Management Craft

What's the possibility? - Do you need some mental fuel?

Here are two books I frequently recommend to folks who need to dream bigger or create an inspiring vision for the future.

The Art of Possibility by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander. I wrote about this book here.

Making the Impossible Possible: One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary by Bill Strickland. I wrote about this book (and interviewed the author) here.

Gumby, the Manager - Management Styles

Here is a guest post by Paul Thornton, who writes and teaches about management. It has always been my belief that a great manager shows up as the person the employee needs at the time and that this changes based on the individual, the situation, and the time.

Management Styles
By Paul B. Thornton

As a manager I use three basic management styles—Directing, Discussing, and Delegating.  

Directing Style--When I direct—I tell the individual or a group:

• What to do
• How it’s to be done
• When to have it completed by

I’ve learned it works best when I’m organized, clear, concise, and provide the right amount of detail. Also, I’ve learned it’s important to treat people as adults. On occasion I have acted like the parent telling my immature child/employee what to do. Not good. I came across as being condescending and arrogant.

Use the directing style in the following situations:

1. Your boss has given you specific directions.
2. Your employee is inexperienced and lacks needed skills.
3. Emergencies

Don’t use the directing style if your employee has done the task 28 times. 

How can you be a better director? I have found it’s useful to ask employees questions like the following:

• How well do I communicate my expectations?

• How clearly do I explain what I want you to do?

The Discussing Style—I’ve learned the discussing style works best when I ask focused and genuine questions. Genuine questions come from my curiosity and desire to learn.

Use the discussing style in the following situations:

• You haven’t made up your mind. There are opportunities to influence the goals and plans.
• Discussion and collaboration will improve the quality of the decisions.
• There is need for buy-in and commitment from those who will be implementing the plan.

In meetings it’s important to get everyone involved in the discussion. I often begin meetings by saying, “I want to start by giving each of you two minutes to discuss your views on this topic.” Managers should withhold their opinion until all employees have had a chance to comment.

Don’t use the discussing style when if you have already made up your mind.

How can you be more effective when using the discussing style? Prepare the questions you will ask ahead of time? The better the questions—the better the discussion.

Delegating Style—Using this style, I assign tasks to the employee. I let the employee decide what needs to be accomplished and when it must be completed. But there are times when I defined the “what needs to be done” and “when it must be completed.” However the how-to-do-it part of the equation is always left up to the employee. 

Use the delegating style in the following situations:

• The employee knows or is capable of figuring out how to get the work done.
• You want to use the assignment as a developmental opportunity to broaden the employee’s skills.

Don’t use the delegating style if the employee lacks confidence and know how.

Summary

Like a good doctor, managers must diagnose the situation before deciding what management style to use. As employees gain experience, skills and confidence managers need to move from directing to discussing to delegating. 

About Paul:
Paul B. Thornton is a speaker and author. His latest book, The Big Three Management Styles (Multi-Media Publications) is available at amazon.com and bn.com. His e-mail address is PThornton@stcc.edu.

Do you "have it together?" - The Importance of organization during tough times.

Here is a guest post from Regina Leeds, author of One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Desk to Your Deadlines, the Week-by-Week Guide to Eliminating Office Stress for Good. I think her point that being organized is even more important now is very true. For both our mental confidence and our practical productivity. If getting and staying organized is a challenge for you, check out her work and book.

It's always important to have an organized work space.  But now with downsizing and job loss spreading throughout the work sector like a fever, being organized is a great insurance policy.  You can use your organizing skills to demonstrate to your employer how invaluable you are to the day to day operation of the business.  And, if you are the owner of the establishment, you can just as easily show your employees by example the kind of office space and productivity you hope to find throughout the organization. Are you looking for a job?  Being organized will not only help you organize your job search, it will be a skill you can present to your employer.  You see?  There isn’t a single down side to being organized!
 
If the world of organization has been an area of challenge for you, consider this: getting organized is just a skill.  If you wanted to play a musical instrument like the piano, master a sport like tennis or learn how to dance, what would you do?  You’d read some good books, find a qualified teacher, practice and hope to reach your individual potential.  Getting organized requires the same steps.  It isn’t solely for those who seem to have been born with a natural proclivity for order.  Learning a new skill is one of the best ways to keep our brains active and stay youthful.  There’s no time like the present to begin the journey. And "One Year to an Organized Work Life" is the ideal companion.

Regina Leeds, author One Year to an Organized Life
'The Zen Organizer'

The Power of a Positive Vibe

Regardless of your politics, it is hard to not notice how wrapped up people are in this presidential inauguration. For some, it is a deeply personal feeling of progress while others are seeing it as hope for improvements in the economy, environment, or global affairs. Yes, some are not happy to see Obama in power, but overall, the vibe is hopeful (even among those who did not vote for Obama).

