Henry Mintzberg’s book ‘Managing’ has received excellent reviews, and it’s got a good slot in my bookcase. The management guru talks about popular but false views about the nature of managerial work, separates fact from myth, and provides the best information yet published on what managers do and how they do it.

He analyses various management models, characteristics, and approaches to managing.  He examines commonalities and differences in managing in various contexts, including business, government, health care, and social services.

By shadowing 29 managers through a day in their lives, he reveals how managing is affected by many factors — including national and industry cultures, organisational differences, level of the manager in the organization, and personal styles — and examines the various strategies that managers adopt to deal with these factors.

Mintzberg then identifies the main “conundrums” or dilemmas that managers must wrestle with (such as delegating versus retaining control, balancing order and flexibility, and gathering more data versus needing to take action) and describes how managers deal with those conundrums.  And he offers provocative and powerful new understandings of what makes managers effective and ineffective.

I found the book deep enough to challenge my ideas on management in the future and instill many new thoughts for designing development programs. Well worth a good look, along with other books that we have discussed.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course

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

How much time do you spend at work? Now, how much of that time is devoted to managing yourself, as opposed to your team members?

Ok, so you don’t have time to manage yourself. Well, how about finding out how you can make your job easier for yourself. Does that sound better?

Here are some tips on how you can make it easier for people to get the best results from you, based on discussions with Len Schlesinger.

1)      Each day, invest 10-15 minutes in having a one-to-one with someone you are responsible for. – Just listen. Ask some easy, open-ended questions: How’s it all going? What will you be working on during the next month? etc. You will be amazed by how much you learn.

2)      Make it clear to people how you want to hear from them. Is it a two page memo on your desk, or email,voicemail, face to face, mobile? Then respond briskly to those who use your preferred way of communicating.

3)      Don’t presume people can read your mind. If a consistent pattern of behaviour, performance or way of communicating rubs you up the wrong way, say something about it.

4)      Be clear and open. The people you work with probably have no idea of the pressures and stresses that go with your job, and of the competing demands for your time and attention. Help them understand. Explain yourself. It will help them understand things from your perspective and increase people’s respect for you.

5)      Make it easy for people to communicate with you. You may be the manager, but you need people around you to keep you informed of what’s going on. Make yourself approachable and don’t criticise what people say to you; you’ll never know when you need to know more from that person.

6)      Great leadership is about getting one more person to be more productive, more focused and more fulfilled than yesterday. By doing that, you achieve more through the people who work for you.

Which, coincidentally, is the main reason why you exist as a leader anyway.

When you have  tried these ideas, measure the results and identify what you are doing right, so you can repeat it again and again.

Many thanks

Nick Hill

Training Director

MTD Management Training Course

(Image by Basketman)

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Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

That is the question.

Many ‘managers’ have wondered if there is a real difference between the two, that is, aren’t the terms synonymous these days, and isn’t it just a case of semantics?

Well, let’s take a look back and identify where the words actually came from…

The word ‘Manage’ is derived from an old French/Saxon verb ‘Man’ij’, which meant the senior person whose job it was to control or train horses, but this job would also have included the supervision and training of more junior people who helped the Man’ij to undertake their duties.

At some early point during the Industrial Revolution the plural ‘Man’ijur’ became a popular phrase within an Industrial context, which is not surprising given that it would have been a word that lots of people from the Agrarian economy would have known. However, the emphasis of its meaning had slightly changed in order to describe someone who was responsible for ‘controlling people, processes and paper’ (or any combination of the three) in a transactional sense, as opposed to controlling horses. 200 years on, and within a contemporary context, the word ‘Manager’ still retains its original connection to  ‘Control’ (of people, processes and paper).

