Fulton - Common sense management: quick wisdom for good managers

Copyright 2009, 1995, 1988 by Roger Fulton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except brief excerpts for the purpose of review, without written permission of the publisher.

Ten Speed Press
PO Box 7123
Berkeley, California 94707
www.tenspeed.com

Distributed in Australia by Simon and Schuster Australia, in Canada by Ten Speed Press Canada, in New Zealand by Southern Publishers Group, in South Africa by Real Books, and in the United Kingdom and Europe by Publishers Group UK.

Portions of this book were previously published in Common Sense Supervision (Ten Speed Press, 1988) and Common Sense Leadership (Ten Speed Press, 1995)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fulton, Roger.
Common sense management: quick wisdom for good managers / Roger Fulton.
p. cm.
Summary: A motivational book for supervisors and managers, featuring practical advice on getting the most from employeesProvided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-0-307-78566-4
1. Supervision of employees. 2. Management. I. Title.
HF5549.12.F85 2009
658.302dc22
2008043587

v3.1

Welcome!

Thank you for selecting this book. Ive designed it with your future success in mind.

In it, you will find very practical tips on how to be a successful supervisor and manager. And once you master those two categories, youll find tips on how to be a successful leader as well.

But lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. There are some basic ideas and concepts you will need to embrace before we get started.

This book is about your success in the real business world and your involvement in it. No matter what industry you have chosen, profit/nonprofit, manufacturing, or service, this world is real.

You are no longer in that safe school environment. In the business world, you are judged on your ability to get things done. Your successes and your failures are your grading system and the stakes are high. Success leads to promotions and higher pay and benefits. Failure sends you to the unemployment line, and you must start all over again with one strike against you.

So if you value driving a good car, living in a nice place, and having the respect of all who work with you, you will want to pay attention to the ideas, tips, and rules presented in this book.

In general, if you want to be successful in your chosen industry, then you must follow the general rules of that industry. In most cases, those rules are common sense.

If you work around gasoline, then dont smoke. If you work near deep water, you might want to invest in swimming lessons and a life jacket. If you work with people, you might want to learn how to get along with them.

In this book, Ill give you rules, tips, and guidelines for being a successful supervisor, manager, and leader in any industry. Its all designed so that you dont accidentally blow yourself up, you dont drown in your efforts to succeed, and you learn how to get along with people.

Business is about people. They come in the form of customers, suppliers, coworkers, subordinates, and bosses. And how you interact with all of those people will determine your own success.

Keep in mind that those people, at all levels, are the key to the success of any business. Without people, there is no business, and if there is no business, there is no work for you as a result.

Throughout this book, please remember that people are the key to your success or failure as a supervisor, manager, or leader.

Take a deep breath, contemplate your future briefly, and read on to get started on the road to the success of your own career.

The future belongs to those who dare.

Anonymous

Once you have proven yourself as a good and dedicated employee, you can expect to be promoted to a supervisory position. There you will not only be responsible for your own performance but also for the performance of other employees.

That promotion will make you a part of the management team. This team consists of you, your boss, your bosss boss, and so on, up the organizational ladder. And you will all have one major goal: to get the job done correctly and on time, whatever that job is in your organization.

In the following paragraphs, we will look at what each stage means and how you fit into the various categories of management responsibilities. The explanations relate directly to the three parts of this book.

Supervision: Overseeing the work of other people. That means making sure that they do their work and meet the goals and deadlines as expected.

Management: Bringing people and things together to be sure that the job gets done on time. It requires getting people, equipment, and parts to the right place at the right time so it all comes together as a final and complete package.

Leadership: Having the vision to look ahead and know where you and your unit are headed in the future and getting everyone on board to help you all get there. (Hint: to be a successful leader, you must also be a successful supervisor and manager.)

Lets review the job skills required of supervisors, managers, and leaders and how they interact. The supervisor oversees the work of people. The manager brings people and things together. And the leader has the vision to put it all together and take the group where it needs to go. These three categories all interact and build on one another, regardless of the job title.

Leaders cant get anything done without peopleand that means motivated people with excellent supervision and management skills. And you can reverse it and say that supervisors and managers cant get anything done unless they have leaders to show them the way and give them the necessary equipment and resources to get the job done.

So lets make it clear that you will need to learn all of the skills presented in this book to be a good supervisor, a good manager, and a good leader. Put them all together and you will succeed within your organization. Its all very simple once you know the rules to follow and the problems to avoid. And this book will help you to do just that.

Best wishes for a long and successful career in your chosen industry, no matter how high up the ladder you choose to go.

Roger Fulton

Once you have proven yourself as a reliable, dependable, and very capable worker, your employer will think that you are an excellent role model for others in the organization. Then he will want to promote you from basic worker to overseeing the work of some small group of other workers. In essence, you will become a supervisor of others and their work. That small promotion will come with a pay raise and added responsibilities.

Supervising the work activities of other people can be a rewarding and satisfying experience. It can give you the opportunity to coordinate the activities of several people, or several groups of people, and to ultimately see the fruits of their efforts turn into a fully developed final productone that no single person could produce alone.