- Help, I've Been Promoted To A Manager's Role
Supervising people is the toughest of all leadership roles. Good supervisors should make good managers without much help. The skills they have stand them in good stead for management. Right? Wrong. - Managing People - Setting Boundaries
Boundary setting is something one expects to find in a parenting book or a psychologist's journal. However, it applies to adult to adult relationships at work as much as it does to adult to child relationships.In almost any workplace, for any given behaviour required to deliver an organsation's goal, people can be split into three groups.One group is those that are both willing and able to perform and behave in a manner which contributes positively to the desired goal of the organisation. - What is Superior Service?
Customer service is central to any organisation's ongoing prosperity. Many organisations advertise that they currently give superior service. Others have strategies and tactics aimed at delivering superior service. But just what is superior service? How do we know when we have delivered it? How do we know when we have received it? What are the pitfalls to avoid in delivering it?This article asks What is Superior Service? - The Corporate Dinner - A Window Into Corporate Culture
Over the years, I guess I've attended thousands of corporate get togethers over dinner. I have, either as an out-of-towner or hosting out-of-towners attending a conference or workshop, observed the behaviour of individuals and teams at dinner and how they reflect the corporate culture.There are five corporate cultures which I have identified with behaviours at dinner. - Hire and Retain Baby-Boomers to Improve Productivity
In the US, it is anticipated that 76 million baby boomers will retire in the next ten years. However, there will be fewer than 50 million workers to replace them. Many organisations will be forced to retain an older workforce. Those organisations which develop deliberate strategies to retain older workers will do more than go with the inevitable flow of labour supply and demand. They will improve productivity. - Performance Begins With an S
Performance and behaviour in many organisations are not managed well. The common missing ingredient in managing performance and behaviour is the absence of enforced standards. - The Top Ten Failures We Make as Employees
I often write articles critical or at least challenging of management of organisations. But of course, it is not only managers who behave in such a way as to cause problems. Often it is me, the subordinate employee.Here are my top ten failures I observe of employees, like us. - What is a Goal?
A goal is not a vision of how things might be. It is not a mission which describes our purpose in life.A goal is tangible. It is measurable both in terms of quality and quantity. It is time based. It is achievable. It is a stretch from where we are now. Above all, it is singular. - Seven Steps to Motivating People at Work
1. AskAsk people questions. There are two goals of asking questions. To find out what people are passionate about and to make sure that they know you care about what they think.If you are at a loss as to what motivates people, their passions are a great start. - Think Clearly; Act Decisively
Breaks like Christmas/New Year, Diwali, Chinese New Year and other communally observed holiday periods are a great time for reflection. It is a good time to reflect, not only on our approach to work, but our approach to our life.To make the reflection period useful, follow five principles. - Work Life Balance; It's Our Choice
Millions of dollars are spent each year in organisations seeking advice on achieving work life balance for its employees. Some of the courses run and the projects commissioned and implemented are very good. Some leaders without the need for advice from third parties have been exceptional at restoring work life balance for employees.However, it would appear from what I have seen and heard in interacting with colleagues, family, clients and acquaintances, most organisations must be wasting their money and most leaders are not “getting it”. - What is a Leader?
Leaders are not people who have authority over others. Leaders are not people who subscribe to the tens or hundreds of leadership models as their modus operandi of working. Leaders are not a select group of people with traits handed down through heredity. - The Benefits of Scenario Based Training
The world that people live and work in is complex. The behaviours and skills required to solve a simple problem are always multi-dimensional. And yet much, or indeed most, training developed and executed in corporate training programmes are linear in nature.This mismatch between the real world and the training world makes it a certainty that organisations are wasting their training dollar. - Why Training Fails
If the objective of training is for people to apply that learning in the workplace and make an observable difference to an organisation’s results, then almost all corporate training fails to achieve its objective and even fails to measure whether it achieved its objective. - The Crisis in Senior Management
Globally, senior management as a profession is underperforming. A chronic case of under-management of tasks and people has developed over the years on the back of management fads and copy cat management replacing focused, systemic thought. - Leading Change; Four Principles for Staying in Control
When leading a change programme, the bare minimum requirement of a leader is to be seen to be in control.The people you are leading will have a range of anxieties about the change which different individuals will feel to a different depth. The nature of the anxiety and the depth of the anxiety will change over time, sometimes precipitously. - What is a Team?
