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Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Email is Evil.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Join Jed and Bob as they discuss how you can get a grip on the email that gets sent to you, and how you can be a better at email etiquette to minimize the pain of those around you.

Watch the ‘Using Email as a Force for Good, not Evil’ Video (14 mins 41 sec):

I often wonder when I see two people walking down the street side by side, talking on their mobile phones whether they are talking to each other.  It seems quite possible to me that the cell-phone has become such an extension of our bodies, that this somehow feels more natural to talk to each other through technology than it does face to face.

Or maybe people simply feel they can get in some exercise, have a visit with a walking companion and return some telephone calls all at the same time.  Now that’s multi-tasking!

It’s also horribly inefficient, and incredibly rude, but we seem to conveniently overlook these things.  Somewhere along the line we decided that an iPhone can override a few million years of evolution that up until a few years ago had still only minimally developed our ability to do more than one thing at once.

It’s kind of a rush to try, though, isn’t it?  It feels really good to be driving down the road, talking on the phone, listening to the radio, and screaming at the guy in the Audi that just cut you off.

Or the guy I heard in the men’s room returning a telephone call from the toilet.  Just for fun, I went and flushed all the vacant toilets, and did some fake vomiting so the sound effects would be complete for whomever he was conversing with.

The “Multitasking Rush” is, in short, the same euphoria one gets when using drugs.  Far be it from me to lecture people about how they get their kicks, but I would suggest that Multitasking, like all other recreational drugs should be used carefully and sparingly.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Multitasking Skills.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Multitasking Skills.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Many moons ago, I was an Operations Manager for a big, global company.  My part of the empire was very small, but I was still subject to much of the silliness that comes with being part of a huge organization.

You could have said that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, but that would have been overly-kind.  There were departments at global headquarters that out and out competed with each other.  The loss-control guys would send out a memo, only to be contradicted by the HR group.  Of course, none of them did this knowingly – they were simply so big, that they had no idea what the other support group was doing.

This is what happens when companies face operational issues, and rather than invest in frontline managers to teach them to deal with the complexities of the business, they suck control of everything short of turning the key in the front door back far away from the core business.

The result:  total and complete misalignment.  Frontline managers and the employees doing the actual work that makes money are being continually pulled in all directions, and end up flying like a moth to the brightest light depending on which support department issued an email directive that day.

I made the decision to leave this organization, about a year before my ultimate departure.  I still loved the business, I just didn’t like working for a large, bureaucratic company that had centralized all control and decision-making.

I can honestly say, I was at my most effective in this last year.  I still wanted the business to be successful, and I cared deeply about the people I worked with.  What made me (and my operation) effective and successful in this last year is that I stopped listening to head office.  I did what I thought was in the best interests of the business, and largely ignored my instructions from head office.

The result?  They didn’t notice I was not complying with the multiple and competing directives.  They did notice our numbers were in the top ten percent in the company.

Remember you heard it here first – the fastest way to aligning your business, and ultimately generating better results is to ignore your head office.  Of course, it could also be the most direct route to getting fired, too.

Let’s be careful out there.

Join Jed and Bob as they discuss how to align your business, and the link between Alignment and Accountability.

Watch the ‘Alignment & Accountability’ Video (14 mins 44 sec):

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Business Alignment Strategies.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Business Alignment Strategies.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Organizations with highly engaged people outperform merely ordinary organizations on every axis: production, cost, & safety.  So how can individual managers who may not have the authority to hire a concierge for every employee capture their people’s discretionary effort?  Join Jed & Bob to find out.

Watch the ‘Capturing Discretionary Effort’ Video (15 mins 29 sec):

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Capturing Discretionary Effort.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Capturing Discretionary Effort.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

I was out for lunch recently on a weekend with an old family friend.  Our lunch, on a beautiful autumn afternoon, overlooking the ocean was repeatedly interrupted by a Blackberry – and not the thorny cane-fruit type.  I finally asked if my friend’s wife was eleven months pregnant, and if he was waiting on the call to rush to the hospital.

“No”, he replied without looking up.  “We’re well beyond our child-rearing days”.

Apparently, my attempt to diffuse the situation with some sarcastic humor had failed.

Some people find themselves in jobs where they really are on call over a weekend.  For the vast majority, however, they voluntarily place themselves on constant standby regardless of their position.  They then have the nerve to whine about not getting any time to themselves.

Suck it up, Princess, you’re doing it to yourself.

My friend above is a public school teacher.  I have great respect for the work that teachers do, but I’ve got to think that one of the perks of the job has got to be the fact that outside of the occasional basketball game, you are largely left alone on the weekends.  Does a public school teacher really need to be monitoring email messages on a Saturday afternoon?

The honest answer is “No”.  People, like my friend, end up doing so for a variety of reasons.  First, it makes us feel important if we believe we are indispensible.  Second is the addictive nature of being continually connected – what if we are the last ones on the block to know that the Joneses are having ice-cream with their apple pie for desert tonight?  Third, it fits right in with what we’ve always been taught to do – not to hold your attention on anyone or anything for more than 30 seconds.

The myth of work-life balance is not that it doesn’t exist, but rather that most people do not allow it to exist.  It is true that organizations need to reduce explicit and tacit pressure for employees to be connected at all times, but employees have some accountability here too.

The reality is that people love to complain that they work long hours, and never get a break, when in fact a large portion of the dysfunctional behavior is entirely self-imposed.  If you want work-life balance, then turn off your phone, and be completely present with whomever or whatever you are dealing with at that moment.  Unless you’re on call for the next space shuttle launch, nobody is going to notice anyway.

Every one loves Top 10 lists.  Join Jed and Bob as they discuss the things that any employee can do to improve their work-life balance.  Also learn why they believe much of the discussion about this subject is flawed.

Watch the ‘Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips’ Video (15 mins 49 sec):

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Strawman Proposals.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Strawman Proposals.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Join Jed and Bob as they discuss what a Straw Man is, and how it might best be used, and how to build one for use in your organization.

Watch the ‘Strawman Proposals: Straw Man and Straw Dogs’ Video (12 mins 50 sec):

In 1974 Bill Oncken asked the question of “Who’s got the Monkey” to lament the fact that managers seem to buy more and more problems back from their people, when really they should challenge and develop their people to solve their own problems.  Join Jed and Bob as they discuss how managers can put Oncken’s advice to work.

Watch the ‘Who’s Got the Monkey? Delegating Responsibility’ Video (13 mins 34 sec):

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Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Delegating Responsibility.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Several years ago, I became involved in a finance audit with a public sector client.  These things are about as much fun as a boot in the butt with a frozen mukluk in any organization, but public sector organizations are even worse because of their inherent risk aversion.

It turns out the finance clerks were spending a ridiculous amount of time processing expense accounts for the considerable number of employees that were constantly travelling for business purposes.

Without doing the necessary internal investigating first, I got the bright idea to check with the relevant tax authorities as to whether we could simply offer people a per diem and dispense with all the $10 lunch receipts that were clogging up the system.

The federal tax agency did indeed have a provision for this that I thought would solve a considerable problem, and make everyone’s lives easier.

I was incredibly wrong.  I hadn’t been this wrong since I predicted Whitney Houston’s big comeback.

After lobbying hard inside the Finance group for such a change to be implemented, I was told in no uncertain terms, that we couldn’t do this because the people who didn’t spend the entire amount would pocket the difference, and that would be unacceptable.  Never mind that the amount was only about $50/day for a person on the road to pay for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Further, this policy could not be adopted because two senior managers had been caught abusing their expense accounts while travelling for business.