The news media interview financial experts who talk about the importance of consumer confidence and general optimism in turning things around. When we are optimistic, we buy things and we build businesses.

As a manager, it will serve you well to observe the vibe you create at work and do whatever you can to ensure it is as positive and optimistic as possible. We are never at our best - most creative, most effective, most analytical - when we are worried or angry or disengaged.

Like consumer confidence, employee confidence is powerful and helpful.

Are you a manager that makes people want to be here? To make a difference? Or are you the reason they leave? Tune out - check their brains and hearts at the door. Do you inspire optimism or pessimism?

As I age/sage, I place more and more importance on the vibe of work, of partnerships, of friendships. And I try to understand how I contribute to the vibe and whether I am making it better or worse. The great thing is that when you decide to put out a positive vibe, you feel it - it is a self-reinforcing loop of loveliness.

Fireside Chat With Peter Cohan - You Can't Order Change

What should you do with talented professionals who are lousy managers? Check out this podcast!

 During this 23 minute podcast, I chat with Peter Cohan, author of You Can't Order Change: Lessons From Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. I must admit that I did not know much about McNerney before reading this book, and I like a lot about his approach and overall philosophy. If you like the kind of management advice I share on this blog, I think you will relate to McNerney's leadership - he's a talent builder. Peter Cohan did a great job of bringing the examples together for a good read and he is a management expert and educator himself (and has written 8 books). He blogs here.

You can listen to my podcast with the Peter Cohan by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here.

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog or see the list on my main website here.

You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.

Remembering that we are messing with people's lives... HR and Hiring and how to avoid having your resume rejected on the first pass

I have done and still do some recruiting and I try to remind myself that there are people worrying about how I will respond to their resumes or interviews. I try to appreciate that there are some folks with knots in their stomachs because the wait is excruciating. I try to remember that my decisions have a huge impact on other people's lives.

Sure, it can be annoying, or inconvenient, to get dozens of phone calls asking for updates. I emailed my resume last night and want to know if you have had time to review it. I try not to let the messages impact my review of their resumes because I don't know their circumstances. Who knows, it might be this job that will enable him/her to stay in his/her home.

When we are waiting for the call from HR or the hiring manager, many of us are a bundle of nerves. This is why I try to be upfront with people if I think they are not a good match for the role. I tell them they will not get and interview, or an offer if they have interviewed. I think the pain of hearing this is less than the waiting and ultimate pain. And perhaps they will get into action on other job options.

And it pains me when I see candidates make very bad decisions about how they apply for jobs. You will read blogs post that tell you to buck convention to get noticed. I would agree that doing extra - more - can be good. But never do less than what employers request. Here's what I mean:

• Always completely fill out the application. Yes, this is a pain in the neck. But DO NOT write in the previous job section "see resume." There is a reason HR people want you to fill out the application. Your resume does not include all the information we seek - namely your salary history and the reasons you left each position. Take the extra time to fill out the application.
• If the job posting says to submit a cover letter, resume, and application, do all three. The cover letter is important for many jobs, particularly those that require writing. In addition, if you would not be the logical choice (a nurse applying to work as a webmaster), you can take the opportunity to address why you think you are the right person in your cover letter.
• Write legibly. If you cannot write legibly, type it. Better yet, learn to write legibly. Your application will get no attention if it cannot be read.
• Update your resume. I cannot tell you the number of times I have gotten a resume that did not include the most recent job. When I say, "so you are working at IBM," and you say, "oh, no, I left IBM, I am now working at ADP," this tells me that you did not care enough to update the resume (and makes me wonder if there might be a reason you did not want to mention this).

Here's why this is important. The HR person gets 100 applications, but you decided it was a pain in the neck to complete the application and send only your resume. You are now competing with 100 people who cared enough to do what was asked. The HR person MIGHT send you an email asking for the application, but it is more likely that your resume will be filed away and you will not be considered.

Case in point. I was reviewing this woman's applicant package (email, cover letter, application). The cover letter was short, but told me she had some experiences that we sought and her current employer was in the industry. The resume did not list the most recent employer that she mentioned in her cover letter. So I went to the application, where she wrote "see resume" in the previous employers section.

Because I know that I am messing with people's lives, I looked everything over a few times - precious time I did not have to spare. And then I put her application aside. Why? Because I had a huge stack of applications from people who took the time to send me the information I requested. Also, if someone is this careless when seeking a job, she is likely even more careless when doing other tasks.

