Career Success - Do More Than The Minimum

Success equals always making the effort to do more than the minimum! 

For relaxation and for a little fun I play a game called Empire Avenue. As a trainer I am well acquainted with games as a learning tool. The thing about games is they not only show your abilities they highlight your character.

As part of the Empire Avenue game you can issue missions that for a small fee will intice other players to do things for you. For example if you have done a blog post you can ask other players to tweet about it for a reward of some virtual EAve. currency.

Now when you issue missions you can see the real people pop up. For example: you have what players call "mission cheats". These are the grubby characters that take the money then do not do the mission. These people usually get caught and are banned by individual players or the site itself if they are repeat offenders.

The ones that I want to talk about are those that do the mission, however in the process show themselves to be selfish and self centred (not a formula for social media or even life success) and those that are generous of spirit who do more than what is asked of them.

In the game I sometimes offer missions to get some of my shares (its a stock market type game) for free. As an example I recently offered 50,000e (e=eaves the vital currency) to buy my shares. Now lets say to buy exactly the amount that the 50000e covers you can buy 116 just under at 49750e or 117 at 50250e or say a round number of perhaps 120 shares at 51,750e. 

So what happens: 

Some buy 116 and look stingy!

Some buy 117 to do just enough and look just adequate.

Some Buy 120 and that's great just because they round up and put some of their own 'money' in.

and Some by 200 and thank you for the subsidy.

It's a bit like work… you can improve your chances of being respected and successful in your position (and career) by being a 200 buyer. 

At work always do that bit extra… particularly for your external customers.

Worth thinking about? orglearn Richard Townsend

Breaking the Money and Motivation Link

Motivation ....one of the most important lessons you can learn!

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Management: Bird That Didn't Fly South

The bird that didn't fly south for the winter Age old story with a moral

A small bird sat in a tree on the bottom branch. He wasn't happy there, however being one of this summer's hatchlings he was forced to stay on a lower branch by the older birds.

When it cam time to fly south for the winter he decided to let the others go and stay behind so he could sit on any branch he wanted.

As the cold weather and snow set in the bird began to freeze.

Eventually he fell to the ground.

As fortune would have it a bull passed and dropped a warn fresh cow pat on him. The warmth from the pat thawed the bird out and he was of course happy and revived and began to sing. Unfortunately the farm cat heard the singing and came to investigate, found the bird and pulled it out to eat it. Luckily enough the bird escaped and flew to the very top of the tree.

Well of course he sang and song about his good fortune. After some time the cold got him again and he fell out of the tree dead and frozen!

Four morals to this story:

1. Someone who puts you in the shit isn't necessarily your enemy.

2. Someone who pulls you out of the of shit isn't necessarily your friend.

3. If you're happy and contented in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.

Most importantly:

4. Bullshit might get you to the top of the tree however, it wont keep you there!

www.orglearn.org management and career success tips!

Why You Should Fund Your Managers to Join Rotary

The Managing Director said "you are joining Rotary" …"huh" I said that's for old blokes! Well now I'm an old bloke and I've been in Rotary for over 30 years... So what you may ask…!

I am now a member of my eighth Rotary Club and I have also been a member of clubs in five countries. So what has Rotary taught me and how might it help developing in your managers.

There are obvious advantages that come with being a Rotarian and they're not just about the old "its just for business networking". Sure that is an obvious outcome however I have seen plenty of inept members almost destroy the positive side of the opportunity by their behaviour in their Rotary club. If you join a club with the view of just selling your products and services to other members you may well be very disappointed. I have however over the years sold are large proportion of my services both as a financier and corporate trainer through my Rotary connections. What I have said is not contradictory.... its more a matter of how you go about things. People like to deal with individuals they can trust and in Rotary you gain trust and respect from the efforts you put in on behalf of your club and of course the projects they are involved in. 

Firstly through involvement in the club projects you are exposed to how "true" and effective teams work. Because all members are volunteers there are no individuals with legitimate authority they can rely on. This also teaches you sound human relations skills as you need to work well with others who are likely to be fairly self sufficient and competent in their own right. You will also learn how to sell as you will need to sell you ideas on how to do things and also to sell your particular point of view on what should be accepted as a legitimate use of your time and what is not.

A Rotary club is run somewhat along similar lines to any company or organisation and if you accept positions in your club you will gain experience in financial control, secretarial duties, directorships and of course as president, a CEO. Even the position of Club sergeant teaches you crowd control and most of all... public speaking. If you think about it all activities involved in Rotary have parallels in your career however Rotarians will usually be a little kinder about helping you overcome your shortcomings than your company or boss will. If you are always late for meetings you may cop a small fine from your club sergeant however if you constantly do that at work and you may well get fired. Which way would you rather learn timeliness.

In Rotary you will be exposed to all kinds of leaders from autocrats to democrats. Learning how deal with a range of individuals in a work type scenario will always be valuable.

Where ever people gather there will be politics so you should (or will) learn and develop a great deal of political savvy as well. All clubs have disputes over issues as simple as where to meet, to as complicated as which types of charity or projects they should support or not. There are always more in need than there are resources available to help. Here you learn how to make hard decisions that really can impact on the lives of others.

Rotary is great training for managers!

Finding Effective Managers!

Traditionally managers have been appointed based on their superior technical expertise. As I have said before however, often we do nothing more than “lose our best engineer or salesperson and promote someone who turns out to be a lousy manager”.

So the question becomes, how do we go about finding staff to become our next crop of managers… or probably more importantly, our next generation of leaders!?

Obviously competence in the technical aspects of the job are important however perhaps a few other traits can give us a additional hints to find the talent.

Can I suggest the following when looking for leaders / managers.

