Posts Tagged ‘management’

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

As a manager one of your primary goals is to get results through others.  So what mistakes might you be making in managing your team?

1. Not setting clear expectations
2. Not delegating work
3. Failing to provide challenging or motivating work for staff
4. Focusing all of your attention on getting things done without considering the needs of your people
5. Failing to stand back periodically and look for areas where you could improve how you work

Do any of the above apply to you and what else would you add to the list?

If you are a manager you are likely to have to produce reports from time to time.  This might be a report on performance of your function, division, team or project.  Alternatively it might be a case for resources.  So what questions do you need to ask when it comes to preparing a report?

Question 1: Why am I writing the report? 

Seems like an obvious question but one that is often overlooked.  Is you report to inform, provide evidence, get a decision, influence others or something else?  Always start by being clear on the purpose of the report.

Question 2:  What does the recipient want to know?

Step into the shoes of those who are receiving the report.  Ask yourself, if I was sitting in their seat, what would I want to know?  Write down all of the possibilities until you cannot think of any more and then make sure your report answers them.

Question 3: What’s the best way of presenting the report?

Is it best to have a written report, several pages long with an Executive Summary at the start or is it better to have a simple dashboard?  It will depend on the circumstances and the easiest way of finding out is to simply ask those receiving the report what they would prefer and then provide it.

Bottom Line – Reports are often produced with little thought about the purpose or the audience.  You can easily avoid this trap by asking and answering these 3 simple questions.

If you are a manager or leader, you need to be able to get results through others.  There is only one of you and you cannot be brilliant at everything, even if others believe you should be.

In truth, managers and leaders sometimes fall into the trap of getting the best from others.
One of the biggest barriers they create that prevents others being at their best is not giving people the chance to fail.

Think about it, people will only become competent through practise and application.  No one ever became an expert at anything just by reading, listening or watching.  If it was that easy we would all be experts at a lot of things.

So if you want to bring out the best in others give them the opportunity to get new experience, take on new challenges and bring their own uniqueness to the fore.  After all what’s the worst that might happen- they might fail.

If you are a manager or leader right now, chances are that you have to deliver more with fewer resources.  Despite this you are still expected to provide all of the key things necessary to run the business.  You know, pay staff, pay suppliers, do appraisals to name just a few.  So how can you get smarter with how you use your time and get things done?

1. Time Audit

Where are you spending your time?  Ask most managers and leaders this and you will get a vague answer.  The key to being smarter with how you use your time is a time audit.  Make sure this covers a typical work cycle so that you can get real insights where your time is going.

2. Know Your Priorities

What are your 3-5 key priorities?  Armed with this information and your time audit, you can quickly determine whether your time is being spent on what matters- your key priorities.  After all you want to spending time on things that are important to the organisation and your success.

3. Cut out the unproductive stuff

If you are doing something that is not necessary for you to do, stop doing it.  Delegate it, outsource it and even question if it is necessary.

4. Make a list of your time wasters

We all have things that fall into the time waster category.  What’s on your list? 

• Meetings that are just talking shops and never result in any productive outcomes. 

• Checking every e-mail as soon as it arrives.

Make a list of your time wasters and commit to doing something about them.

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Managers and leaders need to deliver results.  The extent to which they deliver results depends on how effective they are when it comes to influencing.  You might have to influence staff, your boss, the Board, funding bodies or lenders to name just a few.  So how can you achieve better results through better influencing?

Tip 1:  Be clear on your goals

People often go into situations where they need to influence without having clarity about what they want to achieve.  In any influencing situation you need to be crystal clear on the outcome you want from the situation.  It might be more staff, a new piece of equipment or a supplier discount.  Whatever, the situation, be clear on what you want in terms of outcome.

Tip 2: Be informed

Have you ever been in a situation or observed a situation where it was clear that they had not done their homework in advance.  With information and resources being so freely available these days, there is really no excuse for going into an influencing situation unprepared.

Tip 3: Order your thoughts logically

If you have done your research in advance, chances are that you will have collected a lot of information.  Presenting this information in a logical and structured way will greatly improve your ability to influence positively.  Make a point of thinking about the most logical way to present your thoughts.  It is even better if you can do it with someone else.

Tip 4: Tailor points to the decision makers

You may well be the expert in your field or area but chances are that one or more of the decision makers will not be.  When you are trying to influence and get a positive response, make sure that you tailor your points to things that will be important to decision makers.

Tip 5:  Highlight the key benefits

The party you are trying to influence wants to know what is in it for me, the organisation and other stakeholders.  The easiest way of addressing this is to highlight the key benefits of your proposition.

Managers and leaders will frequently find themselves in positions where they need to influence.  So what’s your next step in becoming a more effective influencer?

These days getting more from the resources you have available is almost taken for granted.  You have more and more tools to help you yet you still struggle to be as productive as you would like.  Does it really need to be like that?  Here are my top 8 tips for being more productive.

