It’s hard for me to believe, but it was about fifty years ago that I received my Eagle Scout award.  There were two of us, myself and a friend.  Achieving this level within scouting was a significant amount of work, but it was also a lot of fun.  What I didn’t understand at the time, as my friend Barry and I stood on the stage to receive our Eagle badges, was the lifelong lessons I had learned that would help me in various ways as I grow older. There were, of course, the obvious lessons, such as knot making, which to this day helps me to properly tie things to the roof of my car in a way that they won’t fly off when driving on the highway.  What I didn’t understand until much later in life, was that the principles I had learned in scouting as a young man, in my early and mid-teens, would help guide my personal and professional life. In addition to learning how to pitch tents and safely start fires, I was also required to memorize a few short statements, such as the scout motto, scout pledge, and a few other short sayings designed to make me a better person and valued member of the community.  One of these sayings in particular was the “Scout Law”: “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” I’m no longer involved with scouting, so I don’t know if the Scout Law has [...]

Rule number one is to be a team player. Rule number two is never to forget rule number one. It will make it easier for you, easier for your boss and easier for your group. Assuming that your peers are also managers, your boss is then a manager of managers. As a result, their job is very different from yours. Whereas your job is to be sure that specific hands-on work is being appropriately performed, your boss's job is to assemble a cohesive management team that works together as a unit for the greater good of the organization. Unless you can’t be replaced, your boss is your best friend, or your mom owns the company, not being a team player will eventually cause you to be pushed out of the organization.  Business leaders want teams that can work together. Also, if your peers can’t or won’t work with you, they can make your life miserable.  Reorganizations can also be an issue. If your boss leaves, or is promoted, there is a large probability that you may find yourself working for one of your current peers.  Guess what, if you treated this person poorly when they were your peer, chances are they will be very unpleasant to you as your manager.  Another thing to keep in mind is that helping your peers also helps your boss.  Business leaders want their teams to be successful, all teams, not just yours. All that said, working with your peers is not always a bed of roses.  [...]

Management level politics are very different from individual contributor politics. As an individual contributor, you can generally stay clear of office politics altogether if you wish. You can just keep your head down and do your work. Politics at the individual contributor level tend to be mostly related to: Who gets the best office (or cube) Who learns the newest technology Who gets the best projects Who doesn't get their sales region cut Simply said, individual contributor politics are about you and your stuff. Moving from being an individual contributor to a manager is like moving from being single to being married.  Now it’s not all about just you. Yes, it's still a little about you. But now, it’s also about your spouse or your team. As a manager, your ability to play the political game not only affects you, but it also affects the people in your department. Your politics are still primarily with your peers, but now your peers are the other managers. You will find that your manager peer group is much better at office politics than the individual contributors you used to compete with. You will also find that you will still be fighting for some of the same things, like office space, projects, sales territory and the like, but they will be at the department level, rather than on an individual basis. There will also now, however, be new manager-level politics in areas such as: Who works on which company-wide initiatives How next year’s budget dollars are [...]

Sometimes you have a good employee doing the wrong thing. It may be due to a lack of skill in a particular area, or it may be a lack of understanding of the rules. In either case, it’s your job as the manager to take the person aside and explain what they are doing wrong and what is needed to improve/correct the situation. This is called constructive feedback. When giving constructive feedback, consider the following steps: Begin by discussing something that the employee is doing well Say they are doing good work, but need a little help in one particular area Talk about the issue in a friendly, mentoring, and teaching style Discuss specific steps that will help correct the issue Define a date and time to have a follow up discussion on the employee’s progress Change the subject to something fun and non-work oriented, like a local sports team or fun weekend plans The order of these steps is designed to: Make the employee initially feel safe and thus not defensive. Be sure the employee understands that the issue Define action items and establish a timeframe for the issue correction Leave the employee with a positive feeling and willing to accept the needed feedback and follow through on the defined action steps When I think back on my own career, a memory comes to mind when I was the receiver of this type of advice. Early in my career I often did a very poor job proofreading my presentations. My manager [...]

