground. Houses get real big.

So how do we change this and grow? This is where the concept of paradigms comes into play. We have to create new paradigms for the process. We have a limiting paradigm which we need to change to grow and solve our problems.

A business I know cannot grow; it gets to a half dozen clients and then loses two, if not them all. They have a mentor who has grown a successful company he tells them what to focus on, new systems, new marketing materials, training, policies and procedures. Not once does he delve into the understanding of the limiting belief structure in the business. Why would he? What does that have to do with business, he may think?

“Yeah, we know we can’t handle half a dozen clients… Every time we get that many clients something goes wrong!”

Now if only the mentor could help the business turn that around into a powerful new paradigm that motivates the business. What if they came up with a paradigm where “half a dozen clients are only the beginning…”

The understanding of problems in such simplistic linear terms will never lead to real solutions. Yes, there may be some short term results but the long term effects will still be there to bite you. Bringing in a new accountant solves some reporting issues. Not the reason the reports weren’t done in the first place. Developing a new measuring system brings in new data not a new solution.

So look at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, what’s stopping you from doing it better? What’s stopping you from doubling your revenue? Halving your waste? Halving your staff compliment? Really? Is your first answer a real reason or a limiting belief?

It’s amazing how seemingly logical limiting factors can be found to be beliefs. Check on yours. Look at the structure of your business and what interacts with what. Then see who is involved and at what levels. If there is a problem, are you going to fix a symptom or an underlying structural issue? Are you sure?

If you can believe it; you can do it.

Graeme Nichol, principal Arcturus Advisors, (http://www.arcturusadvisors.com) has worked on 4 continents gaining experience through Big Six consulting companies and boutique firms. Including; Business strategy, project management, change management, systems thinking, developing learning organizations, team development, productivity and quality improvement, and large scale ERP implementations.

At Arcturus Advisors and Best year Yet (http://www.bestyearyet.com)we work with business leaders and their teams to close the gap between great strategies and mediocre results. We use the Best Year Yet process to get you to focus on a shared vision and agree on how to achieve it. We get team members to value and respect the individual members and achieve results that far exceed individual contribution.

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Five years ago, a couple of instructors that I was working with and I were brainstorming about different ways to promote our training programs more easily. Up to that point, I had spent my entire career in training focused primarily on helping individuals become more successful by helping them strengthen certain skill sets such as public speaking, management skills, and selling skills. We noticed that out of our classes, about 80% of participants were individuals, about 15% came with a friend, and about 5% came as a group. We knew that these groups who attended together leveraged the results of the programs significantly, because they held each other accountable for implementation of the skills. They also discussed the class within the office setting. What we didn't know was why more teams weren't registering.

We decided to use the problem solving process that we teach in our classes to see if we could come up with different ways to increase group enrollment.

Step #1: Identify the Specific Problem and Create a One-Sentence Description.

This step sounds easy, but it is actually the most difficult and the most critical step as well. If your problem statement is too vague, then you will likely struggle with trying to come up with valid solutions. Also, if the problem statement is too encompassing, then a solution might be too complex to easily implement. For example, if we decide that the problem we want to overcome is poor customer service, then the group is likely to spend countless hours trying to first define customer service, and then coming up with every solution under the sun to try to fix the customer service problem. The success of the solution would be hard to measure. However, if we broke customer service into more specific parts such as eliminating rudeness from our call center agents or increasing repeat sales from existing customers, then we could more easily solve a complex problem.

In the example above where I mentioned that our instructors wanted to increase group participation, our original problem statement was related to increasing repeat business from first time clients. After a little investigation we found that companies that sent two or more people to our classes were 30 times more likely to send people in the future than companies that sent an individual. When we identified that trend, we created a more specific problem statement which was, "In what was can we increase group participation in our classes?"

