the One Minute Manager
by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
All Content and/or ideas Copyrights are reserved and maintained by Authors/Publishers.
Friends, Its been quite a while, I have had written something nice. The other day, I was having a sip of coffee whilst enjoying view in my garden, I saw bunch of people working in my patio with their in charge yelling at them for doing some work in-correctly. And it suddenly struck with the topic in my mind to discuss with you pals. So here we are today discussing How a Good Manager should be.. I guess my this post would interests many New as well as prospective Managers...
Lets see the definition of a manager. The act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively is called the Management and the person who uses/posses these management skills to achieve those goal by leading people is called Manager. A boss or A supervisor is a literal dictionary meaning of Manager.
In our daily life, we come across various types of managers. Government Administrators, Military Officers, Construction Superintendents, Corporate Executives, University Professors and Shop Stewards. Managers of shops, banks, restaurants and hotels with men and women… young and old, almost all types.
Versus, we also see many ‘nice’ managers, whose people seems wining but their organization fails. If we ask these managers, what type of manager they are, they with proud in their voices, would quote democratic, supportive, participative, considerate, humanistic etc. These words clearly shouts loudly about their interest in people.
If we look closely, many managers fall in either of above category. Managers who interests in results are labeled as “autocratic” whereas those who are interested in people are labeled as "democratic". But each of these types of managers is partially effective kinda like half manager.
I feel a manager should be an “Effective Manager”, who with his presence, should not only profit Organizations but also the people he works with while managing himself and the people working with him.
Now that I have quoted what a Manager should be like, lets discuss what one can do to be a great Effective Manager.
An Effective Manager should be more in touch with his people through meetings. Meetings should not be far distant that people forget what was discussed in past meeting and should not be frequent enough to consume all of our people’s time in meeting only. I guess May be a weekly meeting of an hour or two should be enough. Target of those meetings for manager should be more like listening to the problems and accomplishments his people had in past week and the things that are yet to accomplish. Together they should come up with strategies and plans for the coming week. The decisions and plans should be binding to both Manager as well as staff. Of course, if not binding there won’t be any point of arranging meetings, don’t you agree? J
A Manager should neither be participating in his staff’s decision nor should he be only result oriented. Startled ?!? Well Yes, One can not achieve results if its not through people! They both go hand in hand.
People Who Feel Good about Themselves, Produce Great Result!
Wont you agree with above statement? You get things done more when you feel good about yourself! So, a Manager should be always remembering, “helping people feel about themselves is a key to getting more done”. While doing so he must not forget that “a productive is more than just a quantity of work done. It’s quality also”. Thus, “Productivity is both Quality and Quantity”.
We can call such Manager who achieves the productivity mentioned above through people as “A Minute Manager”. Why “A Minute Manager”? Because, it takes a very less time to get very big results from the People.
I can see there are Three secrets for being “A Minute Manager”. Lets go through them one by one.
First Secret is “A Minute Goal Setting”.
A minute goal setting is a foundation of “A Minute Management”. Most of the times you guys have seen that there is conflict between the manager and staff for understanding the responsibilities staff is held accountable for. In fact, I guess, many of you have been in trouble for not doing some job, which you at first place never thought is yours. “A Minute Manager” should always make it clear to his staff what their responsibilities are and what they are being held accountable for.
Once a manager and staff have agreed on what needs to be done, then each goal should be written on a single page. Goal with its performance standard should be expressed in no more than 250 words. Its like, anyone should be able to read that in a minute. Both, a manager and staff should keep a copy of this so everything is clear and progress can be checked periodically.
Isn’t it sound like “No Surprises” – everyone knows what is expected from them from starting.
It doesn’t stop it yet. Once these minute goals are set, a minute manager should always ensure what a good performance is. Thus, performance standards are made clear.
I think this is enough to you guys for a day... I would take a break here… The rest of two secrets being “A Minute Manager”, I will cover and share with you very soon in my another posts. So stay tuned and till then, Aloha !! Wish you new managers a Very Happy Managing.
Friends,
Today I would like to share few of thoughts about how to be a good manager. Many times it has been a question from most of managers saying they are having hard time to get work done from people as hard as they used to do themselves.
Lets begin with a one of famous quote :
“Don't work hard.. work smarter...”
As a Manager, One need to learn to delegate the tasks...Manager should work for their staff and should not happen other way round.. One need to provide a resources and working condition to its staff in order to accomplish the goals you've agreed to.. At last, You need to roll up your sleeves and help your subordinates to win rather than wait to "catch them doing something wrong".