The hiring function is dramatic and life changing. Each little decision we make about who is out and who is in affects someone. The bottom line is that we have one job and 100 people - we need to get from 100 to 1. Make sure you do not get ousted in the first pass. If you are seeking work, please take the care required to respond to jobs in the way the job posting requests. Know and embrace the fact that you are likely competing with dozens of other people.

P.S. For those of you applying for higher level jobs - yes, this applies to you. Often, like when working through a recruiter, you will only need to submit a resume. BUT, if the job posting - for even the $150,000 per year job - asks for an application, fill one out. Bottom line: do at least what is requested, and perhaps more, when applying for jobs.

Unleash Employee Productivity

Here is a second guest post from Don & Sheryl Grimme, Authors of The New Manager's Tool Kit. We will have another follow-up post from the Grimme's in a couple of days.

Unleash Employee Productivity

This first decade of the new millennium is the era of working smarter and harder, 24/7. Ironically, these very standards that demand high performance are having a negative impact on that performance. Inherent in the problem is the key to the solution: overturn traditional practices rooted in an out-of-date, 9-to-5 paradigm.

By Don & Sheryl Grimme

In a 2006 in-depth study, the Families and Work Institute found that one third of all U.S. employees are chronically overworked. Downsizing, global competition, 24/7 operations and dual careers have enhanced the products and services we are able to purchase as consumers. However, these same trends have increased the demands placed on us as producers, i.e., in the workplace. And many of us, as individuals and as organizations, have not yet adjusted to this brave new world.

In 1997, The National Study of the Changing Workforce, conducted by the Families and Work Institute, examined the impact on work outcomes of four sets of factors. The Study found that Job Demands (long hours, bringing work home, nights away from home, overtime with no notice, shift work, and job pressures) have a significant impact on performance and productivity, a negative one – comparable to the positive impact of either Job Quality or Workplace Support. [Earnings & Benefits have virtually no impact.]

This is not good news. This first decade of the new millennium is the era of working smarter and harder, 24/7. These very standards that demand high performance are having a negative impact on that performance.

So what to do? Well, you can start by doing whatever you can to limit these job demands. Be sure to include job burnout in your equation, when assessing the relative merits of downsizing or cost-cutting initiatives.

Think about what you can do to limit each type of job demand examined in the National Study:

• Discourage excessively long hours and bringing work home, wherever possible.
• Minimize nights away from home (e.g., with virtual meetings).
• Limit overtime (which is a good way to cut costs); and plan for it in advance.
• Accommodate personal preferences in shift assignments, whenever possible.
• Make sure that your productivity expectations are reasonable ... and
• Use motivation (rather than pressure) to encourage your employees to meet those expectations.

And there is some good news! The National Study also found that workplace support appears to buffer or protect employees from the negative effects of job demands. So, beef up workplace support to ameliorate the negative impact of job demands on productivity. Reciprocate for the greater demands you place on employees. Notice the specific factors included in Job Demands in the National Study. All of these curtail employees' personal lives. Balance this by providing opportunities to deal with personal demands and desires.

Encourage employees to interact with family and friends during work hours. We realize that this is in direct opposition to typical practices. But those practices are based on an out-of-date, 9-to-5 paradigm. Permit personal phone calls. Allow family and friends to access the workplace, and not just an annual Bring Your Son/Daughter to Work Day.

Allow employees to access personal email and non-work websites, at least during rest breaks and lunch hours. [Banning access to obscene, violent or harassing sites is fine, but don't get carried away.]
Be generous in providing time off to handle personal needs (e.g., doctors' appointments, day care arrangements, etc.). And place a renewed emphasis on implementing the ten tips shown on our Employee Retention HQ website.]
*************
The Grimmes are nationwide trainers and speakers … and authors of the groundbreaking new book on managing people in today’s workplace, The New Manager’s Tool Kit (AMACOM, 2008).

Let's not pander to boredom!

A reader wrote me an email and asked my opinion of this interesting blog post from Thinking Faster called, Channel Surfing Management. Check it out and then come back here to better understand my comments. The author, Jeffrey Philips, is basically suggesting that we structure the work to fit how we live - in his case, he is a channel surfer, and he wants things in very short bites (90 second presentations, lots of tasks to switch between).

Overall, I think it is good to consider how the work can be structured to best fit the style and preferences of workers and I think we should offer as much flexibility as possible. There are a couple of cautions I would offer regarding his specific suggestions:

1. Jeffrey suggest we shorten conversations to brief pitches. I think we don't discuss things of importance nearly enough and not nearly deep enough. The problem is that our meetings are filled with so much crud, that we don't have time. So if you want to spend 90 seconds on the crud, that seems like progress (0 seconds would be better). But I would advocate spending as much time as needed on those topics that are important - especially if business decisions will be made based on the discussion.

