Our New Year’s Message: 2011

Clients indicate that things are better than has been portrayed in the popular press. They report positive changes in the business climate. If not wholly upbeat, people are more active and less hesitant in committing to assertive plans and actions. Hiring has increased along with reported customer sales activities. There is a greater understanding of the international requirements and the inevitability and necessity of being competitive in today’s and tomorrow’s market.

Significant change has become the byword of Agile plans clients are addressing. This means, employing tactical actions that, when well monitored, may morph into strategic directions. Swift, businesslike decisions are being made always with an eye toward the long-term consequences of plans. That means employing technology to monitor initiatives on a moment-to-moment basis. Monthly reporting is bolstered or supplanted by daily information gathering and aggressive conclusion making. This adds to the intensity and also a materially better sense of control over what until now were seen as unpredictable situations. The status quo has given way to a greater sense of exploration, planning and well measured experimentation.

Effective, ongoing, competent management is the order of the day. It’s more important than ever as a competitive tool driving and maintaining success. The fact that most managers don’t manage is not new data. What is new is the demand by their reports to know just how they are doing and how they can do it better. Beyond their rugged good looks, management’s job is a consistent focus of energy toward well-defined yet flexible outcomes. It’s about effort, commitment and identifying with your people’s talents and ambitions. The opposite of that, an uninvolved, nearly incompetent, name-only “manager” actively prohibits people’s growth, lessening the opportunity to develop their skills and talents. Not only are they not earning their pay, they are not living up to their responsibilities, and their people pay the freight. In times of significant challenge and change, managers who do not adjust or add value to their people need to be moved aside for those who do.

• Personal Effectiveness: Model what you expect. Promote energy, don’t sap it.
• Make time for Associates: See their development as strategic to the business.
• Competent performance begins with clear, concise goals.
• Take ownership of your function and encourage others to do so also.
• Eliminate the excess: Simplify, Specify, Clarify.
• Work at your level, not beneath it. If you’re doing their job, they cannot grow and develop.
• Allow people to make decisions related to their job.
• Don’t be more important than the work or the people: Get over yourself!
• Delegate, don’t abdicate: Be a coach for their actions and treat it as a developmental tool.
• Have a bit of fun.
• Reject their ideas without causing disruption: If you shut down their brain, what’s left is only a pair of hands.