Note, If your subordinates win you win. And for that you need to work closely with those who need help, thus treat different people differently, just like saying "different strokes for different folks".
One minute Manager should assign tasks and should work closely with the person. Involve in his job if he lacks in experience or is new on job.
Listen to the person and work participative with the person who is doing well. Never tell him what to do, but together arrive at the direction you want.
One minute manager should be Situational Manager which means he should be able to change his style depending on conditions and peoples.
To Be a Situational Leader Learn 3 Things :
Flexibility : Use Variety of leadership style flexibly.
Diagnosis : Diagnose the need of people you supervise
Contracting : Come to some agreement with them, to contract with them for leadership style they need from you.
Four Basic Leadership styles are :
Directing : Leader provides specific instructions and closely supervise tasks accomplishments.
Coaching : Along with directing style, it also explains decisions, solicits suggestions and support progress.
Supporting : Leader facilitates and support sub-ordinates efforts and share responsibility for decisions making with team.
Delegating : Leader turns over responsibility for decision making and problem solving to sub-ordinates.
These 4 styles consist of different combination of 2 Basic Leadership Behaviors :
Directive Behavior : STRUCTURE, CONTROL & SUPERVISE
Supportive Behavior :PRAISE, LISTEN & FACILITATE
Directive Behavior is one way communication where you tell people when, where, why n how about the task. And monitor the task closely. You tell person what is goal and what a good job look like. You layout step by step plan to accomplish task and prob. is solved. You make decision and your sub-ordinate carries out your ideas
whereas
Supportive Behavior is where you support subordinates efforts, listen to their suggestions and facilitate their interaction with others. You encourage and praise to built their motivation and confidence.
There Is Nothing So Un-Equal As The Equal Treatments of Un-Equals.
Directing style leadership is better for enthusiastic beginners whereas coaching is the right style for disillusioned learners. Experienced people like a more participative management.
Delegating is Appropriate for people who are peak performers. If you are feeling very much loaded with work, if it goes beyond your head - Delegate it.
When I Slow Down, I Go Faster : So think before acting.....
So Problem in either competence OR commitment OR Both determine that person is not doing well.
There is a slight difference between Competence and Ability. Many of you think, and do directly relate competence with ability of person.
Competence is a function of knowledge and skills which can be gained from education, training and/or experience.
Ability is 'natural' potential to acquire certain skill so easily whereas, Competence is something which can be developed with appropriate direction and support. It is not something you are born with. It's Learned.
Commitment is a combination of confidence and motivation.
We can define Confidence and Motivation as :
Confidence – Measure of self assuredness.
Motivation – Interest and enthusiasm to do task well.
People can have different combination of competence and commitment. And so it make up 'Development Level' for the person.
There are total 4 Development Levels. These are :
Thus, Everyone has Peak Performance Potential - You just need to find it.
Leader needs to do what people they supervise can't do for themselves at the present moment.
D1 has commitment but lacks competence, leader needs to provide Direction ( S1 ).
D2 lacks both competence & commitment, leader needs to provide both direction & Support ( S2 ).
D3 has competence but variable commitment, leader has to provide support ( S3 ).
D4 has both competence & commitment, leader does not need to provide either direction or support ( S4 ).
As the development level moves, manager should change and move leadership style.
Five Steps to develop persons Competence & Commitment :
(In other words steps to change person's development level)
Tell them what to do
Show them what to do
Let them try (But don't turn over too much responsibility, risk has to be reasonable)
Observe the performance ( You can Expect more, If you inspect more )
But it means catch people doing right, Not wrong.
Praise the progress.
Do not forget to have all facts and see theres no extenuating circumstances before Reprimand.
Decline in Performance, may caused by drop in confidence - You need to provide support and encouragement rather than Reprimand.
“Contracting” is a third skill of being Situational Leader :
As per most famous saying, “Situational Leadership is Not something you Do to People, But something you do With People”.
Most of managers may think as a manager, they had to figure out all by themselves but contracting eliminates all that worry. In Contracting, you come to mutual agreement with people you supervise.
By this time, when I have mentioned so much about Situational Managerial skills and Leadership of One minute manager, you must have comfortable enough to handle the situations and tackle the problems smartly. If you're nodding your head vertically... Voila.. you are almost Situational Leader.. Congratulations !! This was just first step and we have long run to go … Will keep posting further about it...
Courtesy :
Book : Leadership and the One Minute Manager
by Kenneth H. Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi
All Content Copyrights are reserved and maintained by Authors/Publishers
Sandip V. Tekale sandip.tekale@gmail.com M: +91 9764445969 |
toolbar powered by Conduit |