Management Musing v1.6

What happened to the days of mentoring new employees? Have you mentored anyone? How about career development? How about being a model for your team? Somehow we seem to have strayed from what works.

Management is a privilege. It is also a burden. As a manager you have the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. To help them realize their potential. That is not a light load to carry. Leadership is not a characteristic that is present in all managers; some are purely functionaries from the French School of Governance.  Nearly every politician in France came through the same higher education.  Perhaps that explains a lot of how their government and businesses work. In America there is much more diversity in educational and cultural backgrounds.

Trust is one of the other hallmarks of a good leader and good manager. Lou Holtz had three things that were important to him.

  1. Do your best
  2. Do what is right
  3. Honor the Golden Rule

And he had additional thoughts for us.

  1. Can I trust you?
  2. Are you committed to excellence?
  3. Do you care about me?

There is a large body of books that can give us good insight. One of them to is “My Years with General Motors” by Alfred Sloan. He was probably the best business manager in the 20th Century. I wonder what he would think of the current management. It seems we have lost our way pushing more for short term gain and self-interest that the health of the work force and long term thinking. The time is now.

Management Musing v1.5

Recently I read the Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger W Babson. This is particularly interesting to me as it was written in 1920. He lists down four fundamentals

  1. Integrity
  2. Faith
  3. Industry
  4. Cooperation

It is interesting through the prism of the past 90 years in that three out of the four are still serious issues today. One of them however, has lost some favor. That is faith.

I find it interesting given the furor that has been created from an interview with one man who expressed his beliefs as guiding principles for his business. Chick-Fil-A has caused a firestorm with four or five politicians who seemingly want to limit free speech. Mayors and aldermen and speakers of city councils, people who should know better, or one would have thought they would have known better are making big deal out of one man’s religious beliefs. It is too bad that tolerance for a religious perspective is no longer a given on our society.

Today too few are contributing to our society. When the 1% is viewed as the enemy and to be taken down I prefer to look at it differently. I would rather double the 1% to 2% and enrich more people. If we did that and made that a focus it would male everything better for everyone.

The first step down this road is to give more thought to the individual person. We are putting people into a machine these days and not viewing them as living breathing individuals who have needs and wants just like you and me. This is the essence of management understanding each individual and viewing them as geniuses in hiding rather than problems to be dealt with in life. The time is now.

Management Musing v1.4

I want to return to some advice from Gary Hamel which he describes in his book “What Matters Now.” The advice is to a class at the London Business School and he normally reserves it for the last lecture he gives to the class. He addresses five issues which are critical to every one of us and which have seen less and less emphasis over the past few decades. They need to return to prominence in our lives.

  1. Values
  2. Innovation
  3. Adaptability
  4. Passion
  5. Ideology

I couldn’t agree more with the first one. Too often today we are in a hurry to make a buck. Not to do good but to do money. Talk about the wrong focus. You can see it in every walk of life from the clergy to the businessman; from the coaches to the corner store. We are in such a hurry.

Well Mr. Hamel provides some key guidance in these five points.

He would tell the class that in your first post MBA job consider the following.

  1. “Your widowed mother has invested her life’s savings in your company. She’s the only shareholder and that investment is her only asset. Obviously, you’ll do everything you can to make sure she has a secure and happy retirement. That’s why the idea of sacrificing the long-term for a quick payout will never occur to you.
  2. Your boss is an older sibling. You’ll always be respectful, but you won’t hesitate to offer frank advice when you think it is warranted – and you’ll never suck up.
  3. Your employees are childhood chums. You’ll always give them the benefit of the doubt and will do whatever you can to smooth their path. When needed though, you’ll remind them that friendship is a reciprocal responsibility. You’ll never treat them as human “resources.”
  4. Your children are your company’s primary customers. You want to please and delight them. That means you’ll go to the mat with anyone who suggests you should deceive or take advantage of them. You’ll never exploit a customer.
  5. You’re independently wealthy. You work because you want to, not because you have to – so you will never sacrifice your integrity for a promotion or a glowing performance review. You’ll quit before you compromise.”

Wonderful advice for a leading educator and author – the book is terrific. Please read it. The time is now.

Management Musing v1.3

Leaders lead because people follow what they believe not what they do. That is because we have a process that we follow in life and another process where we live.

The Process is:-

  1. Why
    1. What is your purpose?
    2. What is your belief?
    3. How
      1. What is the formula?
      2. What is the process?
      3. What
        1. Do you do?
        2. Who are you?

