Book Review: Management Mess-Ups

What Not to Do

Sometimes it's fun to define things by their negative...if you're not quite sure what you DO want, at least you can start with what you DON'T want.

I have taken this approach myself with a high-level look at management practices.

The subject of today's book review is the crown jewel of this strategy: Management Mess-Ups - 57 Pitfalls You Can Avoid (and Stories of Those Who Didn't) by Mark Eppler.

This is a great read for growing managers. Eppler provides an exhaustive list of essential management practices and real-world illustrations in a format that is easy to read and understand.

The 57 Pitfalls in Management Mess-Ups are organized into 13 sections including categories such as: Leadership, Communication, Motivation, Managing Change, Personal Development and, finally, "The Big One". More on this at the end the post.

Examples of specific pitfalls included in the list:

• Believing leadership is power instead of influence.
• Not meeting routinely with customers.
• Believing people will keep planting seeds if they don't participate in the harvest.
• Failing to manage conflict constructively.

The Big One

Eppler concludes Management Mess-Ups with a pitfall that garners its own section titled "The Big One". This management and leadership mess-up definitely deserves its own section and is particularly relevant for readers of this blog:

Failure to practice in reality what you learn in theory.

Final Thoughts

There is one danger in sources that tell us what to avoid - we can become so focused on avoiding trouble that we lose our focus on what we should be doing. (See I Looked for the Dry Places for more on this.) Management Mess-Ups is not one of these. Every mess-up is clearly related to what you DO want to do.

I strongly recommend Management Mess-Ups for any growing manager. It's fun and you'll recognize yourself in at least one or two stories.

Happy Reading,

David M. Dye

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Do You Commit These 5 Management Mistakes?

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Mistakes are only natural - it's one way we learn. The key is to actually learn from our mistakes, to identify what happened and what we will do differently next time. With that in mind, let's look at five critical mistakes managers often make and how to correct them.

1) Expectations are unclear or nonexistent.

The first mistake most managers commit is failure to set clear expectations. If you're a frustrated manager, examine your internal expectations. Now go ask your staff what they believe the expectations to be. Is there a significant gap?

To remedy this mistake, take time as a team to create and go over expectations, put them in writing in an appropriate location (depending on the area of focus this might be in a policy handbook or simply in a project-related email), and encourage questions.

Once the team has discussed the expectations, check for understanding by asking team members to verbalize or explain the expectations back to you or another team member. This critical step will immediately help you and your team realize if there is a gap in understanding. For bonus points and to avoid mistake #2, ask team members why the expectation exists.

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2) Expectations are irrational or misunderstood.

If the team is able to articulate the expectations, but aren't acting on them, it's time to reexamine what is expected. Most of us have experience with an irrational policy. They are aggravating and despite our best intentions, sometimes we can create expectations that made sense in a team discussion, but which are self-defeating in reality. These tend to be ignored.

If the expectations are rational, ask team members why they believe the expectations exist. Often, the meaning behind policies is lost or circumstances change. An important part of management is ensuring that everyone understands the consequences of their actions and that these consequences are missional and productive.

3) Staff are not trained or equipped.

So you've got mutually clear, rational, and agreed upon expectations, but things still aren't working. Now what?

The third management mistake is failing to train and equip staff to meet their objectives. Sometimes people don't know what they don't know, so it's important to examine the processes and resources of under performing teams.

Ensure your people know how to do their job and that they have the resources to do it.

4) Expectations are not reinforced.

Last year you and your team agreed that equipment would be rotated every thirty days...or that reports would be submitted by the second Tuesday of every month.

But that was last year. Have you revisited the expectation? Has it every been mentioned since the time you talked about it? We all have an incredible amount of information competing for our attention.

Expectations that aren't revisited from time to time and in multiple different channels are unlikely to have a toe-hold in our day-to-day awareness. If need be, schedule yourself to revisit vital expectations every 30-45 days.