The VP of Finance initiated a root cause analysis of this problem, and concluded they did not have adequate control measures, and poor policy on expenses accounts.

He got it wrong.  He was treating a symptom of a much greater problem.  The root cause of his problem was a corporate culture with zero accountability.  Had a similar expense account abuse taken place in the private sector, the offending employees would have been terminated with cause, and common sense on a per diem expense policy would have prevailed.

Instead the VP of Finance chose to treat a symptom of a far larger problem by adding more bureaucracy.  He also chose to disregard the thousands of hours of labor required to process lunch receipts.  It’s a good thing he didn’t have the burden of worrying about shareholder value.

So instead of addressing the root cause, the Finance Department spent months rewriting the expense account policies, and ultimately came up with a completely ridiculous 75 page document that all employees with expense accounts were expected to adhere to.

Another genius example of your tax dollars hard at work.

Part of what makes my job so much fun is being exposed to a variety of organizations in a wide variety of industries.  The culture of these organizations vary widely, and is probably best manifested in how people make decisions.  In some places, people gather as much information as they can, they discuss possible courses of action, and then they pull the trigger on a decision.

Other organizations have rambling, unfocused discussions, refer things to subcommittees, defer decisions seemingly indefinitely, and then wonder why their organizations consistently fail.

People can argue whether the greater evil is in making decisions to quickly or too slowly, and you can probably guess which side of equation I will argue for with the following list:

Things that delay decisions:

1. Needing perfect information before committing.  It would be nice if you had all the available information at your disposal, but by the time you gather and process all that data, it’s possible your decision won’t matter anymore.
2. Being too risk adverse. When people are deathly afraid of making a mistake, they will hesitate to make decisions.  What is not part of their calculations is that their delay carries a certain amount of risk too.
3. Trying to keep everybody happy all the time.  Making decisions usually means having to make trade-offs of some sort.  By saying yes to one course of action, you are saying no to another, and in the process, you are going to upset someone.  This is a key reason why the public sector often fails to make timely, quality decisions.
4. A top-heavy or micro-managed business.  In this case, only one person, or a small number of people are permitted to make any decisions, and as such become a bottleneck.  Organizations that push decision making down the hierarchy to the most appropriate level are much more agile, and ultimately perform much better.
5. Poor decision-making process. Sometimes, people fail to recognize a decision point when it appears in front of them.  If they don’t recognize the fork in the road, they certainly won’t know which turn to take.
6. Fear: Contrary to popular belief, it is sometimes better to make the wrong decision today, realize it tomorrow and then correct your course of action, than it is to delay a decision for weeks or months.

Now I’m really having a hard time deciding which video clip to include this week.  One of the candidates is a Monty Python bit (People’s front of Judea) that contains foul language that might offend some.  The other is a clip of George W. Bush talking about being a decision-maker, that may offend some American viewers.

I could ask everyone to weigh-in, and then make my decision, or I could just flip a coin, but I can’t decide which decision making process is better.

Faced with a complex problem involving several possible solutions?  Use the Six Factor Analysis Method to assist with your decision making.

Watch to the ‘Structured Decision Making’ video (12 mins 3 sec):

Download the ‘Structured Decision Making’ Video (mp4)

Download the ‘Structured Decision Making’ Audio (mp3)

Structured Decision Making - Slides

Check out the ‘Structured Decision Making: The Six Factor Analysis Method’ Cheat Sheet

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Step 1 – Brainstorm Options

The first step in structured decision making is to develop a list of several possible solutions or improvements to your question or situation.  Brainstorming is most effective when ideas are generated without judgment.  A structured decision making process will help you to judge your ideas afterwards.  For now, just get down as many ideas as you can relevant to your situation.

Step 2 – Decide on the Criteria by Which to Evaluate Ideas

Regardless of what process you choose for structured decision making, it is important to adjust the criteria to suit your individual situation.  These will vary widely, based on the circumstances, but here are the six generic factors in this structured decision making process:

1. Effectiveness – How much will the solution improve the situation?
2. Feasibility – How “do-able” is the solution?
3. Cost – How much expense will be incurred in implementing the solution?
4. Time – How soon can the improvement be implemented?
5. Capability – Does your group have the time, skills, knowledge, and authority to make the improvement?
6. Enthusiasm – how enthusiastic are your team and other stakeholders about the improvement?

Again, any structured decision making process is best used when the criteria are added to or adjusted appropriately to the situation.

Step 3 – Weight Your Criteria

Not all criteria in a structured decision making process should be valued equally.  For example, in your situation, cost may be of paramount concern, and therefore may be weighted heavier than the others.

Consider the weights of your criteria in terms of percentage.  For example:

Effectiveness              25%

Feasibility                    15%

Cost                             30%

Time                            10%

Capability                    10%

Enthusiasm                 10%

If you are having difficulty determining weights for your structured decision making process, you can compare each criteria to every other one individually, putting a check mark beside the most important one in each comparison, and then counting up the checkmarks to arrive at a percentage.

Step 4 – Put Your Solutions and Criteria in a Table, and Score

To make your structured decision making process easy to use, put your criteria as column headings, with your possible solutions or alternatives in the left hand column:

Work your way across the table assigning a score to each empty box.  You can score each one on whatever scale you choose, as long as you use the same scale.  We would suggest to assign a score of 1 – 5, with 5 being the highest or best score.

Next multiply your score times the weight to come up with a number for each criteria of each option.  When you add all the weighted scores together, you come up with a total score for that option.  The option with the highest score should become what you move to action on.

HINT:  A structured decision making process such as this is much easier if it is done on a spreadsheet that can automatically do the math for you.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Structured Decision Making.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

I know it may be hard to believe (because I seem so delightful in these pages), but I can sometimes be difficult to get along with.  I get particularly cranky when I’m working with a group that loves to have meetings.  They have no idea why they have meetings, there are no outcomes, and no decisions are made, so it must be that there is some addictive quality in the coffee served at meetings.

Humourist Dave Barry once said that organizations have meetings because they are unable to masterbate.  I prefer to look at it this way: there is an inverse correlation between the number and quality of meetings in an organization, and their overall success.  In other words, I am suggesting that the fewer meetings that occur, the more successful the organization will be.

I know this is an argument I will lose in most companies, so as a service to Wily Manager readers, I’ll suggest ways to pass the time in one of your infinite number of meetings:

• Buzzword Bingo – this is where you try to stay awake by identifying business catch phrases.  You need to be discrete, though.  You don’t want to carry in a BINGO marker, or jump out of your chair, screaming “BINGO” when the Director of IT utters the words “low-hanging fruit”.  Download the Wily Manager Buzzword Bingo card here.
• Meeting value calculator – it’s kind of like a telethon, where you keep adding up the total amount of shareholder value that is being sucked away.  You can run the calculations privately, or put up a display board with changeable numbers that can be updated as the meeting goes on.  It’s a bit like the national debt clock in Times Square.
• Count the Meetings. Often you may be in a room and witnessing 12 individual meetings happening in rapid succession, as each person updates the boss with information that is completely irrelevant to everyone else in the room.
• Count the Meetings (variation). In particularly undisciplined organizations, meetings will degenerate into multiple and simultaneous conversations.  In this case there can be several separate meetings occurring at once, but they are much harder to count that the first variation of this game.
• Spot the Participant Type: In this game, you tag each participant with the label most appropriate to them.  Here are some thought starters:
  • The Jeopardy game show contestant:  this is a person constantly asking rhetorical questions, and communicates through Socratic code:  “Do I like the idea of being in this meeting room for 8 hours?  No, I don’t”
  • Caffeine-Deprived: Spot the people in the room struggling just to maintain a minimum level of consciousness, so as not to appear asleep.  Often identified by periodic head-bobbing, however the really good ones have perfected sleeping with the eyes open, while nodding every few moments to give the illusion of awareness
  • The Rambler – A solution to this problem is like Book III of Gulliver’s Travels where an empty sheep’s bladder tied to stick is used to gently hit the Rambler in the head to keep him on track.
  • The Evangelist – everything is a matter of life or death.  If the colour of the toilet-paper is changed, it will negatively impact our very way of life.
  • The thinker – they doodle, don’t look they’re paying attention, and then once per meeting the amaze everyone with their ability to put the entire issue into context.  Be nice to them, they could be your next boss.