Teams are not of group of people brought together to manage a project. Teams are not a group of people who are members of the same function in an organisation. Teams are not a group of people who receive emails from their team leader with the salutation, "Dear Team". Teams are not a group of people playing sport for the same organisation, amateur or professional.Teams are people working together to achieve a common, singular goal. - Setting a Goal to Overcome Organisational Inertia
Organisational inertia is like a cancer. It eats at personal ambition and genuine creativity. At first, it limits progress in organisations which eventually descend into a dysfunctional morass to be reorganised, down-sized or right-sized. In some cases, organisations do not survive. - It's the Business Stupid
Internal and external business consultants use tools to help illustrate issues and missed opportunities and to develop strategy. Sometimes however, the tools become the end as well as the means and the business is ignored. - Personal Leadership - What's Wrong With (Being) You
One of the great frustrations of my working life is the continuing interactions I have with people who will not be themselves. They somehow feel that it is better to be something or someone they are not.When we are not true to ourselves, we do not learn our limitations or our strengths. We are poorer for it and so are the organisations we work in. - Project Managers; Select Well and Avoid the Witch Hunt of Failure
It all started to go pear shaped when we hired the third project manager. It’s not to say that he was not good at his job. If anything, it is because he was good at his job that we are in this personal mess right now, even though the project is in better shape than it ever has been - Better Procurement Practices are Required to Improve Productivity in Fiji
Fiji needs to increase its productivity or face ever increasing irrelevance in a world where economic and social barriers to trade are decreasing rapidly. Much has been discussed in Fiji about the need to increase investment to increase labour utilisation and productivity.An element of productivity which is seemingly ignored on the input side is the cost of purchasing goods and services. - Managing Change; The Simple Approach
Change management is treated by many as an ethereal topic; a mystical process overlayed with a lot of "magic happens here". Or a process described by one of eight major models of change which by their very nature remains high level.In my experience, there are four main parameters to be considered to make change happen. - Managing Resources Through Activity Based Costing
How profitable are your biggest customers? How much of your capital and operating expenditure is tied up servicing different customers or customer segments? Work it out and you may be surprised to find that your “best customers” are in fact your worst customers.Activity Based Costing is normally accountants and finance department employees’ purview and shunned by line managers as being too difficult to understand and impossibly difficult to execute. - Changing Behaviour; Lessons from Safety Training
Changing people's behaviour with regard to safety is a time consuming, difficult business. General training does not have the immediate and emotional rewards of safety training. Changing people's behaviour without those rewards is even more difficult.The lessons that organisations have learnt in making safety training effective are, therefore, all the more instructional for general training. - Managing a Safe Workplace Requires Leadership
Occupational Health and Safety is a serious subject. The degree of seriousness in which it is held by organisations is demonstrated by how they are lead, not by their bald statistics, their processes and policies or their insurance bill.To embed a positive attitude to occupational health and safety in an organisation requires attention to three areas. - Change Management; When Less is More
Organisations which fail to prioritise their projects and activities in alignment with their goals risk getting lost in a mire of directionless activity instead of taking a clear set of actions to reach a goal or goals. - Business Logic; Bad Logic, Poor Business
We see and read fallacies in logic every day. I am sure that there is a chance that even in this august newspaper there has been the odd fallacy in logic which escaped the eagle eyes of the editors. In this very column, I am sure that at times I have made an error in logic even though I pride myself in being logical.Fallacies in logic in a journal or newspaper or a conversation between people creates frustration and perhaps heated discussion. Fallacies in logic in business create a bad business. - Negotiating Skills; What's My Interest?
I read earlier this year that the Palestinian Prime Minister had received support from militants to give up their weapons in exchange for government jobs. On face value it struck me as a stark example of the difference between a person’s interest and position. The position of the “militants” is well publicised, their interests however, appear to be more personal. Job security providing an income to support their families is closer to their interest. - Competency Frameworks; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Effective use of competency frameworks provides employees with a clearly-defined set of personal development objectives and managers with a consistent measurement tool that could be used across geographical, cultural and work boundaries.Many organisations however fail in their attempts to build a framework to proactively manage competencies. - Surprise! It's Performance Appraisal Time
A performance appraisal should be the opportunity for a leader in an organisation to set the development opportunities for their employees alight. It should be an invigorating, refreshing occasion.Admittedly, sometimes it may be a tough experience as some home truths are formally shared about performance and leadership. But it should never, never be a surprise. - None So Blind as Those Who do Not Ask
In life and in business if we do not ask questions and do not seek other perspectives we miss opportunities and remain blind to the whole of a problem and the opportunities to solve it. - Diary of a Phoney Leader
Management by slogans, dodging accountability, blame shifting, poor time management, poor thinking and low levels of real empowerment; they all there in the diray of a phoney leader. - Succession Planning; Who are the Leaders in Your Neighbourhood?
