Archive for the ‘Managing’ Category

Ask managers what their biggest challenges are and the chances are delegation will appear as one of the things on their list. At the same time they also often come up with a whole host of excuses for not delegating. Here are my 4 favourites:

Excuse 1: I Don’t Have The Time
• Now is this illogical or what? If you are drowning because you have too much to do, you need to get rid of some stuff. Sitting down and delegating something is a one time investment of time that pays back over and over again. It’s not that you don’t have the time; you do. It is the choice you make not to delegate that is the issue.

Excuse 2: They Won’t Do It As Well As Me

• Maybe they won’t. At the same time could they do it to an acceptable level? If yes, what’s stopping you?

Excuse 3: They Might Do It Better Than Me

• Perhaps they will and if they do it is conclusive proof that you should not be doing it in the first place. Ask yourself this; would the manager of a soccer team play their top goal scorer as goalkeeper? Of course they wouldn’t. Your job as a manager is to facilitate getting the best from everyone.

Excuse 4: They Might Let Me Down

• They might or might not. Just because someone let you down in the past does not mean that it needs to be that way in the future. The key thing is to learn from the things that did not work out as you hoped.

The Bottom Line: Unless you are willing to delegate you will always be under pressure and struggle to deliver to your potential. So what choice will you make? Be the serial underperformer or be a highly successful manager?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to sign up for his Management  e-course

Managing is a tough job. There are superiors and subordinates who have huge expectations of you. It can sometimes feel like you are piggy in the middle.

One of the challenges managers often face is a lack of self confidence. What can you do to be a more confident manager?

Don’t Put Unrealistic Expectations On Yourself
• Of course you want to give your best. At the same time you don’t want to set yourself up for failure. By all means set the bar high and challenge yourself but don’t lose sight of reality.

Drop The Misconceptions About What Being Confident Is

• Many people think being confident is all about being extroverted, cocky, bullish and being a know it all. It’s none of these things. Ultimately it is having the self belief and self awareness that you can achieve results.

Have A Decision And Action Bias

• Taking decisions and actions builds momentum. It also gives you feedback which you can use to make adjustments. Procrastination by comparison simply keeps you stuck.

Start Small And Build

• Whenever you try something new it is scary. All your doubts and fears show up. Starting small and achieving small successes can make a big difference.

Recognise You Are A Manager On Merit

• It is unlikely that those appointing you had no other choice. They appointed you on merit because they believed that you were the best person with the most potential.

Cut Yourself Some Slack

• You are a human being, not a human doing. Yes you will make mistakes. Yet in truth if you never make mistakes, you never learn and grow.

The Bottom Line: The reality is that there will be times when your confidence is high and other times when it will be low. When in the dip, make sure you tap into what made you successful in the past.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his management e-course  at http://www.goalsandachievements.co.uk/managers-main.html

If you are like most of us, you feel great when you step into a management role. You are full of hope and enthusiasm and feel that you are going to be really successful. A few months later, you are finding it a real struggle. Why is this and what can you do about it?

You have not made the shift in your mind

• I sometimes tell people that they need to promote themselves first in the mind. By that I mean to mentally step into the new role. If you don’t, you stay stuck doing what you always did.

You don’t make time for managing

• What probably got you promoted was your ability to get lots of things done. The trouble is that managing is all about getting results through others. If you don’t make the time for managing, people will think you are not interested in them and disengage.

You don’t believe in yourself

• We all have doubts from time to time. However, you need to remember that those who appointed you had belief in you and your abilities.

You try to please everyone

• It’s tempting to fall into this trap and, if we are honest, it is probably a trap that every manager has fallen into at some point. Accept that you will take decisions from time to time that won’t please everyone.

You avoid the difficult stuff

• Sometimes you will have performance issues with teams or individuals. You have two choices: ignore or do something about it. Avoiding the difficult stuff is never a good strategy in my experience.

