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 [...]

I’d like to begin by describing the difference between thinking programmed and lateral thinking.  Programmed thinking is the process of using structured methodologies and/or logical algorithmic processes to solve problems, make decisions, and/or create new product offerings.  Lateral thinking is, by its nature, more creative than programmed thinking and facilitates pattern recognition, language, and out-of-the-box thinking. As an IT Manager, an understanding of this concept can help you effectively delegate tasks to your staff in a way that plays to each employee’s personal strengths.  Good managers tend to do this through intuition and experience (lateral thinking), but by defining it, it can provide added insights and a more structured way (programmed thinking) to effectively delegate. To see this principle in action, let’s say you have two tasks you would like to delegate.  The first task is reviewing your monthly vs. actual budget report and the second task is writing a client proposal with the hope of gaining additional business.  At first glance, you may believe this is easy, namely ask the programmed thinker to review the budget and the lateral thinker to write the new business proposal.  Well, this may or may not be the case.  For example, you may be having trouble managing your budget because business conditions and product/vendor costs have varied widely from what you had originally anticipated.  Therefore, while programmed thinking is required to properly report expenditures; lateral thinking will be required to find creative ways to modify your expenses in future months to keep the budget in [...]

Believe it or not, a well written agenda can enhance your meeting and help you achieve your business goals. If done correctly, a meeting agenda can greatly enhance your meeting by: Setting expectation of meeting attendees Keeping the meeting on track in regard to discussed topics and subject matter Helping manage the time spent on each topic Allowing people to mentally prepare for the topics being discussed Helping you keep away from topics you don’t want to discuss in the meeting (because it’s not on the agenda) Acting as a check list to assure that all needed topics are raised during the meeting As additional food for thought, the simple act of distributing your meeting agenda a few days prior to the meeting taking place, via the email-based invitation or other automated or manual means, has the following advantages: Allows meeting participants to properly prepare for the topics being discussed Saves people who are not interested in the topics being discussed from attending the meeting Helps assure that people who have a vested interest in the topics being discussed will attend your meeting Provides general status information to those who can attend the meeting as to what you are working on With the advantages of using a meeting agenda now defined, the question is “How should an agenda be written to maximize its effectiveness?” The first and most obvious requirement is that an agenda must clearly outline the topics that will be included in the meeting and order in which they will [...]