Finally, it seems that meetings and death are closely related.  Even before Patrick Lencioni wrote Death By Meeting, I had a dream that I had died, and arrived in purgatory, and it was a meeting that never ended.  I was desperate that someone would pray for my soul, until I realized all of them were too busy in meetings as well.  I woke up realizing a violent death wasn’t as bad as it sounded – at least after a grizzly death, someone would pray for me.

When asked about manager stress, I am reminded of when I did my very first gig as a Management Consultant.  The company I worked for paired me up with one of the wise old owls, whose job it was to show me the ropes, and make sure I didn’t say anything too stupid so as to jeopardize the relationship with the client.

His first bit of advice to me was, “never care more than the client.”  It was incredibly cynical, and incredibly valuable.  I am careful where, and to whom I repeat this advice, but many of the leaders suffering from manager stress I’ve coached over the years should heed this adage.

You can never be the only one who cares about something.  In fact, a key survival skill as a leader in the modern organization is to selectively not give a crap about a whole bunch of stuff.

I am reminded of a public sector client I once had who lamented to me that if they only had more resources, they could get so much more done.  I think she was genuinely shocked when I broke the ugly truth to her that she would never, ever have all the resources she wanted.  It never happens in the private sector, or the public sector – nor should it.

One of the key functions of a manager is to allocate the scarce resources of time, money and talent appropriately.  What separates great managers from the average and poor is their ability to manage the conversion of these resources to maximize the output of their group.

A great way to make yourself absolutely crazy as a manager in any organization is to try to get everything done that the company wants, as well as everything you want to do.  You need to draw your own line in the sand, and figure out what you need to do to be successful, and forget about much of the other stuff.  A great way to accelerate your journey to stress-leave, and make everyone around you hate your guts is to try to be all things to all people.

Of course, doing the above means you will spend a lot of time saying “no” to people, and risk not having anyone like you.  It’s called the burden of leadership, and it’s what you signed-on for once you gave up your individual contributor’s role.

So, to recap:

1)   Selectively don’t give a crap.

2)   You’re never going to have enough resources

3)   Don’t do much of the stuff you think you should be doing

4)   Don’t even attempt to keep everyone happy

5)   Your career as an organizational leader will result in you being in a constant state of marginal “pissed-off’edness”

Wow… that’s quite a bit different than the stuff they taught us in Business School.  But then again, how many Biz School Profs have ever had any success in running an actual business?

Of the top 10 things that make managers crazy, the second five are all related to managing stress.

Watch the ‘Top 10 Manager Challenges (Part B)’ Video (23 mins 44 sec):

Download the ‘Top 10 Manager Challenges (Part B) Video (m4v)

Download the Top 10 Manager Challenges (Part B) Audio (mp3)

Top 10 Manager Challenges (Part 2 - Self Managment)

Take a look at the ‘Top 10 Manager Challenges Part B’ Cheat Sheet

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Managing Stress.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection.

• Don’t fight it – have a process
• Provide change management skills to your people
• Don’t enable other people’s resistance
• Over-communicate during change

Babysitting

• Don’t solve your employees problems for them when you shouldn’t
• Allow people to make mistakes, and accept the consequences for those mistakes
• Ensure appropriate consequences for all good and poor performance
• Don’t get dragged into personality clashes
• Be professional and calm at all times

Overload and Burnout

• Be self-aware
• Take breaks to stay healthy
• Consider burning your blackberry/iPhone
• Do not try to be all things to all people
• Be very focused about what is most important
• Delegate where you can

Red Tape and Administration

• Consider what would happen if you ignored it
• See you can get someone else to do it
• If you can affect change, do so
• If you can’t affect change, get it off your desk as quickly as possible
• Place appropriate value on your time, and hire someone else if appropriate

Personal Fulfillment

• Understand your connection to the final product
• Realize that often managers don’t “do” anything
• Get a hobby
• Take pleasure in the small victories
• Understand what motivates you, and give in to those guilty inner desires.

Learn Even More About ‘Managing Stress’

Wily Manager members, click here to access the members-only area for this topic (you must be logged in).  In the members-only area, you can:

• Watch the full length ‘Managing Stress’ Video (15 minutes)
• Download the ‘Managing Stress’ Video (mp4)
• Download the ‘Managing Stress’ Audio (mp3)
• Download the ‘Managing Stress’ Slides (ppt)
• Print or save the ‘Managing Stress’ Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Click through to Related Topics:
  • Time and Priority Management
  • Delegation
  • Help! I’m a Micro Manager
  • Procrastination: Later, Dude!
  • The von Manstein Matrix
  • Top 10 Manager Challenges: Part A (Managing Conflict)

Not a member yet? Join us now and get instant access! For more information about the advantages of becoming a Wily Manager member, visit Become a Member.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Managing Stress.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

“My goal now:  to be the all-being ruler of time, space and dimension….  And then, I want to go to Europe.” – Steve Martin

For the low price of about $5000, you can spend the weekend with some screaming hucksters (who you would run far away from in a normal social setting), who will guide you to the perfect collection of personal and professional goals that will change your life, and provide the happiness that has always alluded you.  Your registration also includes a coffee mug, and a handsome leather portfolio for all your hand written notes.

It seems that the SMART acronym (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-phased) is not the stuff of which great goals are based.  You can also dispense with BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals) made famous by Jim Collins.  Nope, the only way to achieve greatness is to pay your $5000, and lose a weekend of your time.

I’m thinking about advertising on the same forum a one-hour seminar on how to avoid rip-offs, but only charging $2500.  I would assume I would be marketing to the same clientele.

Don’t get me wrong – I think goals are important.  However, I don’t believe their commodification is necessary.  You can write your goals in whatever format you wish on the back of a napkin, and get everything out of it your would by paying your $5000.  The reason most goals fail to be achieved is because people lack the discipline to follow up on their goals – not because of how they are written.

I do believe everyone should have goals, and I do believe you should write them down.  The SMART acronym can help you write higher quality goals, and Jim Collin’s idea of BHAGs can help you to write something inspired.  If you don’t buy into either of these, write them as you see fit – just write them.

You already know what SMART goals are – find out about HARD goals and how they can help you achieve more.

Listen to the ‘SMART Goals are Dumb’ podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

SMART Goals Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Cheat Sheet

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• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

• It forces people to focus on specific things
• It is very clear when goals are achieved
• They are connected with the overall objectives of the organization

What are HARD Goals?