Choose:

- those who regularly tell others what they are doing and the results they have achieved on behalf of the company. Yeah I know they can be seen as braggers but better this sort, than the ones who are mumbling about the problems at home or type of mobile they are thinking of buying

- those that seem to be able get their colleagues to help out when things need to get done, the characters that say ‘hey lets all come in on Saturday finish this off and we can go to the pub for lunch together after’

- those who are willing to be in the spotlight… you know… the types that volunteer to plan a company event or activity or that will give presentations to other employees

- those with a good network, they know ‘everybody,’ the sort of person you instinctively go to, to ask… do you know anyone that can get me a left handed widget for my ‘whats-it-thingo’

- those that finish tasks on time without sacrificing quality or wasting resources

- those that seem to make others feel good about themselves, the types that say, ‘he’s a good guy’ or ‘she’s a great help’ and that are comfortable paying compliments to others

- those that can sell the ‘no’ or a different point of view with tact and still maintain relationships by knowing what is common ground and strengthening that, rather than accentuating differences

- those that don’t bad mouth others or complain about workmates, ‘those idiots in financial control, production or the upstarts in the pampered sales team’

- those that solve problems in imaginative ways and through negotiation rather than the ones that come to your office and say, ‘this is a cock up what do we do now’!

- those that listen and show they are listening rather than those that love to just talk.

Well I agree it is not a complete list, however it does give some hints as to the qualities we need in a leader / managers.

More management articles can be found at orglearn.org just follow one of the links management, leadership and career success.

Delegation and Career Success Part 3

To continue....

Responsibility of the Delegator for each level is to follow the delegation approach (referred to in the model’s original form "Leadership Style")

(S1) Telling or directing, characterised by one-way communication in which the delegator defines the task of the person being delegated to and tells them how, when, and where to do it. To gain more commitment and motivation from your employee, then you should of course use a participative style.

(S2) Selling/Coaching for D2 tasks is required as while providing clear direction as to responsibilities, the delegator needs to employ effective two-way communication and emotional support, to get the individual to "buy into decisions that have to be made."

(S3) Participating (high relationship/low task behavior). Here decision-making and task management is shared between the delegator and the person nominated to do the task – the main role of the delegator is to "facilitate and communicate" and to ensure the approach is based on "high support and low direction". Low direction is used because the person being delegated to is competent in the task.

(S4) Style 4 - is referred to in the original model as "The Delegating/Trusting Leader" With a task being delegated to someone whose is both competent and willing the delegator just needs to hand over the task. The problem here is that if the delegator is not trusting of the employee taking in the task he or she will tend to over control the situation and frustrate the person doing the job.

If the manager uses the approaches (S1 to S4 above) and remembers to praise people for doing a ‘good’ job, rather than just correcting them when they fall short, great improvements in delegation practices and performance can be achieved.

Another key to effective delegation is to ensure that the individual you have delegated to understands the overall purpose of the project or task being delegated and where it fits into the overall process or operation. Always provide picture of what a successful outcome or output will look like including measurements to be used regardless of the level of delegation or style being applied.

A final point: Keep The Task or Assignment Delegated!

One of the most common reasons for the delegation process to fail is that the manager takes the work back! Do not do this… as an effective delegator a manager must fix the problems not avoid them by taking back the task.

If you delegate effectively remember you will need to evaluate the improvement (or otherwise) on an ongoing basis and… be patient… as successful change and improvement through delegation can take some time.

ORGLEARN http://www.orglearn.org/ has more management articles

ref: "Situation Leadership II" (Blanchard) is still in my opinion the best base for understanding how to delegate effectively to different individuals. Here is a handy link to his booklist: 

http://www.kenblanchard.com/about_ken_blanchard_companies/business_leadership_books/

If you cannot delegate well, you will never manage (or lead) well!

Delegation and Career Success Part 1

What is exactly is delegation?

Not a silly question, many think they know and don’t. Delegation of a task or activity to someone in our team or department, even though it is a central function of management, is often a greatly misunderstood process. Recently I read a paper by a gentleman with a PhD who stated that delegation was basically the act of “sharing the responsibility for a project’s outcomes”. This is a typical, however incorrect, assumption about delegation.

In a course I facilitated in the past the definition we used was, “delegation is the granting of all or part of your authority to decide or act where you the delegator always retains responsibility for the outcomes”. This delegation definition exposes one of the problems managers have with delegation, as obviously many managers are happy to pass on responsibility, however most them/us want to retain or protect our authority.

The big issue here for many managers I have trained is the issue of having, or developing, the trust in the person to whom they are delegating.

The reasons for delegating are obvious: efficiency, effectiveness, staff training and preparation for succession. The ultimate benefit of delegating is that the delegator, through developing efficient and effective staff will eventually release themselves from their current position so they can move to higher positions. If advancement is a goal it follows that effective delegation is probably the most important competence a manager can develop.

Practical aspects of delegation

Bearing in mind what I have said above the first issue to address is that a manager must be prepared to let go of the desire to undertake the tasks or the implement the actual project him/herself. Secondly, the staff member must be prepared to accept the delegated tasks. Issues of ‘I’m the best at this job’ from the manager’s perspective and ‘why should I do extra’ from the staff member need to be addressed at the outset.

Delegation is not simply asking somebody to perform an activity to help the delegator get his or her work done or finish a project. True and effective delegation requires that the manager explain the purpose of the delegation and conduct the necessary skills assessment or training to ensure the receiver can perform the tasks adequately. The key as I said is to hand over the necessary authority to get what is required done to a fully competent staff member.

The keys to successful delegation are: planning and prioritizing tasks, effective time management, setting of proper agreed deadlines, follow-up at half and three quarter time, giving up favourite tasks particularly after you have been promoted and ensuring the appropriate skills are present in the person being delegated to.

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