Step #2: What are the Possibly Causes

A common error at this point in the process is to jump right into looking for solutions to the problem before trying to identify the root causes of the problem. This usually results in a "band-aid" solution or a solution that just treat symptoms. It would be like reaching under your dashboard and clipping the wire to your "Check Engine" light. Sure you won't see the light anymore, but the underlying root cause and root problem in the engine is still there.

Take some time to identify what some of the root causes of the problem are, and your team will come up with solutions to these root causes much more quickly.

In our example, we started looking at the way our company marketed our programs and found some glaring causes that we had overlooked time and time again. The underlying root cause that we found was that our entire marketing effort was geared toward individuals. Our marketing pieces said things like "helps YOU overcome the fear of public speaking." Our registration form only had room for one person's name. We had no group discounts. These were all root causes.

Step #3: What are the Possible Solutions

Once the root causes are uncovered, solutions should start popping like popcorn. In our case, we redesigned our registration form and marketing pieces and began offering a group discount. In the next six months, out percentage of group registrations versus individual registrations tripled. In the next six months, the percentage of group registrations tripled again.

In our case, we had a number of solutions to choose from and each was helpful in helping solve our problem, but in some cases, you may have to weed out possible solutions to discover a best possible solution.

Step #4: What's the Best Possible Solution

In this step, you'll want to weigh the pros and cons of each solution to determine what is the best plan of action based on what we know today. You may find that half way through implementation that one of the other solutions might work better. It's okay to regroup and begin to implement another solution if the first "Best Possible Solution" turns out to be a poor choice after all. Don't be afraid to take risks, though. Be willing to go out on a limb to create a breakthrough.

Step #5: Create an Implementation Plan

Most problem-solving meetings end when the solution is determined. Don't fall into this trap though. Once the solution is decided upon, create a detailed plan of action that hold specific people accountable for implementation. By doing this, you ensure that the solution that you worked so hard for actually pays off for you and your company.

Doug Staneart, [email protected] is CEO of The Leader’s Institute, www.leadersinstitute.com, specializing in leadership, public speaking, and team building training for individuals and groups. He can be reached toll-free at 1-800-872-7830.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Doug_Staneart

One of the most common complaints we hear from interviewing employees in the construction industry is, “I never get useful feedback about how I am doing my job.”

Most companies today use a performance appraisal system or a performance review system that was invented decades ago in a much slower business economy. So data that is given to employees in annual, semi-annual, or even quarterly reviews tends to be outdated by the time it is received by the person who could benefit most from the information—the employee.

In addition, the measurements that are in place in these appraisals are typically arbitrary and subjective. When I was in college, I had an internship with a major Fortune 500 company. At the end of the 3-month internship, my performance was reviewed by the other members of my department. All of these people thought that I was an exceptional intern, but they had to judge my performance based on the same five-point scale that they were judged on. I still remember the ache in the pit of my stomach when I saw all of the threes and fours on the document. My boss explained to me that very few people ever received fives, as that would leave little room for improvement. After reading and re-reading the document, I was left with the same question that many employees today are asking: Did I or did I not do my job well?

In today’s fast-paced economy, these traditional systems just don’t work. Performance appraisals should be short, no more than ten-minutes, and should focus on the results expected from the employee’s current position, and how effectively the employee’s current goals are being met. For example, a Project Manager may have a number of different results that are expect from his or her performance. Is the project on schedule? Is it under budget? Are the company quality standards being met? Is the customer satisfied? Are employee expenses in line?

All of these results can and should be measured consistently. Intangibles can also be measured such as morale (through employee surveys, workplace absenteeism, and turnover,) leadership (productivity, development of people, and problem-solving skills,) and work ethic (are goals consistently met, are goals challenging, and are project completed timely.)

With this system, a manager can schedule monthly “mini-interviews” taking just minutes. These sessions are valuable because they open lines of communication and they give the manager a chance to update the progress of the employee in different result areas. If the employee is performing above expectations, then this is an opportunity to shine and set new goals, and if the employee is performing below expectations, then corrective actions can be taken.

