Management Pointers
Skills & Qualities of a Good Manager
- A role model
- A manager of oneself & awareness of oneself
- A learner
- A change agent
- A visionary
- Is aware of current situation/ reality
- Is ethical & holds values
- A systemic thinker
- A good communicator
- A positive thinker
- Is enthusiastic
- Is real
Purpose of a Manager
- Coach the team to bring them to becoming self-sufficient by supporting & guiding them
- Instil pride & passion in their work
- Eliminate impediments
- Facilitate work progress
- Negotiate resources
- Enable meeting goals
Change
A manager views change as a positive force & makes it work to one’s advantage.
Communication
Instead of asking why something happened, ask what happened (to produce the results)
Attributes of a Learner
- Enthusiastic
- Interested
- Exploring
- Experimenting
- Having fun
- Wanting to learn more
True Attention
- Listen to words
- Listen to meaning behind words, hesitations, emphases
- Watch body language
- Use intuition to read between the lines
- Empathises with the heart
When asking for Information
Be clear & communicate clearly
- the exact information required
- what the information is for
Questions to Enter Worlds
- What do you enjoy about ___?
- What matters to you about ___?
- How do you approach ___?
- What makes you feel good?
- How do you motivate yourself to ___?
- What made you choose ___?
- How do you feel about ___?
- What is important to you in ___?
Motivational Factors
- Respect
- Recognition
- Responsibility
- Recreation
Manager as a Lever
Covey: Management is a lever that moves tasks. Delegating moves the fulcrum nearer to the subordinate & away from the manager. This creates extra lift & more tasks are achieved as a result.
Styles of Coaching
| Explaining why | more than | Telling what |
| Listening | more than | Talking |
| Watching | more than | Doing |
| Questioning | more than | Answering |
| Guiding | more than | Controlling |
| Prompting | more than | Solving |
| Praising | more than | Criticising |
| Suggesting | more than | Telling |
Requirements of Good Delegation
- Decide what can & cannot be delegated
- Decide who to delegate to (best for development and efficiency)
- Agree the task to sufficient detail and to what standard
- Agree the deadline to remove all misunderstanding
- Use the definition of task, standard & deadline to measure success
- Let go of entire task; not just bits of it
- Agree the limits of further approval
- Agree the resources of people, money, equipment & time
- Agree that what other tasks continue in the meanwhile; to be put aside; to be delegated elsewhere
- Agree the level of authority you are delegating
- Agree the coaching or training needed & how it will be accomplished
- Agree the monitoring & feedback required, and when and how it will take place
- Agree who else needs to be told , who will do the telling and when
- Agree that the individual carry the responsibility & are accountable to you for their actions
- Agree that you are responsible to your own boss but ultimately, you carry the can; they get most of the praise
- Agree that you will support their decisions provided they keep within agreement
- Show your trust & confidence provided they operate within specific boundaries
Signs & Symptoms of Under-Delegation
- Delegating only menial or trivial tasks
- Watching every move your subordinate makes
- Hanging on to the enjoyable tasks, or those you are good at, or those that get noticed by others
- Not developing your staff
- Not trusting staff or giving them room to contribute
- Missing deadlines
- Uneven workload among staff
- Being overloaded yourself
- Enduring more stress than necessary
- Limiting own development
- Limiting own promotion prospects by denying more delegation from above
- Frustrating staff & risking losing them
Signs & Symptoms of Dumping Tasks
- Not agreeing clear goals, targets, feedback & deadlines
- Abdicating your own responsibility
- Surrendering your own controlling influence
- Inadequate or non-existent monitoring
- Ignoring current workloads & deadlines
- Not listening to staff
- Not thinking through to the consequences
- Courting disaster & getting nasty surprises
- Frustrating staff & risking losing them
- Overly authoritative leadership
- Managing believing things to be fine but they are not
- Staff moan about being treated like mushrooms (neglected, kept in the dark, heaps of manure thrown onto them – poor communication)
Levels of Delegation
3 main considerations
| You | Your comfort level |
| Them | The individual |
| It | The task |
| Level | Description | Information | Suggestion | Recommendation | Act after Approval | Act w/o Approval |
| 1 | Look into it; gather information | √ |
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| 2 | And suggest course of action with pros & cons | √ | √ |
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| 3 | And make recommendations | √ | √ | √ |
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| 4 | And start after my approval; proceed to the next point & seek further approval | √ | √ | √ | √ |
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| 5 | Here is the problem; start when ready & update me when done (need help?) | √ | √ | √ |
| √ |
| Level | Description |
| 1 | Approval first; one step at a time; approval needed for each step |
| 2 | Act & report; take action but report back constantly (daily, weekly, etc.) |
| 3 | Full authority; act on my behalf; tell me when it is done |
What to Delegate
Delegate tasks that:
- Are routine & regular
- Are complete in themselves
- Are time-consuming but necessary
- Recurs frequently
- Subordinates can do better and/ or more economically than you
- Are favourite (that you tend to keep for yourself)
- Are pet hates that subordinates may enjoy
- Start as large projects/ tasks that can be broken down into separate activities (in the face of tight deadlines)
- Will add variety to someone else’s role
- Are moving from planning & decision-making to implementation
What not to Delegate
Do not delegate tasks:
- Company briefings
- Genuine crises requiring one’s authority
- Tasks with ill-defined requirements that waste a lot of time
- Unpleasant tasks (e.g. disciplinary actions)
- Tasks beyond subordinates’ ability to perform, even after coaching
- Performance appraisal
- Confidential/ sensitive matters
- Praises for a job well done
- Strategic and policy matters
- Tasks that subordinate may not do confidently in available time
Process: Before Delegation
Ask the following questions:
- What needs to be done?
