King Lear and Satan offering advice on how to have more effective business meetings? No kidding – there are tips in here from five places you never would have looked. And I’ve seen most of them work in real life!
Empowering individuals and teams in the workplace is not just about pumping their self-esteem. You can make a toolkit available to support them in productive conversations and improving their abilities to collaborate, plan, test and implement organization processes, changes and solutions.
Good management practices are a path to better organization performance. One important practice is getting feedback on the success of a team’s products, services and communications to others inside the organization and outside it too. Feedback is a valuable performance resource: how else will we know if our groups are performing well?
I didn’t know what a micro-manager really was until I got one of my own. My sympathies to the oppressed. Most work – whether producing products, serving customers and/or delivering communications – requires thought and attention, and is best with an occasional dose of creativity and innovation. A micro-manager can quash all that by dictating every move. If you think you might be suppressing your people this way, have a talk with them to find out what changes they would like to see.
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.
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.
Completing all aspects of a workplace problem or upset, especially when it involves several people or workplace activity, can be immediately important. Forgiveness can save the day, but not without closing out the original trigger for the issue. Fix it, then forgive it.
A compliment is always nice to receive. No matter what world it comes from.
Feedback comes in different flavors – appreciation is one of them. But all feedback, if it is respectful and useful, can be valuable.
Managers see their world of work in a very different way than staff members do. What does this tell us about how to improve Manager-Staff communication? The performance review is a good tool that can support a more effective Staff-Manager relationship.
Awarded "Best Management Book" by 800-CEO-READ.
Rated #5 "Best Business Book" by The Toronto Globe and Mail.