1. Discover when you are your best

Some of us are at our very best early in the morning.  For others it might be late into the evening or even in the middle of the day.  Knowing when you are at your best has huge benefits when it comes to scheduling what you do and when you do it.

2. Set goals

Determine at the start of each day what outcomes you will have achieved.  Don’t worry if you don’t have every detail worked out as to how you will do it.  By setting an intention or outcome you will figure out ways of achieving it.

3. Know what matters

Many people lack clarity on what their key deliverables are.  We all know that about 20% of what we do accounts for about 80% of the results.  What is the 20% that gives the most impact for you?  If you don’t know, set out to find out.

4. Start with the biggest challenge

While it always tempting to start with easy stuff and start scoring things off the list, avoid doing this.  Start with the most challenging task first.  It might be a report, a project plan, a specification or an important customer call.  Whatever it is do it first.

5. Manage interruptions

Open plan offices are all the rage.  While they are great for team and group working, you sometimes need some quiet space.  Make it clear to those around you if you need a slot of time without interruptions.

6. Delegate more

If you have a secretary or PA they can often take a lot of tasks off your hands.  This might be for example routine letters or phone calls or operating a bring forward system for items that you have deferred.  If you are leading a team, delegate things to others that can do it better than you.

7. Book out time slots in the diary

The more senior you get, the more likely you are to get your diary filled with meetings.  With diaries also being open to others, it can mean there is no time to get things done.  Make a point of booking out tasks that you have to do as appointments so that the time is not grabbed by someone else.

8. Be realistic

Remember you are a ‘human being’ and not a ‘human doing’.  It is all too easy to set up lists of things to do that are totally unrealistic.  We all have done it.  We like to helpful.  Get into the habit of setting challenging but realistic targets.

At the end of the day improving your productivity is an ongoing process.  Start by taking some simple steps and watch as you start to achieve more and more with less and less effort.

From your own experience what else contributes to your productivity.  Share your experience and wisdom by leaving a comment.

A new year is often a time when people take stock and set some resolutions for the year ahead.  Most of these resolutions never materialise so it might seem that there is little point in setting out what you want to achieve in 2009.  Yet in truth, if you are someone who:

• Knows what they want
• Knows why they want it
• Knows what they are willing to do and not do to achieve what they want
• Takes consistent action towards achieving their goal

you will be setting yourself up for success.  Research by ThinkTQ identified that

• Only 25% set a specific target for what they want
• Less than 3% have a specific goal for each major area of their life
• Less than 55% aim high when it comes to goals
• Less than 11% write down goals with declared target dates
• Less than 2% set start and end dates for goals
• Less than 8% take consistent action towards attaining a goal

So what is it you want to achieve in 2009 as a manager or leader?

 

There is a great phrase that I came across which really captures the benefit of having goals.  Goals are merely dreams or desires with legs.  If you are a leader, I am sure that you want to be a success and setting goals is one of the key tools that you can use to achieve success.  So what are 5 main reasons to set goals?

 

Reason 1: Increased Focus

 

If you have a goal it gives you focus something to aim for, a target or vision to work to.  The desire to achieve that target keeps you focussed on the things that matter to achieving the outcome that you want rather than getting distracted.

 

Reason 2: Higher Motivation

 

Achieving or making progress towards a goal can be hugely motivating.  Imagine for example you want to improve your time management.  When you start you probably struggle to keep to the discipline of planning your day, keeping track of your time and managing interruptions.  Pretty quickly you start to see that the actions you are taking are having a real impact which drives and motivates you to do more.

 

Reason 3: More Success

 

If you set yourself a goal you are more likely to succeed.  Once you set an idea in your mind that you are going to do something, there is likely to be a much greater chance of success.  Why? The reason is that you will go the extra mile to achieve it.

 

Reason 4: Confidence Building

 

If you start setting and achieving goals your confidence will rise.  I use myself as an example.  I left school at 16 with basic qualifications.  I started an Accountancy Diploma at night school.  Each time I passed a set of exams it gave me the confidence to tackle the next level.  Eventually I qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant.  It gave may the confidence to apply for more and more senior jobs.

 

Reason 5:  Personal Growth

 

Every time we set a goal we grow as a person.  The reason for this is that we are probably going to have to develop or learn about something to achieve it.  Chances are we might even have to step out of our comfort zone to do it.  Maybe there was a time when you had to work really hard to achieve a goal around a presentation or proposal.  I am sure that in the process of achieving the goal you learned a lot of new skills and about what you could achieve if you put your mind to it.

 

Bottom Line – Goals lead to action and action leads to results.  So what goals will you set to achieve even more success as a leader?

I have recently being doing a survey on peoples biggest challenges.  One of the most common challenges seems to be time management.  So if you are challenged when it comes to your time, what can you do about it?

1. Plan how you are going to use it
2. Set time limits for individual tasks
3. Look at your time stealers and tackle them
4. Don’t set yourself up for failure by being overly optimistic about what you can achieve
5. Keep a track of where your time is going

What else would you add to the list?