Do Business Well

The variety of these conflicts is enormous. They can be about almost anything and can involve almost anyone you meet, work, play or live with. Resolving them can make considerable demands upon your time and patience. Given all of this, you shouldn’t be too surprised to find that there isn’t a single ‘right’ way of coping with or managing all of these conflicts. You have to make a choice; a choice from a number of ways by which you can manage your conflict. But these ways of conflict management do have a common objective. That is that they enable you either:

• to resolve your conflict, or
• to limit its effects or consequences.

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First, their feedback was constant. They varied the frequency according to the preferences or the needs of the individual employee. But whether the meetings happened for twenty minutes every month or for an hour every quarter, these performance feedback meetings were, nonetheless, a constant part of their interaction with each employee throughoutthe year. How much of a time commitment did this represent? According to the managers in Gallup’s study, the total time spent discussing each employee’s style and performance was roughly four hours per employee per year. And as one front-line supervisor said, “If you can’t spend four hours a year with each of your people, then you’ve either got too many people, or you shouldn’t be a manager.” Continue Reading »

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Each manager’s routine was different, reflecting his or her unique style. Nonetheless, hidden within this diversity we found four characteristics common to the “performance management” routines of great managers.

First, the routine is simple. Great managers dislike the complexity of most company-sponsored performance appraisal schemes. They don’t want to waste their time trying to decipher the alien terms and to fill out bureaucratic forms. Instead they prefer a simple format that allows them to concentrate on the truly difficult work: what to say to each employee and how to say it. Continue Reading »

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B. If your manager forces you to do things her way . . . she is probably focusing on process too much. Pick your moment, perhaps during your performance planning meeting, and tell her that you want to define your role more by its outcomes than by its steps. Ask her which outcomes she would use to measure your success. As you discuss this, describe for her how your style, although different from hers, will still enable you to achieve the outcomes expected of you. Continue Reading »

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Who are your subordinates? Your co-workers of yesterday. They are likely to find your changed position an adjustment too. They may show approval and pride, or resentment and scepticism.

But whichever way you look at it, sound relationships with all your subordinates are essential if you are to get your new job done. They, in turn, are dependent on you to satisfy their needs and to help them grow.

Here are some strategies to build a winning team from the start:

Get to know your team

Get to know your team members, their strengths and their weaknesses. Spend time individually with the people who work for you. Ask them about their jobs. Get them to show you what they do. Find out what motivates them. Continue Reading »

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“This kind of thing is new to me,” writes a manager who has recently gone from being a professional employee to the head of her own department, “so I’m sort of feeling my way. What concerns me at the moment is establishing the right atmosphere and tone. I certainly don’t want to come across as a tyrant—I’ve run into one or two of those in my career. But I’ve also seen people who were too easy-going, too informal—and that particular style didn’t work very well either.

“Is there a fine line I should walk between the two? I want to get along well with people, but I also have to make sure that the work gets done efficiently and effectively. Any ideas on how I could go about doing both?” Continue Reading »

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