2. Jeffrey suggests we offer employees several different tasks to do so they can switch often. Offering choice is good, but let's remember what we know about multi-tasking - we loose productivity. So switching is fine if it is not too often, but we lose focus and productivity if we switch too often in a small period of time.

The title of this post is "let's not pander to boredom," because we sometimes do things because we are bored or to make them more exciting. I want work to be fun and exciting and I think we can achieve this without wrecking focus and excellent conversation about what matters most. I can relate to the desire to change things up - I get bored very quickly myself. It might be more fun to do 20 things in a day, and do each just a little bit. For your company (overall productivity and quality of work), it might be better if we took some time and care to focus more deeply on some tasks.

Using the channel surfing metaphor - if you switch from channel to channel, will you really see and understand the nuances of the programs that are most important? Again, I am all for switching through the unimportant stuff, but if you are on a project team that is doing important work, I would hate for you to tune in for 15 seconds at a time and never really get into the good nitty gritty and build the conversations and relationships that will make the project a success.

One last point. If your workplace has a mixture of 20 somethings and 30 somethings on up to fifty or sixty somethings, realize that there will be a variety of styles and preferences you might need to consider. If you have channel surfers working for you, feel free to add some variety while keeping the focus on mission critical work. And if you manage younger workers (or older channel surfers), reading Jeffrey's post might help you better tune your communications to keep their interest up. It is a fact of life that today's young professionals are IMing, texting, and You Tubing as a part of their daily socialization - we all need to better understand today's communication vehicles of choice.

That's my 2 cents. What do you think?

A Different Paradigm for Talent Retention

Here is a guest post from Don & Sheryl Grimme, Authors of The New Manager's Tool Kit. We will have another follow-up post from the Grimme's in a couple of days.

A Different Paradigm for Talent Retention

Despite the dismal economy, retaining talented employees remains a real challenge for employers … and the techniques typically utilized to meet this challenge are not working. We need to apply a different paradigm.

By Don & Sheryl Grimme

The retention of talented employees has emerged as the workplace issue of the decade. For example, the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2006 Workplace Forecast predicted that the #1 employment trend most likely to have a major impact on the workplace is: a greater emphasis on retention strategies.

This continues, notwithstanding the recent rising unemployment rate. You see, more than a shortage of bodies, this is a crisis is of talent. Fortunately, every crisis contains not only danger, but also opportunity … if you know how to tap into it.

Employers are groping at ways to attack the problem. A 2005 SHRM survey found the techniques being used are: salary adjustments, job promotions, bonuses, more attractive benefits and retirement packages, and stock options. All of which are expensive … and not very effective. The reason is that they are misdirected.

In 1997, The National Study of the Changing Workforce, conducted by the Families and Work Institute, examined the impact on work outcomes of four sets of factors. The Study found that, while Earnings & Benefits have only a 2% impact on job satisfaction, Job Quality and Workplace Support have a combined 70% impact. That’s a 35 times greater bang for the buck!

And the results were similar for factors impacting organizational loyalty and employee retention.
Are we saying that competitive wages are unimportant? Of course not. Money usually is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to attract, retain and motivate good employees. [By the way, money isn't even always necessary. Notice how energized and enthusiastic unpaid volunteers often are.]

We will go to work for a paycheck and a benefits plan. But we won’t really do work (or, at least, our best work) unless something else is present. It is the quality of the work itself and of our relationships with others at work, which draws us to the best organizations and keeps us there – energized and performing at peak effectiveness.

What use does this have to you as a workplace leader? Well…

These concepts can become your mental model or paradigm – guiding you as you interact with your employees on a day-to-day and minute-by-minute basis. It’s a very different paradigm from the carrot & stick approach typically used; and is much more effective in getting the bottom-line results you want.

You can think about your own behaviors and your organization’s current policies, practices and programs from what may be a different perspective. Are they working for you? Are they consistent with these principles? What changes can you begin making?

And you can anticipate the efficacy of new initiatives under consideration. For example, to reduce turnover, does it now make sense to rely on salary increases, promotions, bonuses, benefits, retirement packages and stock options?

We think it make more sense to:
1.    Pay them fairly.
2.    Treat them GREAT!
[As for how to treat them great, see the ten tips shown on our Employee Retention HQ website.]
*************
The Grimmes are nationwide trainers and speakers … and authors of the groundbreaking new book on managing people in today’s workplace, The New Manager’s Tool Kit (AMACOM, 2008).

Leading in Tough Times

Check out this ChangeThis manifesto called Here We Go Again: Leading in Tough Times by Lee Cohan. In case you are not familiar with ChangeThis - all the manifestos are FREE to download and you can find a lot of fresh and helpful thinking.