• Heartfelt – My goals will enrich the lives of somebody besides me
• Animated – I can vividly picture how great it will feel when I achieve my goals
• Required – My goals are absolutely necessary to help this organization
• Difficult – I will have to learn new skills and leave my comfort zone to achieve my goals

Why We Like HARD Goals

• It takes people beyond normal performance
• Encourages discretionary effort
• The only way to create a “game-changer”

Learn Even More About ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’

Wily Manager members, click here to access the members-only area for this topic (you must be logged in).  In the members-only area, you can:

• Listen to the ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Podcast
• Download the ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Audio (mp3)
• Download the ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Slides (ppt)
• Print or save the ‘SMART Goals and HARD Goals’ Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Click through to Related Topics:
  • Time and Priority Management
  • Tools to Lead Change
  • The von Manstein Matrix
  • ABC’s of Performance Management
  • Aligning Mission, Vision & Goals

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In January of 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded on take-off killing all seven crew, and grounding the American space program for two years.  Of the exhaustive investigations that took place (that led to a significant number of changes for NASA, and how they conducted their business), perhaps the most important change was that for the first time, talking about changing corporate culture was fair game.

The engineers and investigators determined the technical causes of the explosion, but when they dug deeper to understand why those technical issues were not addressed in advance, they ended up in the uncomfortable place of changing corporate culture.  It turns out NASA had a culture whereby many qualified people knew there was a significant risk of disaster, but none chose to voice those concerns, even if they would have been listened to.

I call this an “uncomfortable” conclusion because highly technical people in any organization want to discuss things they can see, touch and/or count.  Changing corporate culture is something that nebulous and messy.  It’s difficult to define, impossible to measure, and probably the most important element of performance in an organization — as NASA found out the hard way.

So how do you go about changing corporate culture?

You don’t.

Much like Jerry Seinfeld dominated television with a show about nothing, organizations need to get about doing what they do.  I was recently in the NBC store in New York, more than a decade after Seinfeld left the air, and discovered that a significant portion of the wares were dedicated to Seinfeld’s “nothing”.  The Soup Nazi, Vandalay Industries, and Kramer’s hair all testify to the enduring quality of Seinfeld’s “nothing”.

Changing corporate culture is a lot like the show about nothing.  What people do, how they interact with each other, how they manage conflict, what gets rewarded, who gets promoted, how success is measured and a score of other things all add up to your corporate culture.

The silliest thing you can do is to declare a change in corporate culture to some virtue you read about at some other company.  The culture you have now is a product of the things above.  If you want to change your corporate culture, you need to address those things.

And don’t think it will happen in a hurry.  It will be a decade more before Seinfeld is replaced at the NBC store.

What can you do if you’re looking to change or strengthen your corporate culture?

Listen to the ‘Corporate Culture’ podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Corporate Culture Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘Corporate Culture’ Cheat Sheet

Back when I was in University, I elevated procrastination to an elegant form of art.  Around the time every semester when I was supposed to be producing term papers, I would find just about any excuse not to do them.  I would do the requisite scheduling of time to get them done, and lock myself in either the school library or my bedroom so something would get done.

As it turns out, I would have been better off going to the pub (where at least I would have had some fun) because those long lock-down periods produced either:
a)    a thorough reading of the complete poetry works of Ezra Pound (more fun than managerial economics) when I was locked in the library

b)   the cleanest bedroom ever, if I was relegated to home.

Luckily, twenty-five years later I’m starting to understand procrastination for what it is: a total and complete lack of discipline.  Dr. Piers Steel recently wrote a book called The Procrastination Equation to help further understanding of this systemic problem.  According to Steel, procrastination affects 95% of the population (I assume the other 5% are buddhist monks who spent upwards of 20 hours per day in meditation).

Dr. Steel spent about 10 years researching procrastination for his book.  He probably could have gotten the research done in five years, if he was more disciplined, but I’m sure his room was as clean as mine was as a university student.  Interestingly, he tags coffee shops as a huge enabler of procrastination.  Add to this ubiquitous internet, television, video games and other people, and it’s remarkable we don’t all live in a catatonic state that Captain Christopher Pike found himself in in the original Star Trek series.

On this week’s podcast, Jed and I talk about why you might find yourself procrastinating, and what you might do about it.  Here’s a hint:  Nike had it right – Just Do It.

I’ve also pasted in a video clip below that’s a bit longer than normal.  It will be perfect if you’re putting something off, and you want a 3-minute reprieve from actually doing something.  We know we have a loyal following at Wily Manager, and if we can’t help you with your challenges, we’d like to enable you having fun while you wallow in them.

Now… I better get back to my writing – before I head over to the coffee shop.

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1. Priorities - You’re not organized.  Other things seem more important.
2. Overwhelmed - The task or job seems just too big.  You’re not sure how to do it.
3. Satisfaction - You know you won’t like doing it.

1. Priorities

• Force rank your to do list
  • Does it have a deadline?
  • Think through the consequences to determine how important it is
  • How important is it to others?
• Take them from your to do list … and into your calendar
• Delegate

2. Overwhelmed

• Break the job down into smaller, more manageable tasks.
• Track your progress.
• Don’t assume you have to do it by yourself.  Ask for help.
• Make sure you’re clear on expectations.
• Delegate.

3. Satisfaction

• Eat the frog first.
• Tell somebody else about your commitment and ask them to check on your progress.
• Delegate.

Learn Even More About ‘Procrastination’

Wily Manager members, click here to access the members-only area for this topic (you must be logged in).  In the members-only area, you can:

• Listen to the Procrastination Podcast (15 minutes)
• Download the Procrastination Audio (mp3)
• Download the Procrastination Slides (ppt)
• Print or save the Procrastination Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Click through to Related Topics:
  • Delegation
  • Time and Priority Management
  • Getting Ahead
  • The von Manstein Matrix
  • SMART Goals and HARD Goals
  • Top 10 Manager Challenges: Part B (Managing Stress)

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Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Procrastination.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Learn why you procrastinate, and what you can do about it.

Listen to the ‘Procrastination’ Podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Procrastination Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘Procrastination’ Cheat Sheet

Every few years I’ll do a job or a project for a governmental organization.  Given that I spend about 90% of my time dealing with private sector organizations, I always have to recalibrate when I enter a public sector organization.  Most often in government, I experience generally hard-working people frustrated by a bureaucracy resulting in precious little actually being accomplished.

The public sector usually attracts people who are generally risk averse, and as a result, the idea of taking action without perfect information, or allowing oneself to make mistakes and then swiftly correcting them is a hard sell.  I seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time just urging people to hurry up and move to action.

In some cases, my problem in private sector organizations is exactly the opposite.  Getting people to slow down for just an hour or two to evaluate and document their performance is often branded as heresy.  In the case of doing some form of “look-back” after a project or initiative, public sector organizations tend to do a much better job.

There are probably a variety of reasons for this, not the least of which is that public spending is subject to much closer scrutiny, and by a wider variety of interest groups.  Nevertheless, private sector organizations would be well advised to take a look at how their cousins in the public sector evaluate and document lessons learned from projects and initiatives.

Most often, the reason given for failing to do a post mortem is, “we don’t have time, besides… everything went well.”  When things go very well on a project or initiative is the most important time to do a post mortem.  Do you know why things went better than expected?  Can you repeat that performance again, or was it just good luck?

To spend an hour or two properly debriefing a project or initiative may be the best investment an organization can make.

What should happen after a project winds down?  Pick up some tips for a successful project post-mortem.

Listen to the ‘Project Post Mortems’ Podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Project Post Mortems Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘Project Post Mortems’ Cheat Sheet

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What is a Project Post-Mortem?