Finding leaders early in their career and developing them through participation in projects and job assignments which challenge them is a key role for today’s leaders. Are you able to spot them? - Small Business: In Search of Good Advice
In a small business it's not financially sustainable to pay for bad advice, nor is it advisable, of course, to act on free bad advice. So how do you know when you are getting good or bad advice.Here are a few tips about sorting out the wheat from the chaff. - Measuring the Right Indicator to Drive Behaviour
Organisations measure what they value: volume, profit, safety, errors, customer or employee satisfaction. They measure what they hope to influence.Problems arise for organisations when they substitute proxy measures for what they value that are not actually directly related to what they value. - Rewards and Recognition: Recognising a Turkey of a Reward
Being given the responsibility, the competence and tools to do a job well and the recognition of your peers, subordinates and superiors when the job is done well are the rewards by which most people are motivated.Rewards which grow the individual or the team and recognition in the form of a public “thank you” that specifically details what the employee is being thanked for is a more powerful motivator than a truck load of turkeys. - Managing Change; Overcoming Organisational Inertia
Organisational inertia is the lack of ability of an organisation to react to external and internal shocks. The inability to react, for example, to a competitor’s dramatic change in prices, or a new government policy or a rapid decline in a country’s gross domestic product, is organisational inertia.To avoid being part of the organisational inertia we need, in those first six weeks of a new role, to do at least two things. - Accountability and the Art of Plausible Deniability
Leaders who duck accountability by using the technique of plausible deniability or other techniques lose the trust of the very people that they need to follow them. They, conversely, win the admiration of the unscrupulous as an "operator."When we lose trust we can no longer lead. Of that, there is no denying. - Focus on Learning, Not Training
Nearly every organization I have ever worked for or with has a serious problem with training. They concentrate on training rather than learning.The first indication of a problem is that the mediums chosen to impart learning are the poorest at retaining learning but are the easiest to organise. - Change Management: Training Is Not Enough
It is difficult to find organisations that would say, "We find that training has little impact on our bottom line year on year". - Leadership and Thinking
Too many leaders do not think. They react or ignore. It is time they stopped having meetings and workshops and spent time thinking. Even thinking about thinking would be an improvement. - Diversity; It's a Leadership Issue
Simply counting heads as a measure of diversity does not work. The valuing of difference in ideas has to be integrated into the way organisations work.Organisations that succeed have a leadership team that sets the tone by valuing and encouraging difference in the management team. - Leadership - It Is a Matter of Trust
Leadership of organisations is not for the faint hearted. It can be a difficult and lonely place at times. This is particularly so if the leader does not have a supportive team. However, the lack of a supportive team is probably as good an indicator as any, that leadership skills are lacking.It is not enough for leaders to say, "Follow me, I know the way." They must be able to convince their teams by their actions, not just their words, that they do indeed know the way. - Business Process Management;Company Policy
All organisations I have worked for and with, have had a tranche of policies which are out of date, do not fit the environment in which the organisation now finds itself and cause significant levels of inefficiency and ineffectiveness.The solution to this often unseen problem is to review all policies and processes, which are three or more years old, for their purpose. - Poor Business Management; When Words Become Labels
Words in any language are meant to communicate meaning. Communication, in itself, is full of processes which can derail the intended communication. Words which are spoken or written by one person become distorted and filtered by the receiver. - Customer Focus Strategy
For more than twenty years the mantra in private enterprise and public enterprise has been "customer focus". The phrase appears on mission statements, vision statement and "our values" statements adorning private and public enterprise walls alike. - Business Process Management - Who is Accountable?
When we work in organisations we see weaknesses in the way in which people are made accountable for processes.In many cases we find processes for which no one is accountable. In these cases it is clear that the processes are not being tracked for effectiveness or efficiency. When the business environment changes it becomes next to impossible for an organisation to effect changes to the process that are necessary to reflect that change in the business environment. - Standards Of Performance - Its Time You Pulled Your Socks Up
Ever had your boss look at something you have done and for them to remark, "This is not good enough"? - Managing People: Be Insistent, Persistent and Consistent
Managing the performance of people is not as difficult as many people think. I find so many people do it poorly not because it is difficult, but because they do not have the right attitude. - Managing Teams: Who is in Their Right Mind?