These “mini interviews” make annual appraisals a piece of cake, because the employee and the manager now have as many as 12 separate measured checkpoints along the way that show how the employee has performed over the last year. This annual review now has documented facts to base an appraisal on. The employee sees that he or she was on budget 95% of the time versus receiving a four out of five, or that he or she is ranked in the 90th percentile of managers within the company based on leadership.

This system, although not foolproof, can greatly reduce the stress and tension associated with Performance Appraisals. Companies using this type of system show dramatically higher productivity within months of implementation.

Doug Staneart, [email protected] is CEO of The Leader’s Institute, www.leadersinstitute.com, specializing in leadership, public speaking, and team building training for individuals and groups. He can be reached toll-free at 1-800-872-7830.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Doug_Staneart

How would you describe meetings you have attended in the past? Last Tuesday, I was facilitating a workshop on how to lead better meetings, and to start things off, I asked the group that very question. The answers that they provided were very similar to answers that I have received from hundreds of workshop participants over the last ten years.

The first two responses were…

“Meetings are looooooooooong,” and “Meetings are BOW-ring (this workshop was actually held in my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas – thus the Texas twang.)”

Those two responses almost always come up when I ask the question. Others that also come up a lot are: Wastes of time, non-productive, confrontational, inefficient, repetitive, and a number of other negative descriptions. Every once in a while, I get a response like positive, informative, or necessary, but usually the other participants gang-up against the person very quickly.

Most people believe that meetings are necessary evils, and in many cases, they are. But one of the most important things we can remember about meetings is to NOT have one unless the meeting is absolutely necessary. When your employees and coworkers are in staff meetings, they are not producing. Nothing is ever produced until after the meeting is over. Some one of my first pieces of advice to people who want to make meetings more effective is to have fewer of them.

About five years ago, I made this statement in a class, and a young lady in the front row raised her hand and said, “That sounds really good, but my whole job description involves going to meetings.” I was intrigued, so I asked her to tell me more. She was a personal assistant to a manager of a Fortune 500 company, and she was hired by her boss to attend the meetings that he could not attend himself because there were not enough hours in the day. After class, she and I sat down and identified 32-hours of wasted meeting time that she was participating in every week. These were meetings that neither she nor her boss was actually needed for, but that one of them attended every week. Over the next year, this one person increased productivity of her team by over 200%. Granted, this is an extreme case, but there are probably hours in each of our weeks that are wasted by ineffective meetings.

The tips below are strategies that I have collected over the years from class members who swear by their effectiveness. I hope they work for you as well.

1) Have an Agenda: Outline ahead of time what points will be covered in the meeting. Write it out, and distribute it to participants ahead of time. This will help avoid the “chasing of rabbits,” and help participants be more prepared for the meeting.

2) Follow the Agenda: This sounds very elementary, but you’d be surprised by the number of people who take the time to create an agenda, and then totally disregard the agenda during the meeting.

3) Limit the Agenda to Three Points or Less: Ask yourself, “What are the three most important things we need to cover in the meeting?” Limit the agenda to these three points. The rest of the things you wanted to cover, by definition, weren’t really that important anyway, so why waste everyone’s time?

4) Set a Time Limit: I would suggest setting the time limit for the meeting to be no longer than 30-minutes. In future meetings, shorten the time by five minutes until the time limit is 15-minutes or less. The leader of the meeting will become much more efficient, and the participants will become much more focused as well. When the time limit is up, end the meeting. You may not get to cover every single thing that you wanted to the first couple of time you try this, but within a short time, you will find that the major information points are being discussed and decisions are being made very efficiently.

