The three general rules for empowering the people around you, which apply to everyone you meet, are appreciation, approval, and attention.
Voice your thanks and gratitude to others on every occasion. Praise them for every accomplishment. And pay close attention to them when they talk and want to interact with you.
These three behaviors alone will make you a master of human interaction and will greatly empower the people around you
The 80/20 principle states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts and activities and that the progress means moving resources from low-value to high-value uses.
Look through your list of ideas and circle the 20% that will yield 80% of the results you are looking for.
Build a star team, not a team of stars. There is nothing like my team or his team concept it’s our team. A co. is as strong as its weakest team is.
Generally the fun is lost when one takes himself too seriously - Managers must drop their mask and roll up their sleeves to be a part of the execution process than being a control freak. They should be part of the team not above the team.
Treating colleagues as your customer at workplace. Because when you treat some one as colleague there is a chance that you might take him/her for granted than being professional?
Practice a culture of public praise and pvt criticism
"People want and need to feel that they are “insiders,” that they are aware of everything that is going on. There is nothing so demoralizing to a staff member than to be kept in the dark about their work and what is going on in the company."
Encourage Initiative and Meaningful contributions
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Manager is not a Position but an Action
Working or meeting with great managers is often quite fascinating to everyone in the corporate world. So to understand this breed I decided to discuss with a host of professionals and successful managers from different walk of life used my observatory radar on them.
I realized to describe the definition of best manager we ever had is not so easy. If you ask five colleagues this question you will get five different answers. The problem is that being the best manager is in the eye of the beholder and you can’t satisfy everyone. Still, there are some practical steps that can help you be the best manager you can be.
At a very broad level I realized that there are two main reasons why managers fail.
The first is that they are caught in the middle between the people they manage and those that manage them. They are under tremendous pressure to produce. They feel anxious, vulnerable and exposed. Less effective managers can’t control or hide their anxieties so they dump on people reporting to them. This gets them some short term relief when people move faster, but they lose out in the longer term through higher turnover and lower employee morale.
The second reason managers fail is that they are more interested in the content of their work than in developing and coordinating the efforts of others. They expect their teams to run like machines with minimum attention while they spend their time doing what they perceive to be more interesting or more important.
To be one of the best you need to overcome these hurdles and the lessons learned from them:
Control your emotions so you can handle the pressure without jumping all over your team every time a mistake occurs.
Vital to manage the expectations of your boss so you can minimize the stress placed on you in the first place.
Don’t try to reason with your boss when he or she is angry. When your boss is in a good mood, discuss the damage that losing your temper can have on employee morale, retention and productivity.
If a crisis happens and your boss gets angry, remind him or her about your agreement that if you get angry with your team you will do more harm than good. Do some reading on stress management as well.
To use your time well, follow the 80-20 rule. Allocate 20 percent of your time to the strategic matters that most interest you and 80 percent to developing, coaching, facilitating and motivating your team.
Spend some time every week with each individual team member asking questions and doing a lot of listening. Ask what work they are most and least enjoying, what they would like to do more of or less of, what they would like to learn and what they need from you.
Also, importantly, seek their input on work related issues rather than trying to be the person with all the answers. There is no better way of showing people you value them than to ask them for their opinion. Of course you have to listen genuinely and not just go through the motions like a store clerk mechanically telling you to have a great day.
Never neglect details. When every one's mind is dulled or distracted the manager must be doubly vigilant.
Good managers delegate and empower others liberally, but they pay attention to details, every day. The job of the manager is not to be the chief organizer, but the chief disorganizer.
You don't know what you can get away with until you try. Good managers don't wait for official blessing to try out. If you ask enough people for permission, you inevitably come up against someone who believes his job is to say "no". So, the moral is, don't ask
Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing. In well-run organizations, titles are also pretty meaningless. But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the capacity to influence and inspire.
The most important question in performance evaluation becomes not "How well did you perform your job since the last time we met?" but "How much did you change it?"
Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.
By treating everyone equally "nicely" regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.
I realized to describe the definition of best manager we ever had is not so easy. If you ask five colleagues this question you will get five different answers. The problem is that being the best manager is in the eye of the beholder and you can’t satisfy everyone. Still, there are some practical steps that can help you be the best manager you can be.
At a very broad level I realized that there are two main reasons why managers fail.
The first is that they are caught in the middle between the people they manage and those that manage them. They are under tremendous pressure to produce. They feel anxious, vulnerable and exposed. Less effective managers can’t control or hide their anxieties so they dump on people reporting to them. This gets them some short term relief when people move faster, but they lose out in the longer term through higher turnover and lower employee morale.
The second reason managers fail is that they are more interested in the content of their work than in developing and coordinating the efforts of others. They expect their teams to run like machines with minimum attention while they spend their time doing what they perceive to be more interesting or more important.
To be one of the best you need to overcome these hurdles and the lessons learned from them:
Control your emotions so you can handle the pressure without jumping all over your team every time a mistake occurs.
Vital to manage the expectations of your boss so you can minimize the stress placed on you in the first place.
Don’t try to reason with your boss when he or she is angry. When your boss is in a good mood, discuss the damage that losing your temper can have on employee morale, retention and productivity.
If a crisis happens and your boss gets angry, remind him or her about your agreement that if you get angry with your team you will do more harm than good. Do some reading on stress management as well.
To use your time well, follow the 80-20 rule. Allocate 20 percent of your time to the strategic matters that most interest you and 80 percent to developing, coaching, facilitating and motivating your team.
Spend some time every week with each individual team member asking questions and doing a lot of listening. Ask what work they are most and least enjoying, what they would like to do more of or less of, what they would like to learn and what they need from you.
Also, importantly, seek their input on work related issues rather than trying to be the person with all the answers. There is no better way of showing people you value them than to ask them for their opinion. Of course you have to listen genuinely and not just go through the motions like a store clerk mechanically telling you to have a great day.
Never neglect details. When every one's mind is dulled or distracted the manager must be doubly vigilant.
Good managers delegate and empower others liberally, but they pay attention to details, every day. The job of the manager is not to be the chief organizer, but the chief disorganizer.
You don't know what you can get away with until you try. Good managers don't wait for official blessing to try out. If you ask enough people for permission, you inevitably come up against someone who believes his job is to say "no". So, the moral is, don't ask
Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing. In well-run organizations, titles are also pretty meaningless. But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the capacity to influence and inspire.
The most important question in performance evaluation becomes not "How well did you perform your job since the last time we met?" but "How much did you change it?"
Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.
By treating everyone equally "nicely" regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.
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