5) No accountability or celebration.

We take time to ensure expectations are rational, clearly understood, everyone is trained and equipped, and revisit them from time to time.

And then we ignore what actually happens.

Most of us have been in this situation. Transgressions are ignored and those doing things well...are also ignored. This is recipe for low morale and poor results.

To remedy this mistake, intentionally look for opportunities to acknowledge when the team fulfills their expectation and quickly and professionally address problems when they happen. Everyone wants to feel that what they do matters. Failing to acknowledge success or deal with problems sucks the life out of team members.

So there they are: Five management mistakes and how to avoid them. To restate in a positive form...

Effective Managers:

1. Ensure teams have clear and rational expectations.
2. Ensure staff are trained and equipped.
3. Regularly revisit and reinforce expectations.
4. Intentionally celebrate success and practice accountability.

I am available to help - if you would like to talk further, please contact me!

Take care,

David M. Dye

Know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog?

Please retweet, like, share, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Stop Leading in Circles!

Photo by Rogiro

Do any of these situations sound familiar?

• You deal with the same problem over and over.
• It's been a long time since you saw any real team progress toward results.
• You feel stuck.
• For a while now, when you talk with your support network, you just end up shrugging your shoulders in frustration.

If any of these resonate, I would encourage you to do just one thing:

Begin looking for a leader who has succeeded in doing what it is you are trying to do. When you find them, offer to buy them lunch, build a relationship, and learn from them.

I've worked with many emerging leaders who either try to do everything on their own, without advice or wisdom from others, or who exclusively get advice from people who are just as stuck as they are. It takes  humility to admit to ourselves and to someone else that we don't know how to do something.

But it's essential.

Effective leaders and managers consistently find mentors or coaches who are farther along the journey and who have demonstrated ability.

If you're stuck "leading in circles", get help! You have amazing resources at your fingertips (remember to look for demonstrated ability!):

• Your own leaders and managers.
• People in other departments / teams in your own organization - stay positive and solution-focused.
• People in your industry.
• People outside your industry with similar responsibilities.
• While you're looking, use other learning resources including books, articles, and blogs.
• Professional coaches. Whether face to face or online, look for demonstrated ability - not just opinions. 
• I am also available to help - let me know if you would like to talk! 

Wherever you go to learn, make the effort to break the circle. Remember Einstein's definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."

Good luck!

David M. Dye

If you know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog, please retweet, like, share, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

Subscribe today or join the discussion at: http://davidmdye.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @davidmdye
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmdye
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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Get Out of Your Way

Photo by Jeffrey Beall

Secrets. Of. The. Universe.

When I taught high school students, we often talked about "secrets of the universe" - those enduring, but not always well-known, principles of success. You can ignore them if you want, but they're still out there.

One such "secret of the universe" goes something like this:

Causes produce effects. When we focus on effects, rather than causes, we trip ourselves up.

Some examples of this principle include:

• You gain respect by being respectable, not by focusing on others giving you respect. (Cause: being respectable, Effect: respect)
• You become trusted by being trustworthy, not by focusing on wheedling secrets out of others. (Cause: being trustworthy, Effect: trust)
• You pass classes by truly learning the content, not by focusing on grades. (Cause: learning, Effect: grades
• You make friends by being a friend, not by focusing on how many friends you have. (Cause: being a friend, Effect: friends)
• You live by savoring life, not by focusing on being not-dead. (Cause: living, Effect: life)

Effective leaders and managers understand that real influence requires credibility and that real credibility is developed through authentic commitment to people, competence, and results.

Many leaders limit their effectiveness because they focus on the effects of leadership: achievement, influence, reputation, image, power, accomplishment, respect, security, etc.

However, all of these are effects. They are outcomes of an authentic focus on being a role model, sharing vision, building a team, encouraging others, and solving problems. Leaders cannot lead effectively while focused primarily on their own image.

