Pat Wellington - Effective People Management: Improve Performance, Delegate More Effectively, Handle Poor Performance and Manage Conflict

Note on the Ebook Edition

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This ebook published in 2011 by

Kogan Page Limited

120 Pentonville Road

London N1 9JN

UK

www.koganpage.com

Pat Wellington

E-ISBN 9780749462864

Contents

A good manager is good when people barely know he exists. Not so good when people obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despise him. LAO-TZU

The aim of this book is to show you how to get the best out of yourself and members of your team. As organizations become flatter, the concept of management is no longer the preserve of the selected elite the boss figure. Anyone, anywhere, in the organization can be asked to lead and manage projects or assignments. We all need to understand what it takes to keep others above or below us involved, committed, and energized to produce the desired results.

Management can be downright difficult. It doesnt just happen. Hoping others perform doesnt work. Why? Because we are all under pressure. Stress is commonplace in the organizational vocabulary. There never seems to be sufficient resources or time. To top it all, a managers objectives often appear to be in conflict. For example, how do you deliver the desired results and:

• inspire and motivate yet listen;
• decide and delegate;
• centralize business units with locally decentralized responsibilities;
• be decisive and yet encourage participation;
• get your work done and maintain a worklife balance;
• communicate bad news and show you care?

I have written this book for anyone who wants answers to the above and for those who must get the best through real motivational management and communication through others so that they are truly productive. A simple definition of management is : the achievement of results through other people . Because you cannot do everything yourself, it follows that you will stand or fall by the success of your team or your ability to work with others. As management guru Peter Drucker said, The basic task of management is to make people productive. This book explains how.

It will help anyone who wants to get the right balance between delivering desired results through other people and working with others and still successfully manage productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and financial measures, etc. You may need to work with a variety of different resources to make this possible but one factor is common: people.

I deliver training and coaching sessions internationally with managers at all organizational levels. Wherever I go Im always asked a variation of the same questions:

• What is it that makes an effective leader?
• What is the difference between leadership and management?
• Where do great managers get their power from? How can I tap into this and use it productively?
• How do you manage both up and down, and influence others effectively?
• I need to be thinking strategically. How do I create a mission and vision that people can relate to and find inspirational?
• Im taking over a strategic role and I need to delegate more of my workload. How is it best to do this?
• When recruiting new staff I want to ensure that I pick winners. How robust does the recruitment process need to be to give me the best chance of doing this?
• Okay, okay! I know we need to train and develop our staff, but budgets are really stretched right now. Apart from sending people on a training course, which takes people out of the workplace for several days, what other cost-effective options are there for their development?
• Performance management is obviously a key part of my role. What is the best way to monitor performance, and set standards for people to achieve?
• I often find that when a team is formed it can go through a rocky period and people can be at loggerheads with each other. As the leader of the team, how can I get people back on track and working more harmoniously together?
• During problem solving and quality improvement activities there is a need to get people to think more expansively, find new approaches, and be more creative. How can I get them to do this?
• Unfortunately I need to make redundancies. What should I do?
• Dealing with people problems is a challenge. Give me a range of approaches that I can use, according to the situation that I need to handle.

These questions, with their answers, have been used as the foundation stone for this book.

A final topic that always brings a glint to delegates eyes is when I say Fine, this is what it takes to manage others effectively, now lets think about your own career development. With this in mind I have included a chapter at the end of the book to give you some practical guidelines for your personal career aspirations.

The book starts by looking at big-picture considerations: leadership qualities that inspire people, management to engage, and motivation to energize them. It then moves on to your role as a manager and the importance of creating a learning environment. The second part of the book explores day-to-day management. This starts by looking at key activities in your working day undertaking tasks and projects, delegation, and attending and running meetings. It then moves on to performance management and the recognition and reward process. You will inevitably need to recruit new staff periodically, and there is a chapter dedicated to selecting and picking winners. Problems arise in any team, be these interpersonal or operational, and a chapter is dedicated to each of these issues. We are trading in difficult economic times, and tough decisions need to be made, including making people redundant. This topic is covered from various angles. And finally, to end on a more positive note, the last chapter looks at your own career management.

In planning and writing this book I have tried to keep in mind a vision of the potential reader. I see you as a busy line manager trying to get the best from your team, and requiring fast access to pragmatic information and proven experience. Possibly you will dip in and out of the book as you need to. You might access it from the index rather than from the list of contents. I imagine you will not have a great deal of time to spare and so I have given key information about a topic, followed by what I am calling snapshot ideas a range of options and ideas for you to select and try, plus case studies to see things in action.

So here we go. I hope you find this book an informative, practical guide that is useful in your everyday working activities.

Leadership is a serious meddling in other peoples lives. The purpose of leadership is to get somewhere. Leadership means getting people moving and heading for a positive future with vision. That means influencing people, by providing purpose, direction and motivation, while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization. In other words, organizations continually face the difficult task of developing and advocating a leadership style that reflects the organizations vision and helps managers achieve that vision. Doing this successfully is one thing; in this chapter we will also look at how to do this with competence and with ethics and a clear sense of social responsibility.