Archive for the ‘Managing’ Category

If you are a manager, you need to be ready and able to delegate. Why is this so important?

1. You have limited time available.
2. There is only one of you.
3. You will burn out if you try to do everything.
4. It helps develop and grow others.
5. You achieve more, faster.
6. You focus on what you do best.
7. You get others to focus on what they do best.
8. It builds trust.
9. You motivate others.
10. You build a great support team.

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

Good managers stand out from mediocre managers because they focus on helping others achieve success. So how can you do this?

1. Find out about their career aspirations

   What I noticed when I worked in big organisations was that finding out the career aspirations of others was either avoided or stuck on to the end of an appraisal discussion. Taking the time to understand their career aspirations can make you stand out from the crowd.

2. Support their personal development

   Those achieving success will always need to develop themselves. Make a point of supporting their development, even if that means making a case on their behalf for investment.

3. Let them cover for people more senior than them

   This might just be for a couple of weeks while people go on holiday but it gives them some insight into what the role is like.

4. Send them on secondment

   To help them to build skills, get new experience or take on new challenges.

5. Get them involved in projects

   Projects are a greatly underused way of developing people.

6. Get them a coach or mentor

   Someone independent who can act as their professional sounding board.

The truth is some simple things can make a big difference. I wonder what you have found works well?

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

Delegation can help you to achieve better results as a leader or manager. Yet many managers still often buy into one or more of the following myths about delegation:

Myth 1: It takes a long time to do
• The reality is that it is a one off investment of time that pays back quickly.

Myth 2: People will let you down

• The reality is that if you give people the chance, they will almost always rise to the challenge.

Myth 3: You can do it quicker

• Maybe you can but the question is what are you not doing instead that might stop you from getting results?

Myth 4: People might do it better than you and show you up

• You’re right, they might, which goes to show that you should not be doing it in the first place.

Myth 5: You will delegate yourself out of your job

• Not at all, you will create more time to do what you should really be doing.

The reality is that delegation can be the catalyst to delivering better performance. So what stops you?

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

I am guessing that if you are in a management role, you would like to thrive and prosper. After all, if you thrive and prosper, your career soars and you get the rewards that this brings.

So if you are ready to be a better manager, what do you need to consider?

What is expected of you?
• Interestingly, when I pose this question to clients, they often struggle to come up with a good answer. You may have a list of objectives or a job description but are you clear on what is expected of you as a manager? If not, make it a priority to find out.

Do a self assessment

• Spend some time reflecting on what it is you do really well and what areas might need developing. Armed with this, you can take immediate action to move forward.

Actively seek feedback

• Feedback is the catalyst for change. More often than not, people will identify things that you do well that you are not even aware of.

Create a development plan

• We also need to grow and develop. Standing still is quite simply not an option.

The truth is some simple things can make big differences to the results you achieve. So what needs your attention most?

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 or leader, an important part of your role will be to appraise performance.

At the same time, I have noticed that this is an area where managers and leaders often struggle.

So what can you do to get better at appraising performance?

1. Make sure that people have clear objectives at the start against which you can assess performance.
2. Set the meeting in context and make it clear what the meeting is and is not about.
3. Encourage the person being appraised to first give their views on how they have performed.
4. When providing your insights, highlight both positives and opportunities for improvement.
5. Give specific examples. These bring alive the feedback that you are providing.
6. Spend time talking about future aspirations.
7. Keep the focus on helping others to achieve their optimal performance.

The reality is that some simple adjustments can revolutionize your skills in appraising performance.

So what’s your best tip to getting better at appraising performance?

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

Survey after survey identifies that, more than anything else, people want feedback. More specifically, they want regular feedback.

In my experience, one of the big challenges facing managers and leaders is a shortage of time. As a result, some things get pushed down the list. Unsurprisingly, more often than not it is the people side of things that gets pushed to the bottom of the pile.

So why is this a big mistake?

1. Feedback lets people know how they are doing.
2. Feedback lets people know that, as a leader or manager, you care about others and their success.
3. Feedback provides the basis for people to get better at doing something.
4. Feedback acts as a strong motivator for people.
5. Feedback is the fuel of action and it is action that leads to results.

So how can you get better at providing feedback?

1. Make the time to do it.
2. Do it at the time.
3. Make it specific.
4. Make it useable. Vague feedback is not useable.
5. Do it regularly.

The truth is feedback is the greatest source of motivation. So what can you do more of to create feedback?

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

One of the things that marks the very best managers and leaders from the mediocre ones is that the former take the initiative.

So what exactly do I mean by taking the initiative? Let’s look at an example:

Jane is a manager in a large organisation. She knows that there are many rules to comply with and organisational norms. Today she has come up against a challenge. She knows that the organisation guidance on the topic is vague. However, she takes time to clarify the outcome that she wants to get and maps out the first steps. In other words, she takes the initiative.

James is another manager in a large organisation. He specialises in playing the waiting game. He waits for the instructions, guidance or steps to come from someone else. As a result, he is seen as a plodder.

The truth is that if you want to get ahead in your career and stand out from the crowd, you need to be willing to take the initiative, to grab the bull by the horns.

So what’s your first step in taking the initiative?

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

In your role of leader or manager, it is vital that you can put your case forward in a compelling way that gets the result you desire.

So how can you better present your case and get the results you desire?

1. Be clear about the outcome or result that you want.
2. Think about the position of the other party and really understand possible objections.
3. When making your case, try to cover all of the key objections.
4. Develop a learning mindset and build on experiences.

The Bottom Line: No matter what level of leader or manager you are at, the ability to present your case is key.

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

Employees are continually looking for feedback and managers and leaders often struggle to give good feedback.

What changes can you make?  Watch this short video to find out more.

What are your top tips in giving feedback? Why not leave a comment.

It’s interesting just how often, when a group of managers are asked what motivates people, they put money close to the top of the list.

Of course we all need to earn to live but in itself money is not a long term motivator. Once people feel that they are fairly rewarded for their efforts, they cease to see money as a motivator.

On the other hand, what people are craving far more of is feedback.

Feedback lets employees know:

• How they are performing.
• What they are doing well.
• They are appreciated and their success matters to you.

So the question is, are you making the time to give feedback? If not, you are probably missing out on the lowest cost form of motivation that there is.

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