Michael Heath: Management

The experts tell all!

Cover Page

Title Page Management Secrets The experts tell all!

Prepare to manage!

Manage yourself

1.1 Be a role model manager

1.2 Be the real thing

1.3 Look like you mean it

1.4 Go on – assert yourself!

1.5 Make time to manage

Empower your people

2.1 Manage with style

2.2 Know the ‘High Five’ that will motivate

2.3 Training is a chance to grow your own

2.4 Know how to coach

2.5 Keep on track with feedback

2.6 Let others share the load

2.7 Orchestrate a winning performance

2.8 Accentuate the positive in appraisals

2.9 Absence won’t make the heart grow fonder

2.10 Make discipline a quiet word

Make things happen

3.1 Make the decision to be decisive

3.2 Project plan, plan, plan

3.3 Object to unclear objectives

3.4 Identify meaningful milestones

3.5 Make your monitoring effective

3.6 Assign fair shares

3.7 Write reports that people want to read

Communicate in all directions

4.1 Manage up like you manage down

4.2 Turn on your feedback channel

4.3 Get to know yourself

4.4 Questions first – then listen up

4.5 Always be tactful

4.6 It’s great to collaborate

4.7 Be a culture vulture

4.8 Learn the language of body talk

4.9 Write emails with care

Recruit the very best

5.1 Know exactly what you’re looking for

5.2 Get ready to impress at interview

5.3 Save time with a telephone interview

5.4 Make great candidates want to join you

5.5 Avoid that fatal attraction

Build a great team

6.1 Define the team roles

6.2 Take your team on a journey

6.3 Fire up the team spirit

6.4 Build a supreme team

6.5 Communicate with a virtual team

6.6 Make time to meet

6.7 Produce an agenda

6.8 Turn yourself into a good chair

6.9 Open your meeting to all

6.10 Turn words into actions

Treat the budget with respect

7.1 Link in with the strategy

7.2 Understand your budget

7.3 Anticipate the future

7.4 Negotiate openly

Jargon buster

Further reading

About The Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

You local bookshop is stuffed full of books claiming to help you manage better. So why add one more? Because I’ve done the job. And I’ve written it so that you get quick practical advice about the every day challenges I know you face. If you think academic theories are going to help – this ain’t the book.

As well as doing the job, I’ve spent the last 20 years or so working with other people also doing the job of management. Training them. Coaching them. Mentoring them. And believe me, that’s a lot of experience to dip into. I’ve seen the superstar managers – and the managers who would only get a star for being so bad at it. And what separates them? Simple – great managers prepare.

So I want you to prepare to make your management life easier. I want you to experience the thrill of knowing you manage your team well. And I want you to have a reputation as the sort of manager that people imitate. That people want to be like. That’s why I’m sharing these 50 secretswith you. You’ll find these secretsspread over seven chapters:

■ Manage yourself.You’ve got to have a clear sense of who you are before you manage others. Personal credibility is a big factor in a manager’s success.

■ Empower your people.People can be powerful – but only when the right management behaviours enable them to tap into that power. How you prepare for crucial interactions with others will determine your success.

■ Make things happen.A manager gets things done. Getting things done means applying the right tools and techniques that make sure the right things get done.

■ Communicate in all directions.Many don’t realise just how much skill a talented manager uses when they communicate. Not just to the team, but every key person they interact with.

■ Recruit the very best.You want a great candidate to say ‘yes’ to your job offer. A systematic approach to recruitment makes this a reality.

■ Build a great team.Great teams don’t happen by chance. A manager works carefully on the composition, skills and motivation of their employees. And they also turn team meetings into events that people look forward to.

■ Treat the budget with respect.Whether you’ve a budget or not, you will make crucial decisions that affect it. Understanding something of the process will help guide your decision making.

Time and again I’m going to talk about the need to prepare. Don’t short-change yourself on this. Thinking about and preparing for the management situations you face is often the deciding factor between the great manager and the mediocre.

Great managers anticipate and prepare while others merely react and repair.

I love the saying,“That which I understand, I control. That which I don’t understand, controls me.” This chapter is about deepening the understanding you have of yourself and how you come across to your team. These secrets address subjects that many managers do not get right. So give the questions serious thought and decide how successfully you manage yourself. Then you’ll be ready to move on to managing others.

Role modelling starts when you’re a child, when you start to look around for someone to copy. As you get older you start to move your target. You want to be more like your friends, your heroes, your boss…

Guess what? There are people who want to be a manager like you. To do what you do. They watch you closely and even start dealing with stuff the way that you deal with stuff. Recognize it? You probably do it yourself. You’re either using approaches that your boss uses – or making sure you do the opposite!

■ What’s the great thing about role modelling?Role modelling is imitating the success we see because we want to be successful. Well,

case studyAt the start of my training career I delivered a workshop for my organization’s customer services staff. We covered the usual things, including how you pick the phone up to customers using a proper company greeting. A few days later I was surprised to find a delegate from the workshop picking up an incoming call with a casual “Hello.” I asked why he hadn’t used the professional greeting we agreed on the workshop. He pointed to his boss on the other side of the room and said, “As soon as he starts answering the phone properly, I’ll start answering the phone properly”.

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing” Albert Schweitzer, German-French philosopher

if you want your people to be enthusiastic, attentive to detail, great time managers, hard working, etc., then you have to be enthusiastic, attentive to detail, a great time manager…I’m sure you’ve got it.

■ The flip-side.You can’t ask your employees to do things you’re not prepared to do. Need people occasionally to work late? Then you need to be seen occasionally working late. Want them to meet your deadlines? Then keep your deadlines with them. Want people to show respect for each other in the team? Then you must show respect to everyone – inside or outside the team.