Management Mastery

It is estimated that 30% to 50 % of any department staff are "introverts". They can be extremely talented members of your team, but can easily fade into the background and their potential contributions lost if not identified and handled correctly. In this episode, we talk about how to fully utilize the introverted members of your staff.

As manager, you’re the chief representative of your department – both inside and outside the company. In other words, you are the Chief Marketing Officer or CMO of your department. In this episode we will discuss with this means, why it’s important, and how successfully to market your department.

As a leader in the organization, you’re the Symbol of the Organization for your department and company in everything you do with people that you meet both inside and outside your company.  In this role, you may be called on to lead a team to represent the company for important external stakeholder meetings or presentations. We’ll discuss some of the challenges involved in being an effective company representative in this episode.

Hook: Every business operates within an internal and an external context. The internal context is made up of the business objectives and priorities of the organization, including how it wants to be perceived by its clients and the general public. The external context is made up of the legal, regulatory and competitive environments in which the business functions.

The purpose of policies and rules is to ensure that employees work in a way consistent with, and supportive of the business, as well as the regulatory and legal realities of the organization – that is, its context. When these rules and policies are not consistent with this context or when the context is not fully understood by the employees, it can have a negative, demoralizing effect on staff. The good manager ensures that staff are fully aware of, and understand, the business context, both internal and external, and how all the rules and policies are in support of that context. In this episode we explore how to ensure that this alignment of rules and context can be implemented and maintained. 

You don’t have to be the owner to act like the owner.  Acting like an owner means being fully accountable for production, commitments, responsibilities as well as building strong, positive relationships with staff.  But most of all, you need to be seen as the leader that people want to follow.  This episode will discussing Acting As An Owner by Showing Your Leadership

You don’t have to be the owner of the company to act like an owner.  Acting like an owner means taking responsibility of your role and function in the company as if you were the owner.  In this episode, we will explore what it means to be a symbol of the company as if your name were on the door.  In terms of representing your company, acting like an owner is not optional.  Depending on the situation, you will be seen as representing your company.  In this episode, we will discuss why that is and how you need to do it successfully. 

The best managers must both build a cohesive team AND motivate the individuals on the team.  If the manager supports people and their daily progress in meaningful ways, it improves not only the work lives of the individuals, but enhances the long-term performance of the department and company.

Often, departments within the same company will have a competitive relationship with one or more other departments within that company.  In the end, this can actually negatively impact a department in multiple ways.  In this episode we discuss some of the benefits to a manager of encouraging cooperation with other departments in their firm.

Setting goals is a critical part of being a successful manager.  By setting goals for both their department as well as individual staff members, the manager ensures that the department meets or exceeds its corporate objectives.  There are two types of goals successful managers set for staff –Productivity goals – that is, meeting the relevant production or service objectives set for the department and personal development goals – that is, goals for improving the skills and abilities of individual team members.  We’ll cover setting developmental goals in this episode.

Setting goals is a critical part of being a successful manager.  By setting goals for both their department as well as individual staff members, the manager ensures that the department meets or exceeds its corporate objectives.  There are two types of goals successful managers set for staff –Productivity goals – that is, meeting the relevant production or service objectives set for the department and Personal Development goals – that is goals for improving the skills and abilities of individual team members.  We will cover setting productivity goals in this episode.