Good morning it’s Blog time and I apologize I didn’t get the two out last week that I promised. Why? Well Jane, my wife of 56 years has gone through a successful surgery of the foot only to end up with an inability to stand or walk on it. As I said the surgery was successful we think it is an arterial issue, but enough about our issues, (hell everyone has issues so it isn’t a big deal just one more thing to add to old age conversations).
Today’s blog is going a bit backward and my first book entitled “How to be a BUM.” Translated into working terms, it means “learning to be the best manager/leader you can be from the bottom up.” As I have repeated many times, senior management has a clear and defined responsibility to an organization: to develop a strategic plan, its mission, vision, and value, then ensure it is carried out successfully. Of equal importance, management must maintain focus on that strategic plan.
So, what are the rest of us supposed to do, you know, managers/leaders and staff members? Where do we go from here, and how do we get there? The BUM Book is about helping you achieve agreed results and supporting the strategic plan from the bottom up.
I have had heated discussions with presidents and senior-level managers about the following statement. Still, I will stand by it based on my many years of experience working with companies of all kinds and descriptions, from the government to the private sector, the pharmaceutical to the automotive industries.
Senior management develops strategic plans and corporate focus; however, an organization’s staff (workforce) makes a company successful or causes it to fail. True responsibility falls upon the workforce (staff) and the leadership/ management team(s). Although this sounds like a relatively simple statement, the challenges ahead are anything but easy. It would be difficult to list all the risks, issues, and challenges as they will vary daily and from company to company.
To be a BUM, let’s start by discussing what should be done and how to do it if you want to become a “bottom-up manager,” which means meeting daily challenges and delivering agreed results without micro-managing or becoming paranoid.
Going deeper into developing strong leadership, let’s establish a few basic “guidelines” and how and when to use them. Following are what I call “leadership tools or guidelines,” statements of just plain facts of leadership and management that I have learned over sixty-five years of making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and learning how to survive and become a better leader.
As we go from chapter to chapter in the BUM Book, I hope it will help you recognize potential solutions to the many challenges you will face daily. There is no question about it; when you understand and learn what these tools are all about and how to use them daily, you can avert disasters, become a better leader, and improve the lives of those around you. Leadership/management is something you should take pride in performing well, realizing you are helping others develop and an organization meets its goals and objectives.
A wise man once said, “If you can’t go to bed on Sunday night and look forward to going to work on Monday morning, you have a problem and the wrong job.”
A few leadership tools and terms
- EGO – – Everyone has one; some are big, some small. However, believe me, you will need their egos working for you, not against you. Understanding, using, and not abusing egos is essential,
- NEGOTIATING – – You can negotiate anything if you remember to “negotiate from the situation and not position.” It is not always a “win-win.” It often must be a merger.
- RESULTS – – Everything we do has a result. However, the word “result” alone is inaccurate and open-ended, and performance results of anything must be “agreed results.”
- PERFORMANCE – – A very wise and successful lady (my mother) taught me at an early age, “Manage (lead) from performance, not personality.” I have followed that advice all my life; it works. No, you won’t like everyone, but you may still have to work with them and, in many cases, manage them.
- INVOLVEMENT GETS COMMITMENT – – The only way a person accepts ownership of the work required is to commit to it. People must be responsible and accountable for their work, which must never be taken away from them.
- MEASURABLE AND VERIFIABLE – – No one has a crystal ball, nor can you predict the future, so the question at large is, “How do you know it is being performed correctly or incorrectly, and when?” Work must be identified with performance measurability and verification to avoid micromanagement and ensure agreed results.
- PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSORS – – One of our all-time favorites. Yes, this terminology is expected in the scheduling process. However, we will use these two words differently to manage the day-to-day workload.
- IMPLEMENTATION – – This is often a forgotten word and process when identifying problems and solutions. The key is not just defining the reality of a situation and promising concepts for an answer; you must determine if and how it can be implemented (often the problem). People stop after solutions and ignore implementation.
OK, in our next blog I will talk about using the Task Planning Worksheet– –This will help identify and establish work tasks for which staff and project managers will become responsible, the main purposes of the form is, 1) To identify each person’s task be they project or departmental, and 2) a methodology for a leader / manager to both track work and support the task owner(s).
I look forward to seeing you on our next Blog
Cheers Gene and let me hear from you, lets build a dialogue.