Posts

Prevent a BIG Management Mistake

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What causes worry, stress and anxiety in employees? Unclear job requirements. Here are a few suggestions for improving employee job ownership and satisfaction by creating clear performance agreements.

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Manager Tip: Clarify What You Really Want in Every Work Request

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Managers are expected to have other people “produce results” as well as to “develop” them and their performance. Here’s an easy way to get both at once.

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We All Need Deadlines

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If no deadline is set, projects or tasks languish in limbo, their importance undetermined and their necessity questioned. Time to ask “by when?”.

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Some Advice from an Effective Change Agent

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Sometimes our communication gets a little sloppy, leaving others with a vague or inconclusive answer. We can fix that, and perhaps help others step up too. Be a stronger leader.

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How Reliable are “Expectations” for Getting Good Performance?

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We sometimes hear about “living up to expectations”, but it’s time to recognize that it’s impossible to do such a thing without a few prerequisite conditions. We would be better off insisting that people practice communication instead of expectation.

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Accountability is a Manager’s Job – Not an Employee’s Mindset

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Don’t look for accountability in a person. Create the structures and agreements that support a shared understanding of Who is responsible for producing What results and When those results are due. Then establish regular meetings to update the status of those agreements and modify them as needed.

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The New World of Management

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We used to think people should “just do their jobs”. That day is pretty much gone. Now that we need to reinvent the job – often, and sometimes every day – we’d better get really good at productive communication.

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Training for Accountability: First Things First

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On-the-job training should focus first on what people will be accountable for producing and/or delivering. You can add the secondary matters of importance after they are clear about what counts most.

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Stop Managing People, Step 1

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People pay attention to people – and make lots of assessments and judgments. That’s natural. But it maybe not the best way for a manager to support high performance or reach an organization’s goals.

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What You Want & By When: Managers, Leaders, and Schedules

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One manager in a recent MBA class was provoked by a discussion about the importance of using schedules, and offered her opinion on the difference between leaders and managers. “I want to be a leader,” she said, “not a manager. What does scheduling have to do with leadership?” Good question, actually. We were talking about […]

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