03/11/2024

Business Way

Guiding Your Business Towards Success

Leadership Lessons: The Next Batch

Leadership Lessons: The Next Batch

Getting people started in a new situation – “What’s the least they need to know to get started?” Teach them just enough to gain experience safely (“safe” means health, career, and employer financial risk) and let them build experience on the job.

“Why Would I Want to Do That?” – A good question that seeks more information while implying there may be a good reason behind the request, you just do not see it yet. This also works well with, “Help me understand why…” for the same reason.

“When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” Always begin a journey or project with the end result clearly in mind specifying the requirements of quality, quantity, and time (QQT). Otherwise you’ll never get to it.

Define expectations (QQT) for employees but let them decide the method. – Give employees as much independence as possible within the boundaries of your clear expectation. This improves their morale which leads to greater productivity and they may discover better ways of doing things.

Successful negotiations are about each side’s satisfaction with the results. Look for the interests behind the position. “The food must be here by 5:00pm” is a position. The reason why it must be here by then is an interest.

  • “It must be here by then because it will allow us to put it into the refrigerator for 2 hours to cool before the party starts at 7:00.” This gives you a negotiating opportunity to say, “If we deliver it cold, can we get it there by 6:30 instead?”

Vendors and suppliers are your business partners – treat each other as such. “How can we help each other be successful?” is a good question to ask periodically.

A Team Code of Conduct is a useful tool for several reasons:

  • It allows the team members to define mutual expectations
  • It helps new people assimilate quickly
  • It provides a method of behavioral self-regulation
  • It gives management another performance tool

If “carry your share of the load” is one of the principles of the Code of Conduct, a manager can ask a late employee as he points to the Code of Conduct, “How does your getting here late help you carry your share of the work load?”

This is easier than direct confrontation because an employee may be more willing to take on the boss than to lose status among his peers.

The method of recovery tells you more about someone’s character than their mistake. Everyone makes mistakes but the way they recover is a very important way to see their character. Do they admit it, accept blame, and work hard to fix it or do they look to shift blame to everyone else?

“Post mortem” planning can help avoid a lot of future problems. A simple way to identify and deal with potential project problems is to have a post mortem before it begins! Tell your team to envision today’s most challenging organizational issues about three years into the future and write a post-mortem detailing the yet-to-begin project’s demise due to those issues.

  • “Our inability to make a decision about expenses above a $500 ceiling (a current organizational policy that could cause problems) prevented us from taking advantage of key pricing discounts or to get critical items purchased and delivered in a timely manner.”
  • “Our tendency to micromanage kept us from making timely decisions and chased away many talented people because it seemed that no one in upper management trusted their decisions.”

Then take your list of current issues that could cause problems to the executive most responsible for the success of the project and ask for their help in removing them.