It’s been said that there are three types of people in business: – those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who ask “what the heck happened?”!

At the start of each month, it’s a good time to analyse how you want the next month to be, so you can look ahead with control and anticipation, rather than look back with regret.

The start of the month gives you a chance to review what went right last month, what can be corrected, and gives you an opportunity to renew, regroup, recommit and reinvent yourself as a manager and leader.

It’s a process that can renew your energy and rejuvenate your motivation. So, what’s the best way of going about it?

• Spend 30 minutes or so with your monthly calendar. Write down all your deadline dates, when projects are due, important meetings, personal and business appointments, and other important dates. Then, working backwards, estimate how much time you’ll need to prepare for each event or project. Enter the start date on your calendar, and then you’ll have a vision of how you need to work to accomplish the goal.

• Make a plan for your own development this month. Read a professional journal, improve a specific skill, write an item for a newsletter or journal, attend a short seminar or course…anything that will improve your contribution to your own personal and business development.

• Now work to a weekly plan. Set deadlines for next week, so you know what are the urgent things that need doing. Practice efficiencies with paper, e.g. handle each piece of paper only once. Notice when you procrastinate, prepare and be on time for every meeting and become a better delegator.

• A strategy you might want to follow is the OATS formula: Have Objectives written down in priority order, plan Activities that will help you achieve your goals, allow the Time to achieve those goals, and Schedule when is the best time to acco0mplish each goal

• Manage your relationships well this month. Make an effort to ensure every member of your team feels important. Remember the old phrase ‘catch someone doing something right’. Be consistent in the way you lead your team, rather than making it depend on whatever mood you are in, and do just one thing this month that will make your work environment a better place for others to work in. For example, when was the last time you bought some fruit or doughnuts in for your team?

• Make a monthly resolution to do one thing better this month. Then do it again next month. And the next. Slowly but surely, you’ll see the team respond to you and, by setting this example, you encourage all to contribute to the whole business in a positive and motivational way.

All this will mean maintaining a proactive management style, giving you the chance to make a really good impression on higher management and clients.

Let us know how it goes. Be the kind of person who makes things happen; then you won’t have to look back and wonder what the heck happened! Have a great month!

Thanks again

Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

The process of measuring best practice involves looking at other companies to uncover basic principles that you can model within your own business.

When GE developed their Best Practice Project, their main ethos revolved around asking the question, “What’s the secret of your success?” The answers they got were surprisingly similar.

Most companies reported that they managed processes, not functions, and concentrated on how teams worked together rather than on the performances of individual departments. GE realised after their research that they had been measuring and managing the wrong things. They had put their emphasis on setting goals and keeping score; instead, they should have been focusing on how things got done rather than on what got done.

Following ‘best practices‘ – co-operative, integrated and comprehensive approaches to continuous improvement – helps you achieve higher standards of performance and keeps you aware of the competitive advantage you can achieve.

Here’s how you can start looking at best practice management:

Develop a shared vision and strategic plan. This gives you a vision of world-class performance and helps everyone in the business see exactly what best practice looks like.

Ensure commitment from top management. This will encourage all team members to put their efforts into the changes and improvements needed to achieve great results.

Create a learning environment. This allows everyone to advance in the skills, knowledge and attitude that is required to achieve best practice.

Create innovative workplace initiatives. Everything you put into place should reflect the company’s commitment to improvement.

Focus on customers. Be responsive to the current and future needs of your clients, because they are the ones who will reap the benefits of any new initiatives you put in place.

Develop closer ties with your suppliers. These companies need to know what you are doing so they can support your change initiatives.

Look at technological, process and product innovation. Look at what market-leaders have done to create higher market share and adopt a similar policy, using the faster, leaner methodology that will help you keep costs and investment down.

Use performance-measurement systems along with benchmarking. Remember that if you try to match a competitor’s performance now, you will take time to catch up, because they set their standards in motion some time ago to be where they are now. See benchmarking as a finger-in-the-air process; identify where you need to be in one, two or three years’ time, then plan for that eventuality.

Network external relationships. By sharing information, accessing new services, developing new products and services, reviewing use of staff skill-sets, minimising costs in entering new markets, etc, you build a firm foundation for creating best practice for your company’s future.

Remember…unless everyone in the business is committed to best practice and understands the meaning of the term to them personally, you run the risk of any changes being seen as just another management fad. You must ensure that you communicate the reasons why you are pursuing this process. That way, you stand a better chance of any new initiatives succeeding.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

The Kaizen model of continuous improvement originated in Japan and has been used as a management concept for incremental, or gradual/continual, change or improvement. It has been a way of life for Japanese people for centuries and can be applied to key elements of business like quality, effort, employee involvement, change initiatives and communication.

The emphasis is on gradual improvement, built on a foundation of strategic initiatives that create specific and measurable benefits to the business. It’s evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and is best applied in incremental change situations over the long-term.

How do you get your team to buy in to the Kaizen concept?

Firstly, gain agreement that small changes would be advantageous to the working climate. It will have greater backing if all recognise the need for growth.

