Personal note from me

Hi all,

Slight change to usual, a personal note from me.

I’m heading off on holiday, you’ll next hear from me in September.

It’s been a pleasure to write for each of you over the year, both clients who are subscribers and other interested readers.  You would have gathered that effective organisations and leadership are not mysterious concepts shrouded in the world of psychology and charisma, instead they are like bridges – you can design and build them any way you want, but if you want it to carry the traffic successfully from one side to the other, there are some basics you are going to need to pay attention to. Read more…

The Frontline Manager

Last week we discussed the specific role of the Team Leader, and how this is not a level of management.  This time we will look specifically at the first level of management, the Frontline Manager.

This role is often known simply as ‘Manager’, as in ‘Sales Manager’ or ‘Call Centre Manager’.  Some organisations, however, add to the fun by giving this role the title of Team Leader, Supervisor or Coordinator.  I have seen this done for a range of reasons, with the most insidious being due to having too may layers of management in the first place, so we simply run out of titles.

Whatever we call it, the Frontline Manager Read more…

The Team Leader

The role of the Team Leader can be crucial to making the day run well and keeping the show on the road.  It’s also a potential source of confusion, frustration and can actually be an inhibitor to delivery if it’s not understood.

Team Leaders can also be known as Supervisors, Seniors and Coordinators.  Some organisations use this title for their first layer of management also, which can add to the fun.  So here’s how we distinguish between the Team Leader and the Manager: Read more…

The right spot for personality tests

When personality tests and cultural surveys come up with clients, they often say a little apologetically “I know you don’t think much of these, but…”. I feel bad when I hear this, because I don’t automatically think they are bad.

Far from it.

I rate things such as Myers-Briggs, the various LSI, OCI, CSI permutations, Facet 5 and all various  letters, spiderwebs and colours as great tools for  raising the performance of teams that already know what they’re doing. Read more…

You don’t need a reporting relationship to get things done

Organisations often need a watchdog role.  I know we shouldn’t call it that, we should at least say ‘ensure quality’ or ‘alignment’.  But what we are trying to achieve is to make sure that a group of people provide the services or do the work as required.

One particular role comes to mind where this function appears – Manager of Strategy.   This role is often expected to ensure that plans and outputs across the business align with the agreed organisational strategy. Read more…

Hard feedback? Time to care

Managing can be a schizophrenic job  – you need to set clear expectations for your people, and if they are unable to reach these expectations after due attempts to help them, you need to remove them from the role.  But at the same time, if you need to remove someone from the role, the person who has failed in helping them reach those same expectations is….you!

In other words, if you do your job right, you might have to sack someone.  And if you do your job right, you might not have to sack someone. Read more…

Stop the battles: Using authorities to set up cross-functional work

There is a way to create a culture of working together and stopping cross-functional work being the bane of your people’s working life, and it does not start with sending everyone away to learn how to handle conflict, find out their personality type or get 360 feedback.

Instead, it involves addressing the issue at its source by managers clarifying what they are each accountable for, confirming with their cross-over manager, then setting up role relationships for their people by integrating accountabilities and authorities.

Elliott Jaques provides  seven different types of authority to match with accountability Read more…

Connect what to who (not how)

Tom Foster writes Management Skills Blog, one of the best going around on organisations and management.  I always urge my clients to sign up, please do yourself a favour and do the same.

One of my favourite points of Tom’s is  “it’s not about how, it’s about who“.    This simple phrase goes to the heart of a change in thinking managers at all levels can apply if they want to provide better value-adding leadership to their people.

A manager who is spending their time thinking about how their people need to do something is not actually doing their full job.   This is for a simple reason – managers are paid to exercise their judgement on what needs to be done in their area to fulfill the needs of the organisation, then decide who is going to do it.

An example Read more…

The simple step to improving cross-functional relationships

Something actually quite strange, but common, are Finance areas taking ownership of profitability for an organisation.  You will hear comments like “March should be a big month, which will make Jim (CFO) happy”, and you’ll hear Jim saying things like “my money” and “that’s good for my bottom line”.

We see the exact same thing when HR departments take ownership of culture or employee engagement.

This comes from a good place, from Read more…

Why Mick Malthouse is having fun

I think Mick Malthouse is having fun.  Mick is the coach of  Carlton, a team in the Australian Football League which is the top competition in the land.  He took on the job this season and I think overall he is having a good time due to two structural reasons that are useful for us to pay attention to.

The first is clarity of accountability.  I doubt Mick has Read more…