There is an old expression that says, “No good deed will go unpunished.” When trying to motivate a subordinate, hire a new employee, promote a staff member, or help out a customer or vendor, you can promise to try, but never promise that you can deliver, unless it is in your personal authority to do so. If you promise to give a subordinate a raise and then can’t deliver, you may Lose credibility with that individual Lose credibility with your staff, because people talk, particularly if they’re not happy Lose a good employee End up in trouble with your boss or Human Resources If you promise something to a customer and can’t deliver, you may lose a sale, or lose the customer If you promise something to a vendor and can’t deliver, it may destroy a vendor relationship, and/or cause lawsuits Should any of the above situations arise, you have most likely caused harm to a fellow employee, your company, a customer, a vendor, or yourself. For you personally, based on the severity of the issue, you may receive a verbal reprimand, receive a written warning, or even potentially lose your job. Remember, as a manager, you are a representative of your company to the external world and the voice of the company to those that you manage. As an example of a promise gone very wrong, say that you promised to hire someone. On this promise, the job candidate quits their old job and then to your surprise, your company announced [...]

Rule number one. Sometimes you can complain about the company to your peers, but never complain about the company to your subordinates or superiors. Think about it, as a manager, are you going to promote someone who continually complains to you about the company? I think not. Now let’s look at the other side of the coin. How motivated would you be if your boss was continually saying the company is lousy, doing poorly and is badly run? You may be motivated to update your resume and find a new job. Remember, as a manager, you are part of the management team. This means the following: You’re the voice of the company to those who report to you Your job is to assist senior management in meeting their objectives It’s your responsibility to take senior management’s vision and adapt it to your department You’re a representative of your company to vendors, clients, government agencies, and the press If you don’t follow company rules and/or work to support company goals, it will affect your raise, your bonus, your upward mobility and possibly your job That said, if your company is doing something dishonest or illegal, it is a different matter, but you cannot ignore your company’s new marketing plan or vacation policy because you would have personally designed them differently. A number of years ago I reported to one of my favorite managers. When she made decisions I didn’t like or agree with, she allowed me to raise my concerns. Sometimes she agreed [...]

There is an old expression that says “To have a good friend you have to be a good friend.”  I believe that loyalty follows the same paradigm. As a manager, if you want your team to be loyal to you, then you have to be loyal to them. Furthermore, because you are the manager, your actions and attitudes will be the primary determining factor as to the cohesiveness and loyalty of your team members toward each other and toward you. That said, the following items will help you build a loyal organization. Let your team members take credit for their accomplishments Protect them when problems and/or bad politics arise Go to bat for them when they need it You have to be a good mentor, good teacher and good listener Trust their judgment within the bounds of their authority Reward teamwork among your team members Help your team members move toward their personal and professional goals There are also things that you should not do because it can dramatically undermine your efforts toward building loyalty. They are: Don’t assume that your team will be loyal to you just because you are the manager, you must earn their loyalty through your attitudes and actions Don’t take your teams loyalty for granted, continue to foster it Don’t take advantage of your team’s loyalty for your personal gain, once found out, their feelings toward you will be substantially diminished People’s loyalty is hard to achieve and once lost, very hard to reestablish. To illustrate this [...]

There is an old expression that says, “People should work-to-live not live-to-work.”  That said, upon occasion, and within certain bounds, you should allow an employee’s personal life to take precedent over their job.  The concept here is that if you have a good employee who is working through a difficult family, personal, or health issue you should help them out. Assisting an employee at their time of need has the following benefits. It builds incredible loyalty from the employee toward you and the company It may save a good employee from leaving your firm to care for the issue People talk. The other members of your team will know you did something to help a team member. This in turn will increase the team’s loyalty to you. At a future time, when extra time or effort is needed to meet a deadline, your team will be there for you because you were there for them. As a person, it feels really good to be able to really help someone in need. Over the years I have occasionally had a team member ask me for help. One person asked if she could take two-hour lunches for a couple of months until she found new long term care for her elderly mother. Due to her mother’s health issues, her current facility could no longer meet her needs. In addition to dealing with the emotions relating to her mother’s declining health, it also caused major logistical problems for the employee. She said she would make [...]