Ascertain how you could perform as a team if everyone was willing to commit to improvement. Don’t expect or demand overnight radical change…gain their agreement that small, specific improvements will be easier and more effectively implemented than larger, more global ones.

Decide how the team can measure the effectiveness of any new initiative. This will help gain ownership of any changes that can be made.

Commit to the changes yourself, so you set the example of what’s expected. Team members are more likely to commit if they see you championing the concept.

Create short-term wins that will help the team see successes quickly and frequently. Feedback of these wins will create a motivational environment.

Communicate the results and share the benefits. You’ll cement the commitment and drive the momentum forward to continue.

It’s always going to be easier for someone to aim for a 5% improvement over 3 months, than a 20% improvement over a year, so the Kaizen concept of continuous and frequent improvements will provide you with an easier acceptance level from your team. And that can only be good for morale and confidence!

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Manager Training

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

Personal and professional development is one of the most valuable uses of your time in your career as a manager. It’s only by growing and developing your skills within your current role that you convince others you are worthy of investing in for the future.

So, how much time do you devote to the development of your skills, knowledge and talents? And how regular and consistent are you in carrying it out?

Top managers recognise the need to expand their knowledge about their industry and products regularly. Zig Ziglar says that “Just 15 minutes a day reading books would enable the average reader to complete 15 books each year.”

But there’s so much development material out there, you have to be selective.

First, set aside quality time for this. It’s your career we’re talking about, so it’s worthwhile spending time solely devoted to this important task. A regularly-planned short period is better than leaving it for a large chunk of time once in a while.

Then, be selective in what you choose to read. Determine the areas where you must keep up-to-date, and select only those magazines, journals, books and websites that currently serve your particular areas of need.

When you find an article of interest, especially if it’s in a journal or magazine, take a copy of it or rip it out and put it in your reading file. A fabulous piece buried in a thick magazine will stay buried unless you make a conscious effort to make it more visible.

Consider joining your local Institute of Management library, and taking advantage of the wealth of material available there.

When you’ve spent some time reading, reflect on how you can use this new knowledge in your job and company. Is there something you can immediately apply? Can you share this knowledge with someone else? Is there someone in the organisation who would value this information as much as you?

Spend your commuting time reading or listening to new material that will improve your value to the company. Just 30 minutes listening to a development CD in the car or on your mp3 player on the train each day will give you over 100 hours of learning each year. That’s the equivalent of attending over 14 days’ training each year! Try asking your boss for that much time off to develop your skills! Yet you can easily do it in dead-time on the daily commute.

JJ McCarthy said that an organisation’s continued progress will partly be based on managers’ ability to increase their knowledge and skills and to keep pace with progress and change – through professional literature.

So, lead by example in this. Set the pace for change in your organisation by keeping up to date with reading material that will set you apart from others. Then you will improve your value as a manager, now and in the future.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Do me a favour. Get a pen and a piece of paper. Carry out this simple exercise before reading down the screen. OK? Ready? Let’s go.

Draw a tree. Any tree. Just draw it. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Just draw a tree. Go on, do it now. Don’t look down the screen. Draw it now, then come back to this point.

Done it?

Good!

Take a look at the tree you’ve drawn. Some people’s drawings are magnificent and wild; others’ are simple and plain. It doesn’t matter. Now, let me ask you a question.

What’s the most important part of a tree? The trunk? Branches? Leaves?

Most people would agree it’s the roots. You can tell the condition of the roots by the condition of the tree. Strong roots, well-fed and watered, equal strong trunk and branches. And yet, most people we ask to carry out this exercise don’t draw the roots. Why?

Obvious. Because we don’t see them. They’re beneath ground. The most important part of the tree is beneath the surface, unseen.

How many other things do you tend to ignore because they are out of sight? What problems may occur because of this type of selective thinking?

Now, let me ask another question. What are the most important skills we expect to see in a great manager? I anticipate you saying things like communication skills, integrity, honesty, technical ability, motivation skills, a good listener, delegation skills and such-like. And how do you know the manager has these skills? By their behaviour, of course.

Most great managers we’ve seen have these skills, and more, developed over a period of time so they become habitual responses to challenging situations. They are seen as the result of tried and tested reactions. And where are they hidden? Beneath the surface. Where are they manifested? Above the surface, where they can be seen.

The observed qualities of great managers are developed beneath the surface, through constant personal development, skill assessment, trial and error, observation of others, constant monitoring, modeling, reading, research, coaching, self-motivation and training.

At the root of all qualities of great managers is consistent and never-ending improvement. They water and feed these roots constantly, so they never run dry or starve for nourishment. There’s a constant drip feed of quality material, readily devoured to nourish the hungry learner.

Seek them out. Be proactive in developing your skills that will feed the roots of your progress as a manager. What you see is a constant reminder of what’s below the surface. Make sure your skills are fed and watered effectively and consistently with a personal development programme that will support your growth. And next time, draw your tree with roots!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”