Thinking style is a primary factor in communicating, information processing, judgement, problem solving and interaction with others. An individual's thinking preference has far reaching influence over leadership..... - Making Change Happen
Seventy percent of all change management projects are considered to be failures.
The critical factors for change management success or failure are fairly simple.
The first factor is to have a group of people at leadership level believe that change is required. More than that, they must believe that "change management" is required. If these factors are not evident then failure is assured. - Implementing Strategy:A Balancing Act
Strategies often fail in organisations because they are not successfully converted into actions that employees can understand and employ in their everyday work. The measures used to determine whether a strategy is working or not are usually far removed from what employees believe they can influence. - Managing People for Profit
In the hard-nosed world of managing organisations, people management is often seen as the soft side of management. Whilst considered as positively contributing to performance indicators measuring customer and employee satisfaction, people management is not seen as directly improving the bottom line. - Managing People: Succeed Despite, Don't Fail Because
If only "they" had given it to me on time. I asked "them" and they did not reply. I sent an email to "them" but have not yet had a response. We don't have the budget we need. We don't have the resources we need. Our organisational structure does not allow us to perform they way we need to. - Making Change Happen: In Search of the Silver Bullet
Too many organisations search for a "silver bullet" to fix their human resource problems. They search for a singular, narrow approach to improve performance when a broad holistic approach is required. The result of focusing on a narrow approach to improve performance is unintended consequences delivering reduced performance instead. - Leading a Business; Getting Lost in Generalities
Leaders of small businesses have no trouble thinking specifically about their business, its goals and the resources and processes required to reach the goals. If they don't they "go broke" very quickly. Why is it then that in big organisations that managers of even small departments get lost in a fog of generalities? - To Own,Partner or Procure?
According to Kenny Rogers, we have to "know when to hold them, know when to fold them and know when to run". The gambling refrain also applies to the outsourcing of an organisation's activities. We have to know what activities we need to do ourselves, what we need to partner others to do and what we need to procure to be done. - Managing Change; Ten Signs of Organisational Decay
Many once great organisations have disappeared over time. They may have been unable to stem the tide of technical innovation or the entrance of low cost competitors or in the public arena they may have become irrelevant as service providers. - Managing Change: What Would You Do If You Were Not Afraid?
When interviewing prospective recruits or to get people focused on what is important to them, I often ask people a simple question to provoke them to think and to talk, although not always in that order. One question I often use is for people to think of themselves on their deathbed and consider "What am I proud of in my life". - Leadership: Constancy Brings its own Rewards
Really good leaders are rare. Readers who are in leadership positions should not take umbrage at this statement. It is a matter of fact. Good leaders, leaders who turn around a business, lead a government and the people through difficult reforms, lead an organisation to a point where they are recognised as "the best" are written about in books.Poor leaders, leaders who failed to grow a company or failed to lead their people through a crisis are written about in newspapers. There are many more leaders written about in newspapers than there are in books. - Managing Change: Unintended Consequences
Leading a change programme is a risky business, for the leader and the lead. The law of unintended consequences applies in full as change involves people. - Managing Change: Motivating People
Motivating people is a myth. People cannot be motivated by others. They are motivated from within. - Customer Service begins with an "A"
If you are a leader and you want your people to deliver great customer service, then remember that is your attitude to developing an appropriate environment that will drive their attitude. Their attitude will determine what level of service your customers enjoy. - Training: Using Games to Embed Learning
Too much training is boring. Too much training barely raises itself above level one in Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation. That is, the reaction of students; what they thought and felt about the training. Too much training ignores the learning needs of the participants. Too much corporate training spending is wasted. - Change Management: Clear, Strong Goals
Fed up with the performance of your organisation? Ask and you may find that your organisation is fed up with you as its leader. - Time Management - Common Meeting Failures
"Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything" says John Galbraith. Why is it that in the world of corporations and government that meetings, more times than not, do not work? What characterises the behaviour of individuals and the teams who meet that destroys the ability of any meeting to actually be of value? I remember the characters and situations well. There have been. - Changing Organisational Culture Requires a Change in Leadership
Changing culture or “the way we do things around here” need not be as difficult as it first seems. We often make it more difficult for ourselves because the first and most important change often needs to come from us as leaders. - Changing Organisational Culture Requires a Change in Leadership
Changing culture is not so difficult. Culture usually only raises its head as topic when results are not what we want and we provide leadership that allows an unsuitable culture to develop. By all means use some tools to help understand and monitor culture, but we must provide a change in leadership to change culture.
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