• A “look-back” from a specific project or course of action
• Occurs after the fact
• Documents lessons-learned for use in similar future circumstances
• Compares expected results with actual results

• A full, comprehensive project post mortem for the project or action
• Bundle the project with other similar ones and debrief together
• No post project review will occur, but it will be a conscious decision rather than just not getting it done

Benefits of a Project Post-Mortem

• Documents the wisdom gained through experience, and what could be done differently next time
• Understand why things went well (or not), and why
• A form of structured feedback
• Improves communication

How to Conduct a Project Post Mortem

1. Decide on scope and who should participate
2. Establish ground rules, and meeting roles
3. Conduct Gap Analysis
   • Review expected performance or results
   • Document actual performance or results
4. Document action items arising as a result of the PPM

Questions to Ask at a Project Post-Mortem

• What are the KPIs for this project?
• Where the requirements and goals of this project clear at the beginning?
• Did we achieve the business objective?
• What went better than expected?
• What did not go as well as expected?
• How were specific problems overcome?
• What changes would be made if we were to do this project over?
• Which process or methods caused frustration?
• What specific tools or techniques were useful on this project?
• Next time we need more/better involvement from…?
• Does a smaller group need to go offline and evaluate parts of this project further?

Tips for a Successful Project Post Mortem

• Do it as soon as possible after the conclusion of the project or action
• Do not assign blame, but rather focus the intent on learning
• Talk about team performance
• Keep the discussion focused, and do not allow digression to related issues
• Look for an 80% solution

3 Things to Remember about Project Post Mortems

1. Don’t let the project post-mortem become bigger than the project it was meant to assess
2. Take the time to do it well
3. Make it a learning exercise – don’t make it about personal blame

Learn Even More About ‘Project Post Mortems’

Wily Manager members, click here to access the members-only area for this topic (you must be logged in).  In the members-only area, you can:

• Listen to the ‘Project Post Mortems’ Podcast (15 minutes)
• Download the ‘Project Post Mortems’ Audio (mp3)
• Download the ‘Project Post Mortems’ Slides (ppt)
• Print or save the ‘Project Post Mortems’ Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Click through to Related Topics:
  • The Business Review Meeting
  • Tools to Lead Change
  • Giving Quality Feedback
  • Cause and Effect Map: Creating and Using a Fishbone Chart

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Find out all about the Wily Manager Leadership Boot Camp:

• Why bother?
• What it’s about
• Who should participate
• How it works
• What’s covered

Listen to the ‘Leadership Boot Camp’ Podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Leadership Boot Camp Podcast Slides

Download the Leadership Boot Camp Brochure:

Wily Manager Leadership Boot Camp Brochure

As a society, we’ve decided that many behaviours that were acceptable only a few decades ago, are now completely out of the question.  A careful viewing of any episode of Mad Men will confirm how much has changed in a relatively short time.  Gone are the days of getting completely plastered at lunch, and then driving back to the office to finish up your day.  Same goes for smoking, recreational drug use, gambling, gluttony, and virtually all other forms of excessive, self-destructive behaviour.

There is one glaring exception: workoholism.  I am often bombarded on Monday mornings with tales of alleged heroism about how someone successfully avoided their family all weekend, so they could work right through to finish some insignificant office project.  The same people will drone on about how they get to the office before 7.00am, and work past 6.00pm on a regular basis.

Here’s a newsflash: this is something to be embarrassed about, not something one brags about. Not many people entertain people at the water cooler boasting about their other self destructive vices:

“I spent the weekend gambling away my kids’ tuition money!”

“I ate 12 boxes of Krispy-Kreme’s in one sitting on Saturday.  Then I purged, and did it again.”

“I’m pretty sure my eating disorder is serious enough now to warrant medical attention”

All of these sound as ridiculous to me as, “I work 80 hours per week on a regular basis”.  Congratulations – you’re completely dysfunctional, and probably need to see a mental health professional – top speed.

Workoholism is the working professional’s last and only chance to be a martyr.  These martyrs think the tales of their self-perceived heroics will place them in higher standing amongst their peers and boss.  It doesn’t – the only thing your organization cares about is what you get done.  Think of how many times in your working life you’ve seen the obsessively hard worker be passed over by someone else, who works significantly less, but gets way more done.

There are only two situations that I could envision someone working an 80 hour week:

1)   The exceptional project, event or occurrence that will quickly pass to return to a more reasonable way of working, or

2)   You are a farmer – in which case you have my gratitude and respect.

The rest of you need to wake up and realize this self-destructive behaviour for what it is.  For thoughts on how to get out of workoholic trap, visit our site this week, where we talk about the 80/20 rule, and how to apply it.

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Who Cares About von Manstein?

• Career military man who finished his career advising the West German government
• He assessed top performers on how they got things done
• Provides guidance on how to organize our time

The von Manstein Matrix:

The Pareto Principle:

• 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts
• You need to work hard to identify the 20%

How to Get “Lazy”:

• Don’t fall into the activity trap.  Nobody cares how busy you are, they care what you produce
• You need to do more than just work hard
• Decide what NOT to do

Applying the Matrix:

• Don’t try to keep all people happy all the time
• Have a work plan
• Practice saying “no”
• Assess your direct reports on the matrix
• Fire the hardworking, stupid ones

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Learn how to be “lazy” yet get more done at work.

Listen to ‘The von Manstein Matrix’ podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

von Manstein Matrix Podcast Slides

Take a look at ‘The von Manstein Matrix’ Cheat Sheet

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Office Types:

• Enclosed Offices
• Open Space Concept
• Cubicle Farms
• Alternative

Why Getting Out of Offices is Great:

• More and better communication amongst team members
• More direct contact – you end up knowing people better
• Space can be modified quickly and easily
• Usually people have more access to natural light
• Some companies have found it reduces cost because you can put more cubes per floor than offices. (Cisco reduced costs by 37%)
• It’s harder for employees to slack off

Why it Sucks:

• Over communicate any office-space change.  This is a very big deal to people
• Be very clear about your reasons for making a change, and make sure you consider the pro’s and con’s
• You need much more meeting space in an open concept than with offices
• Hire someone to help you through the transition
• Ensure white-noise
• If you go open – everyone must go, from the CEO on down
• Research it well – there is no shortage of information arguing both for and against open office space

One Solution:

• If employees spend the majority of their time working individually, put them in offices
• If employees spend a great deal of time collaborating, put them in an open office configuration.  Perhaps in offices of four to eight people.
• If you want you employees to spend most of their time reading Dilbert, put them in cubicles.

Last Word from Robert Probst:

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What’s the best type of office design?  Enclosed offices?  Open space concept?  Cube farms?

Listen to the ‘Office Design’ podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

'Open Office Concepts' Podcast Slides

Take a look at the Office Design Cheat Sheet

If the last meeting you went to sucked badly, you are in good company.  A survey of over 1000 North American managers indicated that on average they spend about 17 hours per week in meetings.  Of that considerable portion of their work-week, they deemed that one-third of that time was wasted.

The economic implications of this are staggering.  If you multiply 6 hours times the hourly rate of those managers times the number of managers in the economy, you begin to see a number with a whole bunch of zeros behind it.  Even in your own organization this calculation could easily total in the millions of dollars every year.

More selfishly, ask yourself what you would do if you had an extra six hours every week.  Could you work more reasonable hours?  Perhaps you could get to those things you know are important but are constantly displaced by the urgent.

This got us to ask the question, “if meetings are systemically bad, and they cost that much what can be done?”

First of all, do not accept that meetings have to be bad.  We all seem resigned that we have to write-off a significant portion of our week to something we know is useless.  Demand more of yourself, and of your organization.

Second – be part of the solution.  This is your problem to solve.  Even if you do not chair the meeting, you can raise questions as to how effective they are.  Your complacency will get you into more pointless meetings.

