Posts Tagged ‘management tips’

If you are good at what you do and are the type of person who gets things done, sooner or later you will find yourself in the position where you have to manage others. While some make that shift from being the doer to the manager with easy, others find it a struggle.

So what actions could you take to become an even better manager?

Action 1: Be Honest With Yourself

It is really easy to fall into the trap of believing that because you are the manager you need to be the best at everything. The reality is you don’t and cannot be the best at everything. Stop pretending that you know it all.

Action 2: Invest Time To Save Time

One thing so many managers complain of is having too much to do and not enough time. However unlike a computer you cannot buy an upgrade in the amount of tome you have. So what’s the answer? Make a one off investment of time to train someone else and then assign responsibility for a task to them.

Action 3: Find Out What Motivates

On just about every management and leadership course I run people bring up motivation as an issue. When I ask them when was the last time they asked employees what motivates them, most acknowledge it was no time recently. If you don’t know what motivates others you are always going to find it a struggle.

Action 4: Don’t Avoid Problems

It might be tempting to avoid problems in the hope that they will somehow disappear into thin air. In reality this never happens. The problem just gets worse. Deal with them rather than letting them hang around like a bad odour.

Action 5: Show Trust

Trust takes time to gain and can be lost in minutes. Truth is the best way to gain trust is to show others you trust them.

Action 6: Never Forget What It Was Like At The Bottom

As people climb the career ladder it is easy to lose sight of what life was like when you were just starting out. Always try and stay connected to what it is really like at the bottom of the hierarchy when you had little or no experience.

Action 7: Delegate A Lot

Delegation is vital to your success and has many benefits in terms of developing and growing others. It also gives a huge message to others that you really trust them.

Action 8: Try Not To Criticise In Public

Yes this requires a lot of self discipline but when you criticise in public you run the risk of losing the respect of the individual and potentially your whole team.

Action 9: Praise and Acknowledge

When you praise someone it lets others know you are noticing and care about them. Remember too that you can acknowledge effort as well as results.

Action 10: Accept That It Is Ongoing Work In Progress

Despite what you might read you never reach the point where you are the perfect manager. You have to keep learning and growing in order to continue to deliver success.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps highly rated professionals to become high performing leaders and managers. He invites you to sign up for his free management mastery course

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

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

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

From the outside looking in, management can appear easy. When you are making the transition to management there are 3 common challenges that managers face. What are they and what can you do to overcome them?

Challenge 1: Letting Go

Before you were in a management position, you were probably used to doing a lot on your own. Now you are a manager, you need to be willing to delegate and let go of things. Remember that there was once a time when you could not do all the things you can do now. The only reason you have been successful was because someone was willing to let go and give you a chance to try something new.

Challenge 2: Fear of Being Unpopular

It is natural to want to be liked by everyone. Yet the trouble is you cannot be popular with everyone all of the time. Let go of needing to be popular with everyone and accept whatever decision you take, it will not suit everyone.

Challenge 3: Fear of Making a Decision

If you are a surgeon, a decision that you make in an operating theatre could be life or death. Few management decision fall into that category. Have a bias for taking decisions, recognising that you will get some wrong and most right.

The Bottom Line

Any sort of transition brings challenges. The key is to be willing to embrace these challenges rather than allowing them to keep you stuck.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. For more information click here

As a manager you need to deliver results and support the team you manage. So what are my top 5 tips to being a better manager:

1. Be clear on what is expected from you
2. Use our time effectively
3. Know your team and what motivates them to deliver
4. Know your own strengths and weaknesses so that you spend your time doing what you do best
5. Keep learning and developing yourself