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Newsletter June 3, 2010 Three Greatest Challenges for Managers |
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We were discussing leadership and management. In fact, we'd been having a robust discussion about  what the difference was between leadership and management and the respective challenges of each. We all stopped, waiting for the answer. After the discussion we'd been having, to know there were only three was quite a relief. We could really get on top of three challenges and become the kinds of managers we wanted to be.So we thought. "The three greatest challenges for managers," he said, "are - people, people, people." At first, I thought that answer was a bit of a let down. I then realised how profound it was. If we remembered that as managers, we wouldn't go far wrong. If we directed our attention to meeting those three challenges, we would be very successful. Featured in this newsletter:
Enjoy and be challenged. 
Maree Harris. PhD.
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The Three Greatest Challenges for Managers - People, People, People
The hardest thing any of us will ever do is manage another person. It can be our new born child or our testosterone charged adolescent son or our spouse or mother-in-law or the next door neighbour. In the workplace, it is our team members. People! They are so individual. That’s what gives them the edge, gives them uniqueness and this is what they bring to any role they play at work. It also, however, makes them difficult for managers. Having 10-15 unique individuals in your team that you are trying to relate to and value their individuality is very challenging. That’s why it is so important to get them working as a team. Building a great team is about everyone understanding and valuing the unique contribution that each member of the team has to offer and have everyone draw on those attributes to produce a superior service or product. The problems begin, however, when one member of the team doesn’t pull his/her weight or doesn’t shape up. How Do I Get My Team Member To Change? This is a question I get asked in various ways at nearly every workshop I conduct. Managers always have at least one person in their team who is not performing as they would want them to. It’s the smaller issues that are often the most challenging. The very serious issues leave no manager in any doubt about what he or she should do. The smaller issues, ones that are very annoying and frustrating, are the ones that leave the manager questioning: Do I just put up with this and try and work around it? Or do I make an issue of it and risk negative reaction and possible disengagement? Their team member may
for example. Usually managers have raised these issues many times with
the particular team member and nothing has changed. I am then asked for a magic
solution. Emotional
Intelligence, An Important Soft Skill, Comes To The Fore. I can always hand out tips and strategies for managing situations with people. Have you noticed, however, how easy they sound when someone else is talking about them, but how difficult they become when you go to implement them? While they do exactly what they’ve been told at the workshop
or read in the book or article, they don’t get any changed response from their
team member. This is usually because the manager is not in the best emotional
space to implement these strategies.
To approach a team member from out of that space is a recipe for disaster. Managers need to resolve their own emotional “stuff” first.
When a manager takes him/herself through that first and then approaches the team member, that crucial conversation is much more likely to be constructive and produce a focussed solution.
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Work On Yourself, Not Just On The Work - Bring Your Soft Skills Into Play!
Working on yourself calls on your soft skills; working on the work usually means bringing your hard technical skills into play. It’s becoming very clear today that who we are and what we stand for is as important as the service or product we “sell”. So knowing how to work on ourselves, understanding what we need to be working on takes on a relevance we need to address. Professionals are fairly clear about why their technical skills are important. After all, most have done a university degree of at least three years learning all about the technical skills they need to be the professional of their choice. They were given a body of knowledge and a set of technical skills in their professional area to prepare them to do their work.
Most professionals, however, are given little or no professional development or training in developing their soft skills, the all important interpersonal, communication and people skills.
Two Kinds of Soft Skills That Generate Success.
Well-Developed Soft Skills Also Create Two Kinds of Wealth.
1. Those people with well-developed soft skills relate well with other people. They know how to bring out the best in others. They can motivate and inspire people. They are passionate and empowering. They manage stress and conflict constructively. As a result they have rich relationships and many of them. They have people who will always be there for them. They have people who will lay down their lives for them. They are valued and appreciated enormously by people who will offer them opportunities in abundance. Having a wealth of rich relationships will always be more valuable than money and it really depends on how well-developed our soft skills are. That’s what allows us to build such rich relationships. 2. As a result of making that commitment to developing and enhancing their soft skills, and acquiring all these qualities, these people are highly sought after in companies and organisations. They have an exceptional ability to manage people. They know how to get the best out of them. They can build high performing teams. They draw clients to their companies and organisations because of their reputation. We could go on and on. These people get to the point where they can command high salaries and can choose where and with whom they work. Their soft skills have made them wealthy too in a monetary and professional sense. So soft skills are not just a discretionary option. They are
essential to the advancement of our careers. They are what will give us a
professional edge. ______________________________ New OnIine Mentoring Program Coming Soon. Soft Skills for Accountants Given that I have been doing more work with accountants in the Soft Skills area in recent times than with any other professional group, I am establishing an online mentoring program for accountants. It will be a 52 week program and participants will get an e-class every week on some topic or theme. It may be in webinar form, teleseminar, conference call with some expert or a workbook type exercise. While it is directed at accountants, the material will be very applicable to other professional groups. I'll certainly be encouraging everyone to have a look at the free introduction to the course. If people want to go ahead after the introduction, there will be an introductory fee of $49 AUD per month, with people having the option to stay for as long or a short a time as they wish. More information will be coming soon. |