Third – insist on a structure.  The engineers and accountants always get a bad rap for being anal retentive.  While you may want to avoid such people at cocktail parties, invite them to help fix your meetings.  A bit of discipline will exponentially improve the value of your meetings.

Finally – figure out what meetings are costing you.  What is the cost to the organization by the time they pay a fully burdened labour cost.  What is the cost to you if meetings are causing you to work longer hours and give up your leisure time.  Profit-driven organizations are usually good a containing costs when they have to.  Get them to contain the cost of their meetings.

Then you’ll have more time to read our blog, and download YouTube clips.  Here’s one from John Cleese – for those who love British humour.

Do you have a job description?  Have you seen it since you were hired into your current position?  Does it bear any resemblance to what you actually do every day?  If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions (much less all 3 of them), you are in the minority.  Most organizations either don’t have job descriptions, or have ones that are useless.

There is a good argument to be made that job descriptions are a relic from a time gone by, and that many jobs defy a linear description that is normally seen on a job description.  I would argue that the majority of jobs can, and should have job descriptions, but not in the way they are normally done.

If your job description articulates in painstaking detail the activities that you will undertake on a “normal” day, then it officially sucks.  Sorry to be the one to bring it up but:

a)    Nobody cares how busy you are.

b)   Nobody cares what you do.

Of course there are some highly bureaucratic organizations (often governmental organizations) where they do care about these things, but they are the minority.

Well run organizations care what you get done.  What did you produce?  What are your results?  How much value did you create?  A good job description will articulate these things – not how many paper clips you will use to file a report.

So I’m drawing a line in the sand today – Job Descriptions are dead.  Throw them away.  In their place, we will create POSTION OUTCOMES DESCRIPTIONS (PODs).   This is not a directive to the HR people out there – they are usually the last to come on board with such changes.  This is to every person who wants to make a difference.   A well-written POD will facilitate you making a difference at your job.

Write yours today, and get your boss to sign-off on it.  Then, when the crap-tasks start sliding across your desk, you have some mechanism by which to question it.  In your old Job Description, the crap-task would have fallen under “other duties as assigned”.

Now do you see why you need to do this?  There are lots of tools on the Wily Manager website to help you with this.  Join the revolution – and let us know how you’re making out.

Many moons ago, I was a teenage university student, paying my tuition by working the graveyard shift at a grocery store.  One of the prime motivators of continuing to study hard year after year was so that I wouldn’t have to continue to work the graveyard shift at a grocery store.

Now that a few decades have elapsed, I have come to realize and appreciate the true value of this experience.  When we have assisted clients to implement high performance teams, I am often asked if I have ever been on one of those very special teams.  Then I tell the story about being on night-crew during university….

Interestingly, people are always trying to draw the connection between high-performing individuals and high performance teams.  When I tell people the link is not as strong as they might like to think, I am often greeted with confusion.

Here’s an ugly little truth:  Your star employees are often high-maintenance, and may do more long term damage than good.  Everyone knows the employee who can crank out the results, but leaves a wake of broken relationships and collateral damage behind.  She may produce a superior level of output for some period of time, but may adversely affect the output of others.

High Performance Teams exist where the interactions between team members are exceptionally functional.  A High Performance Team quite likely doesn’t have any stars, but rather group of competent performers who have found their groove in working together.   The success of your organization depends upon the number and quality of these B-players.

Back in the 1980s, in the middle of the night at a high-volume grocery retailer, our little team had no stars.  It was a group of guys who liked working together, had a very clear idea of what they were supposed to be doing, and relentless peer pressure to get things done properly.  Our output was almost double that of any comparable crew – and we had way more fun too.

The prescription for a High Performance Team is easy to understand.  Filling that prescription is much more difficult.

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There are 5 steps to getting ahead at work:

Step One: Figure out what you want

• Following your ego is usually a bad idea
• Don’t do it for the money

Step Two: Make a plan

• What are the intermediate steps?
• Don’t be linear
• Take control – no one else is in charge of your career
• Manage your reputation

Step Three: Reach out to people

• Network
• Ask for Feedback
• Volunteer for high-profile projects
• Get outside your silo
• Network outside your organization
• Keep your boss in the loop as much as possible

Step Four: Beware of others who may want to keep you where you are

• If you’re generating results, they’ll want to keep you there
• Talent hoarding is a real problem
• Never trust anyone in HR
• You need to be in charge of your career

Step Five: Help others

• Karma
• Delegate lots
• Be a teacher
• Build great teams around you

Learn Even More About ‘Getting Ahead’

Wily Manager members, click here to access the members-only area for this topic (you must be logged in).  In the members-only area, you can:

• Listen to the ‘Getting Ahead’ Podcast (15 minutes)
• Download the ‘Getting Ahead’ Audio (mp3)
• Download the ‘Getting Ahead’ Slides (ppt)
• Print or save the ‘Getting Ahead’ Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Click through to Related Topics:
  • Time and Priority Management
  • Improve Your Public Speaking and Presentation Skills
  • The von Manstein Matrix
  • How to Manage Up Without Brown Nosing
  • Ace Your Annual Performance Review
  • Asking Your Boss for a Raise: How to Ask for a Raise … And Get It

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Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Getting Ahead.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

Learn the 5 steps to getting ahead at work.

Listen to the ‘Getting Ahead’ podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Getting Ahead Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘Getting Ahead’ Cheat Sheet

OK – we’ve all done it.  Decided to do something ourselves because its easier and faster than holding the appropriate person to account.  Maybe you’ve even done it with your children.  Micro-managing – the gift that keeps on destroying.

Every manager has been warned against this, so let’s look at why it happens, given the most common excuses most managers give for doing so:

It’s faster to do it myself.  It probably is faster… the first time.  But if you look at the amount of time it will take you to teach or correct someone else in the execution of a task, versus the amount of time it will take you to do it on an ongoing basis, the answer is clear.

I can do it better. You probably can… for a while.  However, if you insist on doing every individual task yourself, you will become quickly overwhelmed, and will end up doing some (high) proportion of those tasks poorly.

My people aren’t capable. If this is the case for any amount of time, you are clearly not doing your job as a manager.  It is your job to develop people.  Occasionally you truly don’t have the right talent, in which case you have to make changes to your talent bench.

I need to keep close to the details. Actually, you probably don’t.  As a manager, it is not your job to be expert at everything.  It’s your job to create experts, and be able to ask some semi-intelligent questions of them.

If I don’t do all these tasks, I won’t be useful anymore. Listen to yourself.  If you’re that insecure in your role as a leader, you need to examine whether you should be in a management role at all.

The bottom line is that micro-managers sap the productivity out of organizations by failing to capture the discretionary effort of their employees.  They don’t develop people, which is a primary function of a leader.  They also limit their own career mobility by trying to make themselves indispensible in the role they are in.

Micro-management is a self-destructive behaviour, and a great way to get fired.  Then you’ll have lot’s of time.

Apparently the most recent flavour of the month is the Results-Oriented Work Environment or ROWE for those who prefer to only work with acronyms.  It a great name because how could anyone not want a more results-oriented work place?  Some of its detractors call it something different – anarchy.  I would probably call it self-employment.

ROWE, in its most current incarnation, was pioneered at Best Buy, and is in use at other high profile companies such as IBM and Netflix.  The theory is a simple one:  employees set their own time, schedules, and work methods, and are instead measured on the output of what they produce.  In theory, it sounds like an excellent idea, and in certain cases it could probably work very well.

