Tag Archive for mission

| May 9, 2012
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Communication 102

Communicating is an art! Some leaders have mastered this art. They pretty much can figure out how to present a message and a key factor that gets overlooked, “when.” For me, I know that I have a speed issue. When I am playing sports – I want to win. I want to be one of the fasters on my skates (I know it is not true). When a race to the puck is in order, I will put that extra gear in place. When I am driving from point A to point B, I am usually going faster than the posted speed limit (just not in a school zone).

As a leader, you have to make sure that the message and the timing of the message line up. Think of your team, most of them want to know everything that is going on. They probably want to understand your take on it as well. So, what do you communicate and when? There is no way that you can do everything, every time. Just not possible. Thinking of communication I have always had a couple of priorities with my teams.

  • Top priority usually is anything that is mission critical. The stuff that your team needs to know in order to accomplish their work. This is everything that will be necessary to get my team to perform at their best in their related job. Get it out there with a strong message and speed in mind.
  • Most of secondary priority is that information that helps my team be an advocate for our organization. Think of it as the communications that helps build pride and morale while building our organizational story. Strong message that goes out when necessary, but quickly.

When I look at this deeper, it comes across that just about everything that I have ever communicated fits within these buckets nicely. As I am helping with coaching some new managers, I see this as a struggle for them. Too many mixed messages going out. Speed of the information is either too fast or most of the time, too late. As a leader, you have to make sure that you are taking into account the message and the timing that is necessary to make the message effective.

Lately, I have been watching others and seeing the struggles with timing. Most of the time, the communication has been late or missed the window. Your team is watching you! Get It Right!

Category: Leadership, New To Management | Tags: , , , ,
| February 24, 2011
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Book Review: The Art of Non-Conformity

Not sure where all my time is going. I thought I would be better at reading more books, since my retirement. One that has been waiting for me to read is The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. Maybe my slowness to get through the book, has been that I have been using the book to help me navigate the book with my personal life today. I have been very slowly and methodically going over each chapter and apply most of his concepts to my current situation.

For those that don’t know.. I am retired from corporate America. I used Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pam Slim (see my book review) to get me started down the path of getting out of the cube farm. Apply many of her steps to helping make that jump. I am now, using Chris’ book to help me jump forward. The Art of Non-Conformity is based on his popular blog with the underlying message of “You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.” I am working on my second life or second career and I am not going to follow the path of others or what is expected of me. I am doing this my way!  His book, walks you through some very common sense approaches to getting what “you” want out of life.

I found that while reading his book, I would stop and take notes and work on some of my own ideas. I quickly learned that I was just not going to sit down and read this book. I actually was applying his concepts or answering his questions while I was reading. Got me thinking and writing… Which I guess, made my time reading the book – longer. For me, I highly recommend that you read this book. You don’t have to be retired to go out after your unconventional  path. In fact, I wish I would have read this back 10+ years ago, hell maybe 20+. I think stuff would be much different today.

Thanks Chris for writing this book!

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Category: Book Review | Tags: , , , , ,
| September 3, 2010
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My Thoughts On Managing

Been managing a very long time, some 28 years. I taught my first of 3 or 4 more sessions on “New to Management” for my employer. So, I started thinking more about being a manager. When I think about my career and what is it to be a manager – a number of things came to my mind. So, I thought I would write them down and share.

We all have to start with a baseline , managers are the vehicle that turn intentions (mission, strategies and expectations) into results. I have been doing this for a lot of years, many of my peers have as well – we are getting ready to finish up our careers and pass the baton to others. So, what are my thoughts?

  • Management is probably the best and most challenging job around. If you really want maximum impact – sign up now.
  • Great managers really do what many will not try or do. It all starts with the choices that you make everyday. Those managers approach and blast away barriers. Don’t shy away from the difficult task of stopping busy work for the really important work.
  • Management is a social act. Sitting in your office is not very social. You have to get out, have conversations and develop relationships. Simply put: erode relationships, erode results. Get out there and bring out the best in others.
  • You are in the middle and much is expected of you. Too many times I have heard, “that is why you make the big bucks.” Completely understanding the expectation (from your manager and the needs of your team) will help you chart your path.
  • Time is critical. Look at your inbox (unread), calendar, to do list and count the instant messages during the day. Each and everyone of those are opportunities to engage and excite. How are you spending your time? Would you change anything?  Great conversations are worth lots. Remember, relationships = results.

There has been much written on management over the years. There has never been any new silver bullet to being completely successful. What I learned over the years, is nothing new. Remember to spend time on yourself (learning, developing and listening). The true important part is – How you apply the learning’s and experiences.