5) Encourage Participation from Everyone, but don’t Force Them: Instead of going around the table and asking for opinions or input, just ask a question and let people volunteer their answers. There will be times during any meeting that each person will “phase out” (especially if it is a looooong and BOW-ring meeting.) If we call on every person, it wastes time, and puts people on the spot. Other ways of encouraging participation is to just ask a question, and after someone answers, say something like, “Good, let’s hear from someone else.” If there are people in your meeting who rarely speak, instead of calling on them directly, you might say something like, “I value the opinion of each of you, does anyone else have something to add.” Then, just look at the person you want to hear from. If he or she has something to say, he or she will say it if encouraged in this way. If he or she doesn’t, then you haven’t embarrassed the person.

Meetings can be a very powerful way to communicate and solve problems. In past workshops that I have facilitated, we have shown leaders how to identify the root-cause of a problem, come up with dozens of possible solutions, come to a consensus as group on the best possible solution, and create a written plan of action that is measurable in 15-minutes or less. Your meetings can be that efficient and that powerful too if you use these simple tips.

Doug Staneart is President of DM Staneart and Associates, http://www.buildingyourteam.com, leadership and team-building training. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or toll-free at 1-800-872-7830 x-100.

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Managers, team leaders and their staff can take as many as a hundred or more decisions in the course of a day, each day and every day. Many of these decisions are, of course, no more than automatic responses to familiar situations in which they have to choose between two or three options. However, from time to time, we all have to take decisions on which the course of our future and that of others depends. Then, it is a question of making sure they are right. Here are 6 principles to guide you in right decision-making.

1. Time Them. There are two traps which people fall into when making decisions: making them too soon and making them too late. Some people make decisions too swiftly and without due thought. This may be because they are uncomfortable with the tension that is created when a decision has to be made but they don't have all the information needed. Instead of living with tension, they make the decision before time. Other people delay making decisions because they fear making a mistake or fear the changes that will result. The best decisions are hot-iron decisions: those that are well-timed, which you make when the iron is hot and the time is right.

2. Align Them. The more decisions you make consciously, the more you can align them with your goals and purposes. Studies show that the average person makes 612 decisions a day. Each one takes us closer or further from our ultimate goals in life. In a week, that means 4,900 decisions. In a year, 254,800. Results are cumulative. Strategic thinking means looking at how your decisions today affect your tomorrows. When your decisions are in alignment with what’s important to you, then life becomes meaningful, productive and delightful.

3. Balance Them.There are three balancing acts to be aware of in taking a good decision. They are:
• Care and not care. Do all your worrying before the decision and once a decision has been taken, stop worrying.
• Think and act. Too much thinking puts off the action; too much action may be at the expense of thought. Seek the right balance.
• Look before you leap and leap before you look. See the possible risks of your decision but, once decided, take the plunge with courage.

4. Act When You Have To. You should only make decisions when you have to. Here are five "don'ts" to guide you.
• DON'T make a decision unless you have two or more equally valid options.
• DON'T make a decision if it's somebody else's responsibility.
• DON'T make a decision unless there is disagreement.
• DON'T make a decision about irrelevant matters.
• DON'T make a decision if it can't be turned into action. "If there's one thing I've learned in politics, it is: never make a decision until you have to." (Margaret Thatcher)

5. Don’t Decide Without Acting. Eric Aronson tells this riddle: If 5 birds are sitting on a wire and one of them decides to fly away, how many are left? The answer is five. One bird’s decision to fly away does not mean it did! Theodore Roosevelt said that the worst thing you could do when you have to make a decision is to do nothing. Even if you make a wrong decision, the very making of it and the learning from it are steps forward. As Frederick Langbridge added, “If you don’t follow through on a decision, someone else will pick it up and use it. When you make a decision, jump in with both feet, don’t just stick your toe in the water. Be daring, be fearless, and don’t be afraid that somebody is going to criticize you or laugh at you. If your ego is not involved, no one can hurt you.”