I can think of a two situations where it really wouldn’t work:

1. It can’t work where there’s a high degree of inter-dependence with other stakeholders.  As a refugee of the Retail Food Industry, I can say without reservation that it would be a disaster if employees wrote their own schedule.  As great as it would be for the bulk of employees to work banker’s hours, it would get pretty frustrating for customers who predominantly shop at nights and on weekends.
2. It can’t work in situations where it is difficult to measure the output of employee effort.  If there is any degree of variation in work processes, then the measurement thereby becomes very difficult.  For example, any profession with case-work (lawyers, social workers, insurance etc.) are inherently difficult to measure.  Some cases may be easily wrapped up in a few minutes, while others may require weeks of research and follow up.

I know we’re all supposed to buy-in to the myth that any and all things are measurable, but the luxury of believing that falls only to academics who have never had to actually measure anything.  Ask a professor how to measure teaching effectiveness, and watch her face as she looks like your dog when you pretend to throw the ball and then hide it behind your back.

The second group of people who insist that all things are measureable are management consultants – who, (for the low cost of $5000/day plus expenses) are more than willing to help you measure everything in your business.  Unlike the professors, these folks don’t believe it, but they make good money convincing organizations to try it.

Should you try to better focus your organization on results?  Yes – that’s your job as a manager.

Should you impose measurement systems on everything?  Maybe – it depends on your business, and how meaningful you can make your metrics.  Where possible, you should measure and evaluate people mostly on their output.

Should you set people loose and tell them as long as they produce X widgets in a given week, they can do whatever they want?  I think that’s a recipe for disaster for employee morale, risk management, and true accountability.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong (with thanks to Dennis Miller).

Learn key ways to improve your time and priority management, including 10 things you can do right now.

Listen to the ‘Time and Priority Management’ Podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Time and Priority Management Podcast Slides

Take a look at the Time and Priority Management Cheat Sheet.

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What’s Wrong With Being a Micro-Manager?

• You are creating unnecessary work for yourself and others, and therefore wasting resources
• You could be negatively affecting turnover
• You are destroying discretionary effort and thereby reducing productivity
• You will burn yourself and others out

How People Become Micro-Managers

• They were great individual contributors, but never transitioned to being a leader
• They have perfectionist tendencies
• They are insecure in their role as a leader
• They are control-freaks

How do I Address This?

1. Clearly Define Expectations

• Put written performance agreements in place
• Define the boundaries of people’s jobs and determine what level of authority they can have

2. Experiment With Giving People More Authority

• Define outcomes; allow people to determine methods
• Start small if necessary
• Ask for progress reports

3. Leadership Development

• Find ways to improve your ability as a leader.
• Dedicate time to focus on leadership issues as opposed to the detail or the work

Learn Even More About ‘Help! I’m a Micro-Manager’

Wily Manager members, click here to access the members-only area for this topic (you must be logged in).  In the members-only area, you can:

• Listen to the ‘Help! I’m a Micro-Manager’ Podcast (15 minutes)
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• Print or save the ‘Help! I’m a Micro-Manager’ Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Click through to Related Topics:
  • Time and Priority Management
  • Delegation
  • My Boss is a Micro Manager
  • Getting Ahead
  • Good Boss, Bad Boss, Be a Better Boss

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Think you might be a micro-manager?  Listen to this podcast and find out:

• Why you should care
• How people get to be micro-managers
• What you can do to address your problem

Listen to the ‘Help! I’m a Micro-Manager’ podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

'Help! I'm a Micro-Manager' Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘Help! I’m a Micro-Manager‘ Cheat Sheet

There’s lots of media coverage this week of smart phones – iPhone for the continuing saga of the iPhone 4, and Blackberry for the UAE’s refusal to use them based on security concerns.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should come-clean now on the fact that I came late to the smart phone party.  I had a perfectly good cell phone, and no one was able to convince me that a smart phone would make my life any easier.  In fact – quite the opposite:

“You need a smart phone so you can get your email anywhere, and always be connected.  The only thing I don’t like is that my phone reception is not very good.”

Sorry – that’s at least two strikes against the smart phone

1)   I don’t want to always be connected.  In fact I look to actively be disconnected

2)   Why would I buy a phone with the limiting function being the telephone itself?  It might make a mean frappuccino, but I would prefer it to make phone calls.

I finally relented and bought an iPhone because it effectively condensed four devices I regularly carried on business trips into one (phone, iPod, Palm Pilot & GPS).  The bonus feature was that as a middle-aged white guy, I instantly felt cooler with a gadget from Apple.

So once I had the new smart phone was I perpetually connected, as I feared?  No.

Not because the technology limited me in any way from staying connected, but because I often either ignored it or turned it off.  I am able to do so because I’m not part of a big corporate food-chain where I would be lead to believe that my very existence on the planet is contingent upon me being absolutely indispensible to my employer.

As a contractor of services, I am generally exempt from things like anxiety about job security (because I don’t have any).  But it got me thinking about why people feel they need to be connected all the time.  It is nothing more than illusions of grandeur if you think that no one else can do what you do.  If you are one of the few that has made yourself indispensible then your business is not sustainable, and we should probably fire you anyway.

Either way, if you’re one of those managers that is constantly connected to your workplace, you should work to wean yourself off this addiction.  Work, like all other recreational drugs, should be used only in moderation.

One of my favourite work assignments was a project based in Philadelphia that was a joint venture between an American Company and a British one.  One would think the similarities between these two countries would keep cross-cultural issues to a minimum, but as anyone who has worked in both countries will tell you, the differences are more than merely adjusting to funny accents.

One of the first wrinkles that needed to ironed out was the fact that Americans take about 3 weeks vacation a year in increments of no longer than 5 days, and their British counterparts have two or three times that holiday entitlement.

While the Brits would jet off to Southern Europe for 3 weeks at a time during the summer, the Americans would be at the office working the same excessive hours as always.  Interestingly, the productivity of the two groups was about the same.

This got me to thinking about how we work in North America, and how much of the time we are pretending to work.  Lots of people will take offence to the notion that they are not really working, but in reality the bulk of the work at many organizations takes place in just a few weeks per year.

January through May are good production months, except for a few days around Easter and Spring Break.  June through August, many people are not at work at all, and those that are working show up, but really have one eye to the outdoors and their next BBQ.  September and October are usually about budgeting and planning, and while some will argue they are critical to the business, it distracts from the actual running of the business, and often adds far less value than it costs in time and effort.  Finally November and December work gets done, but with the distractions of Christmas and (for the Americans) Thanksgiving.

So as a manager, how do you reconcile that the few people that do show up in July and August are probably just pretending to work?  You don’t.  It’s part of the deal, and most organizations don’t fall apart as a result.  The real question to ask is whether the work being done the rest of the year, when the entire staff complement is in place and working at capacity has any value.

Anyway, I better take a quick lap around the office floor (holding a piece of paper, and walking quickly) so as to maintain the appearance of work, before someone figures out I’m part of the masses pretending to work during the summer months.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Delegation.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection.

As a manager, you should delegate because:

• It helps develop other people’s skills and abilities
• It frees you up to do the work that only you can/should do
• It makes good business sense

Why do many managers not delegate?

• Delegating takes some up-front work so it seems easier to just do it yourself
• Some managers are control freaks
• Some managers see it as asking for help which they perceive as weak
• Some managers feel badly about passing on their work to others

What managers should delegate:

• Tasks that someone else could do
• Tasks that would contribute to building your team
• Tasks that are organizationally appropriate to delegate

Use the Wily Manager Delegation Worksheet to list and plan potential tasks and duties that you could delegate.