Category: Leadership | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
| February 27, 2010
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A Tale of a “Bad” Boss

Ever have one of the “those” bosses? Hate to go to work? See how you used to work, change (not for the better)?  How about when you are talking with others and you hear them complain about their work situation? There usually is one common theme – they work for a terrible boss. I have my internal blog and write many of the same topics I do here. When I write about management, I usually get quite a few comments that center on the bad supervisor. I would like to relate this to a story. For anyone that thinks they know the players because they know me – think again. This is a made up situation (but, I have a feeling this will probably hits close to home).

Company Z is a small company made up of about 200 folks. Enough to have some senior, mid level and front line folks. Got to have some bosses… Debbie is a new employee to Company Z, she is a project manager with a pretty impressive resume. She comes with experience and a passion for her work. Debbie starts out fast and really does good work. Her immediate supervisor, Brenda, finds that she does really well and starts to give her more of the meaty assignments. Over time, Debbie has proven that she is definitely a strong performer. What happen next? She gets promoted! This promotion moves her to a different team and now she reports to Bob, VP of product development.

Bob has been with Company Z since it started. He was in that first wave of friends that sat around the bar stools during college discussing an idea. He is best friends with the CEO. That friendship is his biggest claim to fame! Bob still tells the stories of that evening when Company Z was drawn on napkins over many beers. He definitely views himself as a visionary. Dreams up plenty of ideas and delivers on none. Many of Bob’s employees are very happy to see a new manager on his staff, as the last one was just a nightmare to work for. Debbie starts out well, she is working with her team and overall things are better.

As time goes by, Bob and his visionary style has an effect on Debbie. Bob likes to drum up the idea’s and dump them onto Debbie. There are no expectations, no reasonable understand of goals and just plain minimal thought put in. Bob’s way of dealing with not seeing enough progress is to belittle Debbie. He is short with Debbie and spends more time yelling and belittling at her. Debbie feeling the pressure starts to pass on same to her team. She is expecting them to pick up the pieces she is dropping. The team has seen this behavior before. This goes on for a couple of years, until Bob decides that he wants to leave.

A new VP is hired and Debbie decides to ask that she go back to project management where she has done a good job for the company. This management gig was just not her passion. Everyone thought that would be a great move. Debbie was extremely successful as a project manager. Problem was Debbie has not returned to the past. Her time with Bob, had changed Debbie – forever. Debbie thought she would be happier, but that just is not the case and decides to leave the company.

I think we all have seen some scenario similar to this one. Fact is, a bad boss can damage your spirit, career and passion. Everyday we all look into the mirror – do you like what you see? No, I don’t mean the visual aspects – just the work part… Are you true to yourself? Are you happy with your job? Are you doing your best? Are you Bob? Are you the early Debbie that is turning into the promoted Debbie?

Category: Leadership | Tags: , , , , ,
| May 19, 2009
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Rallying Around The Mission

 

How does a leader get his team members to engage in the team’s mission? From my experience this comes in different forms and processes. If you are in the military, like I was out of college, you learn that the leadership team gets it’s orders from the top and passed down to the team. There really is no collaboration with the team members to define the mission, the how to accomplish the mission has been trained over and over again till every member of the team can do it in their sleep and they usually are given all of the details. This top down approach probably worked in the old days of corporate life, but today I don’t think so.

Developing this team mission should not be something that the leader does in a vacuum and presents it to the team. The leader must involve the team. Helps with engagement of the team to follow the mission. The team mission statement should be one of the first things a leader should do in team building session when the team is first set up. The team is going to have to live the mission every day, so it better be something that they are committed to.

What are some of the key components that need to be considered:

  • Reason for the team
  • Identify the team’s “value add”
  • Provide the focus of the team
  • Identify the team’s purpose

 

The next step of insuring that the team is still engaged in the mission is to tackle the team goals, teams need goals for many reasons:

  • Identify the results to be achieved
  • Outline the actions need to accomplish results
  • Draw up a road map for the team

 

In order to get to the goals, is for the team to work on identifying success criteria. Using those same teambuilding sessions – time to brainstorm on, “What does success look like for our team?” With that list the team should be able to turn them into meaningful team goals. Define them into short term and long term goals for the team. Be very careful to tackle too many goals. No more than five should be the starting point. Make sure that the goals are measureable and be able for each team member to track. Having goals and tracking them are not the end. There is the monitoring and course corrections along the way that the team should always be engaged in.

You know have now worked with your team to develop the mission that they are set out to accomplish, you have goals that they can track and with all of this the team should be very engaged in the team’s mission.

Category: Leadership | Tags: , ,
 
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