- Why is it needed and why am I delegating?
- Who will do it and who has what responsibilities?
- When has it to be completed by?
- Where will the delegate obtain the necessary resources?
- How will the task be monitored?
Define the task in terms of the outcome and the timeline. Be clear on the:
- Result – precise results for an agreeable judgment at the end (objective/ outcome)
- Deadline – agree a specific date
- Resources – as needed by the task
- Reason – why the task needs to be done and why the incumbent was chosen
Throughout the task, checkpoints at specific stages are required. Use checkpoints:
- Before committing significant expenditure/ resources
- Before involving other (outside) people
- At regular stages so that mistakes can be rectified early
- Before any major change/ decision has to be made
Process: During the Delegation
- Stand back – don’t dictate how the task should be done
- Help avoid re-inventing the wheel – guide and advise
- Monitor & review – conduct periodic checks on 2 things: results and standard of the result (effectiveness); and methods (efficiency)
- Authorise further progress
- Question & coach
- Intervene by questions – if a problem is spotted by the delegate is still oblivious to it after some time. Intervene by questions in rising urgency as:
- Can we talk about the situation in ___?
- What is happening in ___? What will happen if this continues?
- Do you think we might have a problem developing in ___?
- I think we have a problem developing in ___?
- We definitely have a problem in ___?
- Stop!
Process: After the Delegation
- Assessment – perform a formal assessment of the result by looking at the effectiveness & efficiency
- Evaluation – ask what difference it has made to the goals & objectives of the team, department, or the organisation
- Reward – monetary, appreciation & gratitude, meals-out, praise, token, time-off, etc.
- Rebuke in private (if required) – criticise the action; not the person. Use facts rather than opinions. Always try to “catch them doing something right” instead of “doing something wrong”
- Perform a SWOT analysis on the delegation to see what can be improve the next time
Kolb Learning Cycle
2 types of learning from experience
- Learning so as to cope
- Learning so as to improve
The second is invaluable and is useful in continuous improvement. This is described as:
Learning Styles According to Honey & Mumford
Different people embrace different amounts of each style:
- Activists – involves in the here and now. Rather than stand back & observe, they dive in and play. May ignore rules and tend to act first and think later. Prefers the limelight
- Reflectors – prefers to stand back and mull over things. Avoid limelight, are cautious, preferring to listen and learn before contributing. Are meticulous, avoid taking lead and rarely jump to conclusion
- Theorists – enjoys logical theories. Will produce elegant models, testing assumptions and logic. Dislikes subjectivity or lack of structure but enjoys policies, procedures, and intellectual rigours
- Pragmatists – wants to learn from the experts, prove it in practice and are down-to-earth. Avoids things with no immediate application or outcome
For example, to teach to use a new piece of machinery, different learning style requires different treatment.
| Theorists | Give them the manual |
| Reflectors | Discuss the manual with them carefully |
| Pragmatists | Demonstrate how to use it |
| Theorists/ Reflectors | Ask them questions about it |
| Activists/ Pragmatists | Let them “play” with it |
Douglas McGregor’s Theories X and Y
Theory X people:
- Are lazy, dislike work, will avoid it if possible
- Have to be coerced, directed, threatened and given incentives
- Avoid responsibility, have little ambition and desire stability
- Are indifferent to organisational needs
Theory Y people:
- Find work natural, are self-motivated and self-controlled
- Given satisfactory conditions, find satisfaction in work and enjoy achieving results
- Learn to accept, and even seek, responsibility
- Can contribute a lot more and have talents that are under-utilised
The SMART Way of Writing Objectives
| Specific | Specify the task & standard |
| Measurable | Result should be measurable |
| Agreed | Not imposed |
| Realistic | Can be done within available time & resources |
| Timed | Deadlines for reviews, feedback, and completion specified |
Twelve Rules of Thumb
- Spot opportunities – to coach and delegate
- Total understanding of expectations – delegated outcome, imposed limits, delegated authority
- Complete tasks – not bits of it
- Involve and inform – seeing I-to-I at the distant goal
- Let them do it – resist interfering
- Use for motivation – delegate task to one who complains most about the problem
- Tolerate mistakes, but prevent disasters – “anyone who made no mistakes never did anything”
- Praise in public; reprimand in private
- Display recognition by saying “thank you”
- Respect them as people – people have unexpected talents
- Complete the Kolb cycle – learn and plan to improve
- Learn theory Y – share work and authority with subordinate
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