How to delegate:

Consider the Context

• What is the work you are delegating?
• Why are you delegating this work?
• How is this work important to the bigger picture?

Clarify

• Clarify the desired outcomes and expectations
• Clarify constraints, boundaries, and resources

Create

• Where possible, empower the individual to contribute their ideas as to how the work will get done
• Create the plan together

Commit

• Get commitment and alignment to specific timelines, due dates, reviews, follow up meetings, measures of success etc.

Close

• Wrap it up and express support and confidence in the individual

Learn Even More About ‘Delegation’

Wily Manager members, click here to access the members-only area for this topic (you must be logged in).  In the members-only area, you can:

• Listen to the ‘Delegation’ Podcast (15 minutes)
• Download the ‘Delegation’ Audio (mp3)
• Download the ‘Delegation’ Slides (ppt)
• Print or save the ‘Delegation’ Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Click through to Related Topics:
  • Good Boss, Bad Boss: Be a Better Boss
  • Top 10 Manager Challenges: Part B (Managing Stress)
  • How to Coach When You’re Not the Expert
  • Time and Priority Management
  • High Impact Development
  • Help! I’m a Micro Manager
  • The von Manstein Matrix
  • The Situational Leadership Model

Not a member yet? Join us now and get instant access! For more information about the advantages of becoming a Wily Manager member, visit Become a Member.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Delegation.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

As a manager, you SHOULD delegate!  In this podcast you will learn:

• Why managers don’t delegate
• Why you should delegate
• What you should delegate
• How to delegate

Listen to the ‘Delegation’ Podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Delegation Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘Delegation’ Cheat Sheet

Stop wasting time in meetings. Learn the four key points to effective meetings.

Watch the ‘Meeting Effectiveness’ video (26 mins 38 sec):

Download the ‘Meeting Effectiveness’ Video (mp4)

Download the ‘Meeting Effectiveness’ Audio (mp3)

Meeting Effectiveness Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘Effective Meetings’ Cheat Sheet

Get our Management Cheat Sheet Collection. Of course, it’s FREE.

Every manager struggles with the amount that s/he has to accomplish in the very limited amount of time each week.  By employing a few simple techniques, managers can gain greater control over their work lives, and enhance their productivity.

Why time and priority management techniques often fail:

• Normally people attempt to be more efficient with their time when they should be assessing their effectiveness
• You will be more effective when you do less, as opposed to trying to cram more into your day

The 5 Keys to improved time and priority management:

• Being aware of ‘time wasters’ that affect us daily
• Setting a limited number of achievable goals, and learning when and how to say “No”
• Planning time around higher level goals
• Overcoming procrastination
• Decrease the number, and improve the quality of the meetings you attend

Ten things you can do right now to improve time management:

1. Forward the phone when necessary for short periods of time
2. Turn off the email chime, and only tend to your email two or three times per day.  Do not respond to emails in real time if you can avoid it
3. Keep focused on the ‘end product’ at all times.  If you cannot see a clear line of site between a particular activity and a high level goal, then that activity should be questioned
4. Learn and follow your rhythm – Assign tasks to the appropriate time of the day or week.  If you are a morning person, schedule tasks requiring concentration and effort early in the day
5. Carry tasks to completion.  Do not allow tasks to linger
6. Avoid picking-up and putting-down – get small irritations off your desk now
7. Arrange set times for recurring tasks
8. Set specific times not to be disturbed.  An open door policy is a good idea, but there’s nothing wrong with closing that door for one hour per day
9. Learn to say “No” by clearly articulating your goals.  If a task or activity does not clearly relate to one of your goals you should push back at whether you should be involved in that task
10. Develop an ‘unexpected visitor’ strategy.  Regularly scheduled one with one meetings with direct reports can pre-empt multiple interruptions during a week because those employees will save their issues for the appropriate time.

Finally, be aware of the 80-20 rule and how it applies to you.  Managers who make it look easy clearly understand that 80% of their results come from 20% of their effort, and they focus relentlessly on that 20%.  Less effective managers try to please all people all the time, and end up frustrating those around them and themselves in the process.

Get the Complete ‘Time and Priority Management’ Topic Bundle

Get the Time and Priority Management files here

The Time and Priority Management topic bundle includes:

• Time and Priority Management Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Time and Priority Management Booklet (pdf) containing:
  • In-Depth Topic Overview
  • The 5 Keys to Time and Priority Management
  • 10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Time Management
  • Time and Priority Management Audit Tool
  • One on One Meeting Tracking Form
  • 10 Points to More Effective Meetings
  • Structured To-Do List
  • How to Value Your Time According to the 80-20 Rule
  • Weekly Planning Tool
  • Recommended Resources – where to find out even more about Time and Priority Management

• Easy-print versions of the tools contained in the Time and Priority Management Booklet (pdf)
• Time and Priority Management Podcast (mp3)
• Time and Priority Management Podcast Slides (Powerpoint)

Get the complete ‘Time and Priority Management’ topic bundle now – IMMEDIATE DOWNLOAD!

Get our Management Cheat Sheet Collection. Of course, it’s FREE.

How much time do you waste…I mean spend…in meetings every week? Meeting effectiveness is a critical leadership issue that needs improvement in just about all organizations.

• Have a defined purpose and clear objectives with a written agenda
• Members have prepared in advance and are engaged
• Balance of discipline, flexibility, diplomacy and determination
• Members have defined roles and respect established ground rules
• Efficient, result focused, and ultimately save time and effort
• Result in a series of tangible action items
• Capture insights and enthusiasm
• Motivate people to specific action
• Efficient and result focused
• Are documented and summarized with commitments well understood

On the other hand, ineffective meetings look like this:

• Lack participation
• Dominating leader or member, unbalanced involvement
• People don’t listen to each other
• Stays off track too long
• Inefficient, results unclear
• Ideas and different views are criticized or squelched
• Action assignments and outcomes are not clear

There are four steps you need to follow to make sure that your next meeting is effective. Here’s a brief introduction to the four steps:

Step 1 – Prepare

• Ensure the purpose of the meeting is well understood. Ask what would happen if this meeting did not take place.
• Prepare the agenda in advance.
• Ensure that the desired outcomes of the meeting are articulated in advance.
• Make sure all the participants are prepared in advance.

Step 2 – Communicate

• Inform all participants well in advance of the details of the meeting; the purpose and outcomes; and, preparation required.
• Circulate agenda in advance, as well as any other reading material

Step 3 – Control

• Start on time
• Review ground rules and assign roles
• Use a “Parking Lot” to keep on the agenda

Step 4 – Document and Follow-up

 
• Record main discussion points and decisions for future reference. This list becomes your meeting minutes.
• Clarify actions and assign names and deadlines to them.

Get the Complete ‘Effective Meetings’ Topic Bundle

Get the Effective Meetings files here

The Effective Meetings topic bundle includes:

• Effective Meetings Cheat Sheet (pdf)
• Effective Meetings Booklet (pdf) containing:
  • In-Depth Topic Overview
  • How to Get a Meeting Back on Track
  • Role Definitions for Effective Meetings
  • Effective Meeting Preparation Checklist
  • Worksheet for Effective Meetings
  • Meeting Rating Form
  • Types of Meetings and Tips for Success
  • Recommended Resources – where to find out even more about Effective Meetings

• Easy-print versions of the tools contained in the Effective Meetings Booklet (pdf)
• Effective Meetings Podcast (mp3)
• Effective Meetings Podcast Slides (Powerpoint)

Get the complete ‘Effective Meetings’ topic bundle now – IMMEDIATE DOWNLOAD!