In the short term, authentic leadership can feel risky...when faced with an opportunity to invest in their team or to immediately look good to others, many leaders take the path of immediate gratification. In the long run, however, when the problem is too big they won't be able to rally a skilled and committed team.

This is a basic life lesson, but one it is easy to forget in the middle of leadership and management challenges.

How do you maintain your focus on "causes" and not get caught up in "effects"?

For more on this topic:  It's Not About You

David M. Dye

If you know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog, please retweet, like, share, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

Subscribe today or join the discussion at: http://davidmdye.blogspot.com/
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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Effective...or "Right"?

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In my first years of teaching, I had a class of students who consistently came to class, were engaged, and worked to learn the subject matter, yet when it came time to display their knowledge, they struggled to do better than F or D level work. My team and I labored over our review sessions, making sure we were not missing any content. Nevertheless, the class as a whole did not improve. Concerned about my effectiveness as a teacher, I began experimenting with different instructional and review methods. With one of them, student performance improved overnight from Fs and Ds to Bs and a few As.

What had happened?
As it turned out, this group of students almost uniformly learned best through the act of guided writing than any other technique. The students did not know it themselves, and my team and I only learned it through experimentation. What I remember most about this incident was the response of another teacher. When I related my discovery to her, she indicated that she was covering the necessary material, her instructional methods were perfectly sound, and she didn't see a reason she should change. In her opinion the students should take responsibility for their own learning.

Of course, she was "right" - "right" in so far as yes, her instructional methods were good, and yes, students ultimately should take responsibility for their own learning. But what bothered me, and ultimately became a foundational element of my leadership and management, is that she was not effective.

Whether managing or leading, our goal is results - visions accomplished, people growing, or the world improving. In short, we want to be effective.

Many new leaders and managers get stuck because they cannot see past their own "rightness" and do the things that will help them be effective. Some examples:

"Why should I have to tell them again...I said it once." Yes, you did - 3 months ago. People have many priorities competing for their attention and important items often need multiple repetition in multiple forums.

"Why should I encourage / thank them...they're just doing their job." Yes, they are. Yet people generally like to feel appreciated and that they are more than just a part in a machine.

"Why should I hear opposing view points...I'm an expert in this subject and I've looked at all the options." Yes, you are and I'm sure you did a thorough analysis, but if you want your team to be committed to the idea, their voices need to be heard. Besides, you might be surprised by someone else's perspective.

Emerging managers and leaders wishing to be effective can often increase their influence by looking at areas where they have clung to being "right" and let it go in favor of being effective.

How do you view the difference between being effective or "right"?

David M. Dye

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Book Review: The Effective Executive

This week's book review is a classic: management guru Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive.

Don't be put off by the title - as Drucker makes very clear early in the work, his definition of "executive" includes almost anyone with management responsibilities in a knowledge work environment. This work is a distillation of some of the most important messages Drucker has to offer managers. For anyone unfamiliar with Peter Drucker's work, The Effective Executive is an excellent introduction.

The book succinctly summarizes the greatest challenges managers face - often things we are vaguely aware of, but haven't put a name to. Just knowing and being aware of these obstacles to effectiveness is valuable as they can quickly become a whirlpool of activity without any purpose.

Drucker provides a great selection of practical guidance on where effective managers put their energy and time, how they interact with people at every level of the organization, and how they perform their critical responsibilities. In fact, there are so many valuable bits of advice that it is impossible to incorporate all of them after one reading. This is a book that growing leaders and managers can return to at least once a year (if not more often). This is the book equivalent of spending the weekend with a wise and experienced grandparent.

For the price of a paperback, I highly recommend The Effective Executive to any knowledge worker, manager, or leader wanting to acquire practical wisdom on becoming more effective. This one will become a reference you return to time and again.

Happy Reading!

David M. Dye

Subscribe today or join the discussion at: http://davidmdye.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @davidmdye
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-dye/b/a08/82
****
David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.