After understanding the project and choosing the best staff to achieve success, we now move to the important initial meeting with staff.  This meeting, if handled well, will dramatically increase your odds of having a successful project.

While it’s easy to say, “A project is only as successful as the people behind it,” it also requires time and attention to get the process of selecting the team right.  Finding the right balance between technical skills, social skills, and interpersonal fit are all important considerations.  Selecting the best team for a project is the subject of this week’s episode

Managing a project is a complex process influenced by a range of factors that can make it challenging, both on a personal and an organizational level.  We’ll look at managing and overseeing a project in this episode beginning with defining the problem.  In future episodes we’ll examine setting up a project team, monitoring team progress, making course corrections as a project progresses, ongoing evaluation of team management and the manager’s role before, during, and after the project.

The ability to make decisions Is one of a manager’s most important skills.  Making a good decision involves having a clear focus on your priorities and then choosing between two or more options.  Doing it well shows business acumen, confidence, leadership and, sometimes, even courage.  Doing it poorly creates doubt in the minds of your management, as well as your staff, about your leadership skills and abilities. 

Whether you’re a new, or experienced, manager you’ll face problems at work.  The way that you approach solving them will prove to be an important aspect of your success.  In this week's episode of Management Mastery, we’ll discuss a good process to follow.

As a manager you’re constantly being pulled away from your strategic objectives by everyday tasks that may be important, but aren’t helping you to achieve your primary objectives.  As the manager, you should continuously seek ways you can maximize your group’s overall performance.  In this podcast we’ll discuss how to keep your focus on productivity while, at the same time, managing key relationships and caring for staff.

Most of us believe that we are good listeners.  Research has shown that’s not true.  Listening is demanding both cognitively and emotionally.  It takes focused attention and effort to do it well.  We’ll discuss mistakes that manager’s make and how to avoid them in this episode.

The damage that a bad boss can inflict upon their staff and their organization is substantial.  Multiple studies have found that somewhere between 30-50% of both managers and workers leave their jobs because of a bad boss and a negative work culture.  We’ll look at how to avoid being a bad boss in this episode

Every manager needs the ability to persuade internal and external constituencies to reach consensus to move issues forward.  Sometimes it’s a major issue that needs to be decided on, like an issue with a client, or a change of direction, and other times it’ll be smaller, day-to-day operating decisions, such as moving a product out faster.  As the manager, you’ll be called upon to use your skills of persuasion often: For both internal and external issues.  Persuasion is the focus of this episode.

In the last episode we discussed the importance of understanding your leadership style and how it’ll be important to your success.  Your style was developed over a series of events during your lifetime.  In this episode we’ll discuss how you can use your leadership style to be a more effective leader.