We normally act or sell  or communicate saying “what it is” and “how” we are better and asking for something in return. IMportantly everyone knows what they do and some even know how they do it. Sadly few people know why they do it.

We must reverse that process – we need to think, act and communicate from the inside out.

“People don’t buy what you do… they buy why you do it.” Simon Sinek

The brain follows this pattern – it is a biological fact not psychological.

“What” is in the newest part of the brain the neo cortex brain

  • rational and analytic
  • thought
  • language

“How” and “Why” are in the middle part fo the brain – the limbic brain.

  • Trust and loyalty
  • Drives all human behavior
  • No capacity for language

An option to consider is that you should:- hire people who believe what you believe and money will never be the motivating condition. This, however as you all know, can also be a trap. You will all fail together.

Business Fails when it has the following conditions:-

  • Undercapitalized
  • Wrong People
  • Bad Market

The Law of Diffusion of Innovation shows a curve of people in the following way:-

  • 2.5% innovators
  • 13.5% early adopter
  • 34% early majority
  • late majority
  • laggards

This law tells us that if we want mass market success we need to pass the tipping point which is 15% to 18% of the market. The gap between your market capture rate and the tipping point is called – crossing the chasm by Jeffrey Moore.”

If you want to see more check out. The time is now.

https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html?source=email#.T_Nuu6C0Os9.email

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Management Musing v1.2

In the last Musing we touched on Leadership. This subject is worth pursuing a bit further. Leaders rarely are born. People become a leader – they are given the role of a leader by their team members.  This is not something that is commonly believed. Many feel there is a “royal jelly” that is on some people. Well perhaps that is true sometime but in my experience it is rare. For example – some people are wonderful conversationalists in the eyes of other people at a party but typically this is the person that have listened the most. This is also true with leaders. Leaders rarely have to show off their position… they live it. They enjoy the success of their team members in fact they set the team members up to succeed.

They also become expert in their Industry. They are students of their Industry and are constantly learning. Who is growing sales and who is not? What new developments are there and where are the threats. They are constantly on the lookout for the new and the unexpected.

They are also constantly growing. They read obsessively. They are also involved in other activities from charities to schools and churches. They believe that the moment they stop growing will be the end of their leadership. You can see examples of these people in all walks of life. Are you a leader? The time is now.

Management Musing v1.1

As everyone knows management is about getting things done through other people. Similarly most know that you can’t manage people, you manage process but you must lead people.

In leadership you start by creating followers in your groups. Then you help develop leaders. Most people have leadership skills. They are parents, involved with school groups or church groups, coach sports teams or lead scouts or girl guides. There is a lot of talent available. People are not problems needing solutions they all have talent in hiding that needs to be found and developed.

You won’t get anywhere without respecting other people.

In project management there are a couple of old fashioned truths. The first is “I can bully you to accept a deadline but I can’t force you to meet it.”  Second there is a lot of “publish the innocent and protect the guilty.” I would prefer that we use more of the “if it works it is yours – good work, if it fails it is mine.”

People need to trust management. People put their lives in the hands of their managers. They depend on them for their personal development, their income and their security. How do you stand up in face of this challenge? Management is a wonderful opportunity to make a difference in the lives of other people. It is a serious responsibility to be taken very seriously. Your Company, your employees and your families depend on it. The time is now.

Management Musings v1.0

In our new approach to the blogosphere we will be posting tidbits on a weekly basis on management. We are calling this management musings.

In the current labor market we have recent college graduates that are having an extremely hard time finding a job to get their career started. We also have companies that are bemoaning the fact that the younger generations are not the same as their generation. The work ethic is different, expectations are different, and the focus is different. I couldn’t disagree more. The current generations are every bit is motivated and ambitious as we were. The difference that I see most prominently is that they are better rounded, more curious, and less tolerant of nonsense than we were.

Today’s management is much more about “Freedom and Responsibility” than is about “Command and Control.” The new generations are not going to be as obedient as we were and I say “good for them.” Just issuing edicts and expecting to be blindly followed is not going to work.

“Today’s good managers give their employees the right context in which to make decisions – then employees make them” From “How Will You Measure Your Life” by Clayton Christenden.  We have a new world today and we as management need to change our posture and outlook. The battleground for the next several decades, if not as far as the eye can see, is going to be for the talented younger work force. This new workforce, the Gen F, is a talented group of young men and women looking for a manner in which they can feel that they have a worthwhile life and a work on a worthwhile career in which they can make a contribution. The time is now.