6. Keep Your Decision Under Review. Decisions are a mix of what we currently want (goals); what we currently know (information); what we believe (outcomes); and what we can do (actions). There is no guarantee that any of these will stay the same or that they will come right. No decision is perfect. This is because…
• half-way through the implementation of a decision we may realise we don't want to achieve the goal after all.
• after taking a decision, we may stumble across more information which, had we had it before, would have totally changed our decision.
• since outcomes depend on an educated guess about the future, we might guess wrong.
• a successful decision depends as much on motivation and skill in implementation as on getting it right.

Nobody who regularly makes important decisions affecting the lives of others will tell you hand on heart that they get it right every time. Decision-taking is more of an art than a science. But practice, and learning from our results, may at least take us closer down the road to a 100% strike rate.

© 2005, Eric Garner, ManageTrainLearn.com

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One of the toughest jobs a leader has to perform is to act as guardian of an organisation’s values.

An organisation’s values are the things that are really important to it.

In the early days of an enterprise, the values are sometimes the only thing that keeps the business going. When other factors make the chances of survival doubtful, such as funds, markets, and technology, it is the set of beliefs held by the original founders which pull the business through. The beliefs of the organization are almost always the beliefs of the original leaders.

These beliefs are intangible. Think of Unilever’s belief in co-operation, or Mars’s belief in efficiency, or IBM’s belief in innovation, or Hewlett-Packard’s belief in “plain hard work”, or Levi-Strauss’s belief in empathy with its customers. It is the high value placed on these beliefs that ensure these organizations survive in the first place and continue to survive.

As the years go by, and the organization changes its technology, its products and its leaders, there is a danger that it may abandon its original set of beliefs or relegate them in importance or forget them. To do so is to risk corporate suicide. If original values have to change – often a difficult step – then new values must replace them and be as meaningful, relevant and important as the original ones.

As custodians of the organisation’s values, leaders have to know the values, live the values, and preserve the values. John Maxwell tells the story of how John Wooden, head basketball coach at the University of California, put values before expediency. Wooden had spotted an outstanding young basketball player whose skills would be an asset to his line-up. Everyone urged him to sign the youth. But Wooden was unsure. Something in the young man’s demeanour bothered him. So he arranged a home visit, with the contract all prepared in his inside pocket. When he took tea with the family, he couldn’t help noticing a disrespectfulness in the youth’s attitude towards his mother. One of the key values in Wooden’s team was respect. And it was a value he intended to maintain. As a result, the contract stayed in his pocket.

Values are not just important for the organization. They are the touchstone that determines whether people succeed in the organization. When the chips are down, it’s not what you do that counts, but whether you stay true to the values. As Christel Brown says, “People do things because of their values. People rob banks because their values include greed, more money and maybe recognition. People die on the battlefield because their values include love of their country and patriotism.” Values are the ultimate people motivators. In organizations where values matter, people may be dismissed for violating the rules; they should always be dismissed for violating the values.

John Maxwell says that values are at the heart of everything an organization does, hence the use of the phrase “core values”. “Values are like glue. They hold an organization together. Values are like a ruler. They set the standard for a team’s performance. Values are like a compass. They give direction and guidance. Values are like a magnet. They attract like-minded people. Values provide identity. They define and identify the team.”

One last example. Few people today have heard of Phil Knight, Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine. But these three were the driving force and inspiration that created Nike, the footwear and clothing colossus. And what drove them? A passionate belief that things could be done. The stories of Bowerman’s endless experiments with the family waffle iron into which he poured rubber to create the best running shoe sole are legendary. So are Prefontaine’s battles to make running a professional sport. Today, Nike actually employs executives as “corporate storytellers” to remind their staff of the values of the original founders and that their business is about getting things done.

In business, as in life, beliefs can move mountains. Without belief, without a positive set of beliefs, and without action to act on these beliefs, we achieve nothing. Our beliefs and values drive us and our businesses. As Alvin Toffler says, “Every business has a belief system and it is at least as important as its accounting system or its authority system.”