The word ‘Leader’ comes from a word that meant ‘to show the way by going first’, or ‘to act as a guide’. It was adopted by sailors in antiquity to describe the boat that had the most experienced navigator on board, someone familiar with local currents, and where other ships could follow the ‘Leader-ship’, although they
in turn had adopted the word from land based ‘guides’ (leaders) who showed people the ancient routes and trails in order to conduct trade. During the 18th and 19th centuries, land-based armies adopted the word to indicate how people were expected to behave (e.g. lead from the front). Given the several hundreds of years that have passed since it was first used, ‘Leadership’ still means ‘showing the way through personal example’.

Managers therefore undertake a series of Transactional activities ensuring people, process and paper are all controlled within a set of clearly defined rules to achieve an organisational goal. Whereas Leaders undertake a series of Transformational activities, more connected with inspiring people to achieve their own (or more usually the leader’s) vision or goal, but relying upon their own charisma to galvanise people into achieving the goal.

There. That’s all cleared up then!

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course

(Image by J S Creationzs)

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

As I stepped out of the house the other morning, the chill in the air made me groan, as I had forgotten to cover my windscreen on the car overnight. Sure enough, it was covered in ice. I picked up the de-icer from my car boot and did the necessaries on the windscreen.

The heater refused to do its job quickly and, before long, the windscreen had refrozen, meaning I had to sit in my drive waiting for some warmth to blow from the heater and clear the screen again, before I could set off in safety.

On my journey, the whole escapade reminded me of Kurt Lewin’s ideas concerning how change actually takes place. He talked about the concept of unfreezing the current situation, re-arranging the conditions so change can fluidly take place, then re-freezing so that the changes made can be reinforced.

By unfreezing, Lewin determined that the existing situation cannot be tolerated anymore and resistance to change should be minimised. This entails management detailing what the consequences of any change would be for all stakeholders and also outlining what would happen if change did not take place. This is like my use of the de-icer on the windscreen, unfreezing the current icy situation.

During the second phase, fluidity, participants in change let go of old ways of working and start to adopt new ways of behaving and, sometimes, attitudinal changes are required. If a large change is required, it may take some time for the fluidity to actually make a difference. This reminds us of continuous improvement being the norm if we wish to advance to make a difference. My de-icer worked for a while as this metamorphosis was taking place.

Finally, Lewin talks about refreezing, the reinforcement of change so that the new ways become stabilised. People tend to drift back to how things were before change because of a human state of homeostasis, where a more comfortable position is sought after. If management do not allow staff to become comfortable with the new regime, experimenting with new ideas and being allowed to take risks at times, this metamorphosis may not be stable when fully introduced. The refreezing of my windscreen reminded me of this.

So, Lewin summed up his change ideas by saying we need to:

Recognise the need for change

Diagnose and plan the change

Manage the transition

Measure results and maintain the changes

Seems like a good plan to drive and maintain any change initiative.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

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

So…the secret is out. According to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), almost half of managers believe their own bosses are ineffective.

Of course, it depends on who you ask and what their current state is, but the UK survey of 4,500 managers showed that 43% described their own line manager as ineffective.

And what of the other 57%? Managers in high-performing organisations were more likely to praise their boss, as their firms spent more on management and leadership development.

Well, what a surprise! The CMI said too few employers were investing enough in management and leadership. As I’ve said time and time again, training and personnel development nearly always take a back seat when it comes to leadership investment.

Listen to the words of acting chief executive Christopher Kinsella: “This report contains good and bad news for UK managers. The bad news is that a culture of bad management continues to damage UK plc. But the good news is that those organisations who have got things right stand a much greater chance of being a high-performing organisation.

“It’s within an organisation’s own power to make that change. By investing in management and leadership development wisely, you can make a real, measurable difference.”

Gary Browning, chief executive of HR service group Penna, which helped with the report, said: “The research shows us that having an effective manager means employees get more effective development and feel more positive about their ability to manage their own careers.”

What’s the message for us here? Growth and development will always be a great motivator, and if you don’t deal with this ‘motivator’, then the ‘satisfiers’ (as Hertzberg puts it) will come back and bite very hard. For real, measurable differences, a proper leadership plan should be enacted. Without one, you will join the masses of ‘quiet desperation’.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

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