The reality is that some simple changes can greatly change the results you achieve as a manager.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Every good manager and leader knows the results that they achieve are to a large extent influenced by their ability to bring out the best in others.

Despite this, many managers and leaders fail to delegate effectively. Why is this?

Excuse 1: It takes too long

• Let’s be honest, it does require an investment of time. The key thing to remember is that it is a one-off investment of time that pays back over and over again.

Excuse 2: They might mess up

• True, they might not do it perfectly. On the other hand, they are never going to get any better at it if you keep doing it. We can all watch someone else doing something but the real learning comes from having a go.

Excuse 3: They might do it better than me

• Yes, they might and, if this is the case, then it is proof that you should not be doing it in the first place. Take a spreadsheet as an example: the younger generation have been brought up with them. The chances are they can do that spreadsheet report better than you if you are of a certain age. Don’t try to stop them; use the asset at your disposal.

The truth is, delegating can be tough. At the same time, if you want to thrive and prosper as a leader or manager, you want to get highly effective in this area.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are a manager, making the time to manage is key. Sadly management is often one of those things that get relegated to the bottom of the list.

So how can you make time for managing people?

Decide it matters
• The first person who needs convincing that time spent managing is valuable is you. If you don’t see it as a priority, it will never get the time it deserves.

Allocate time to it

• We all probably use some sort of time planning process. We put things into the plans that we need to do. The question is, do we put ‘managing people’ on our list? If not, it does not become a habit.

Focus on the benefits

• I don’t know about you but I have more often than not found that people start to respond to you differently when you take an interest in them. The benefits of making time to manage people include:
  • Motivation.
  • Giving a clear signal that others matter to you.
  • Being seen as a facilitator, rather than a director of their results.

We all know that making time to manage has many upsides. So what do you need to do to make it more of a priority?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Motivation is often a big challenge for leaders and managers. In this short video blog post I share some tips and insights.

Please leave a comment with your best tips.

1. Get to know your team

   A huge part of your success is related to your ability to get results through others. If you are to get the best from others, you need to know your team and their respective strengths.

2. Build relationships

   You need to build relationships with your team but you also need to build relationships with others across the organisation. This might even include partner organisations.

3. Involve your team

   If there are some changes to be made, involve your team in generating possible solutions. Listen to their ideas; you might just be a little surprised on the quality of their contributions.

4. Focus on priorities

   There are always lots of things that could be done but you need to focus on priorities.

5. Start small

   Tempting as is might seem, going straight for a huge transformation or change early on is a huge risk. So start small and build momentum.

What simple tips based on your own experience, would you add?

Duncan Brodie begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

As a manager or leader, trying to do it all alone is a recipe for disaster. So what are some signs to be alert to if you think you might be becoming the lone ranger?

1. A never ending To Do List.
2. Carrying more than your fair share of the workload.
3. Not delegating or empowering others.
4. Not communicating effectively or at all with your team.
5. Trying to do it all by yourself.
6. Not trusting anyone else.

What else would you add to the list?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are in a management role, your priority should be to manage. The trouble is that, before we become managers, we are often seen as valued employees because we are able to gets lots of things done. So how can you shift the balance?

1. Remember that managing is a priority, not something you do when there is nothing else to do.
2. Set aside specific chunks of time when you are available to deal with management issues. That means blacking them out in the diary.
3. Make sure that you are doing only what you need to be doing and delegating the rest.
4. Make sure that your boss understands that you expect to have time to manage.

The truth is that creating the time to manage is often one of the biggest challenges you face. So start to make it a priority.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

1. Set out clear expectations of others.
2. Treat everyone fairly and with respect.
3. Provide regular, specific, actionable feedback to others.
4. Delegate effectively.
5. Build effective teams.
6. Praise others.
7. Don’t take all of the glory when things go well.
8. Don’t blame others when things go wrong.
9. Find out what motivates others.
10. Take an interest in the success of others.

What else would you add?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here