© Eric Garner, ManageTrainLearn.com

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A statement of mission is one of the most powerful things you can do, whether you are running a major corporation or a small team. It expresses the purpose for the organisation’s existence, its raison d’etre, and becomes the rallying point around which everyone can unite.

Often managers create mission statements because they think they should and then leave them gathering dust on the shelf. But this is to mistake the real power and purpose of mission statements. If put together with real understanding of what a group of people can achieve, they can act like irresistible magnets drawing everyone in the same direction.

It is one of the core roles of leaders, whether at the top of the organisation, or anywhere within it, to confirm, verify, communicate, and live the mission statement. Here are some of the ways that can happen.

- Write your Mission Statement down. Although it can be used for promotion purposes, it should never be seen purely as a promotional tool but as the group expressing the best version of itself.
- Think first about how the group benefits others. These could be those who work for it, those who are its customers, the wider community, or future generations.
- Think in terms of being sent on a mission by a higher power. If you see the organisation as fulfilling a role at some profound level, beyond perhaps your immediate understanding, then the Mission Statement becomes easier to write. Your mission will have far more power if you get a sense of the business’s unique and special purpose, rather than simply re-stating its aim to make money for its stakeholders.
- Tie in your Mission Statement with your goals, aims, and visions.
- Use language that everyone can understand. The best Mission Statements are simple monosyllabic one-liners.
- Don’t worry about getting it right first time. Just like our own understanding of our purpose on this earth, understanding the mission of your organisation is a work in progress. So keep at it and revise it as you go.

Of course, it is easier to state these high-sounding aims, another to find the right words. So, take a look at some famous mission statements used at various times by well-known companies.

1. Reebok: “Our purpose is to ignite a passion for winning, to do the extraordinary, and to capture the customer’s heart and mind.”
2. Walt Disney: “To make people happy.”
3. Wal-Mart: “To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people.”
4. The Body Shop: “Tirelessly work to narrow the gap between principle and practice whilst making fun, passion and care part of our daily lives.”
5. Marks and Spencer: “Our mission is to make aspirational quality accessible to all.”
6. Sony: “Our mission is to experience the joy of advancing and applying technology for the benefit of the public.”
7. Coca Cola: “The basic proposition of our business is simple, solid and timeless. When we bring refreshment, value, joy and fun to our stakeholders, then we successfully nurture and protect our brands.”
8. 3M: “To solve unsolved problems innovatively.”
9. Glaxo: “We are an integrated, research-based group of companies whose corporate purpose is to create, discover, develop, manufacture, and market safe effective medicines throughout the world.”

And here to top these statements is the mission statement of Ringland Bros circus, penned in 1899: "To be good, mankind must be happy. To wreathe the faces of humanity in smiles for a time, to loosen the chains that hold man captive to his duties and return him to them better fitted for his obligations, is the mission of amusement. Amusement unfetters the mind from its environs and changes the dreary monotony of the factory's spindles to the joyous song of the meadowlark. It softens the wrinkles of sorrow, makes smiles of frowns. This is the mission of amusement - and the circus with its innocent sights of joy for the children and its power to make all men and women children again for at least one day, comes the nearest of any form of amusement to fulfilling this mission."

We can of course write our own mission statements. Doing our own statements makes writing them for our organizations much easier. Here is the mission statement of a working mother: "I will seek to fulfil my duties towards both my work and my family since both are important to me. My work is the place where I aim to achieve service towards others, the expression of my technical knowledge and the building of harmonious and satisfying relationships. My home is the place where I aim to find happiness, peace, contentment and joy. Despite all the challenges, I aim to balance work and home and the genuine needs of those who look to me to help them."

Let the last word be with Paul Beeston of mission-coach.co.uk: “To live your mission is the most generous thing you can do. Your mission is always going to make a major contribution to your life, the lives of others and the planet. Humankind and the planet needs you to live your mission. Your mission is part of the tapestry of life and without it there are stitches missing. Is there anything more important for you to do?”

© Eric Garner, ManageTrainLearn.com

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