- Author:: [[Michael Mayberry]]
- Full Title:: Managing Humans
- Category:: [[books]]
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- Pure delegators are slowly becoming irrelevant to their organizations. The folks who work for pure delegators donât rely on them for their work because they know they canât depend on them for action. This slowly pushes your manager out of the loop and, consequently, his information about what is going on in his organization becomes stale
- Managers who donât have a plan to talk to everyone on their team regularly are deluded
- Do you have a one-on-one?
Do you have a team meeting?
Do you have status reports?
Can you say no to your boss?
Can you explain the strategy of the company to a stranger?
Can you explain the current state of business?
Does the guy/gal in charge regularly stand up in front of everyone and tell you what he/she is thinking? Are you buying it?
Do you know what you want to do next? Does your boss?
Do you have time to be strategic?
Are you actively killing the Grapevine?
- I have a standing agenda item for all team meetings that reads âgossip, rumors, and lies,â and when we hit that agenda item, itâs a chance for everyone on the team to figure out what is the truth and what is a lie.
- In the absence of information, people make shit up
- Status does have a bigger role in a team meeting
- the Grapevine is a powerful beast, and a team meeting is a chance to kill messages it transmits
- A growing group needs to continually invest in new ways to figure out what it is collectively thinking so anyone anywhere can answer the question, âWhat the hell is going on
- Where am I? and What the hell is going on?
- The presence of rigid, e-mail-based status reports comes down to control, a lack of imagination, and a lack of trust in the organization.
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- Your job in a one-on-one is to give the smallest voice a chance to be heard, and IÂ start with a question: âHow are you?â
- A Disaster is the end result of poor management. When your employee believes totally losing their shit is a productive strategy, itâs because they believe itâs the only option left for making anything change.
- Your failure to heed your Twinge is a management failure
- until they prove they canât synthesize well, you assume they can.
- the definition of a successful meeting is that when the meeting is done, it need never occur again.
- The agenda answers the question everyone is wondering as they sit down: how do I get out of this meeting so I can actually work?
- If theyâre doing anything except listening, they arenât listening. There are lots of exits from a meeting that look nothing like a door.
- Each time an unheeded Twinge story jumps from one person to the next, a lie is being propagated throughout the organization. And if the story started in your group, itâs your fault this misinformation is running amok
- As a manager, when the story doesnât quite feel right, you demand specifics. You ask for the details of the story to prove that itâs true. If the story canât stand up to the first three questions that pop into your mind, then thereâs an issue.
- When the Vent begins, you might confuse this for a conversation. Itâs not. Itâs a mental release valve, and your job is to listen for as long as it takes. Donât problem solve. Donât redirect. Donât comfort. Yet. Your employee is doing mental house cleaning, and interrupting this cleaning is missing the point. They donât want a solution; they want to be heard
- Give it 30 minutes, at least
- for any story youâre hearing, youâre getting the Âversion that supports their chosen version of reality
- All active participants in a meeting can instinctively sense progress, and when progress isnât being made, they get cranky and start looking for the exit. A refereeâs job is to shape the meeting to meet the requirements of the agenda and the expectations of the participants
- the core difference between a conversation and a meeting is that it needs rules so people know when to talk.
- As a manager, think of your day as one full of stories. All day, youâre hearing stories from different people about the different arcs that are being played out in the hallways and conference rooms. As these stories arrive, there is one question you need to always be asking: do you believe this story
- this story is incomplete, and youâre OK with that
- There is a fine line with the mandate. It is just as easy to convey, âShut up and get moving,â as it is, âThis is the move and Iâm the guy you can blame if itâs a bad call.â Your job as a manager is to move the team forward without hurting morale.
- Always do it:
- paying attention is best done in a one-on-one with the people you manage
- A meeting has two critical components: an agenda and a referee
- Hold a one-on-one the same time each week:
- The content is merely a delivery vehicle for the mood, and the mood sets your agenda