The Manager - Edition 35 - from Rob Lambert
Cultivated Management Newsletter
Hi,
I hope you've had a great weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead.
It's been SO hot here in the UK that the pavements are literally melting. I write this on a Sunday afternoon as my sons play football in the garden. Even they are complaining about the heat (and they are normally resistant to everything) and the garden itself resembles a dusty scorched patch of land. But hey, at least I get to eat icecream everyday without feeling guilty.
Identifying Talent
Your job as a manager is to identify talented people. Not talented teams. But talented people. Individuals. As a manager it's your job to identify talent.
As Felix Dennis states in his book "How to get rich" (affiliate link):
"You must identify talent. Then you must move heaven and earth to hire it. You must nurture it, reward it properly and protect it from being poached. If necessary, dream up a new project. Better still, get the talent to dream it up."
I love that. Dream up a new project. I've done this many times. And it may seem madness to dream up work, but the right dreamed up project for high performing people, can open up revenue streams or productivity gains you may have never seen before.
When you hire the right people you have an easier time as a manager. When you hire the wrong people you'll spend your day encouraging them to do better - and it might not work - and it's also not where you should be spending your time - you should be working with your high performers.
A manager's job is to make problems super compelling that talented people jump up and down with excitement to help you solve them.
Once you hire your people - try and keep them :)
Until next time
Rob
Stuff To Click On :
1 - Tim Berners Lee - inventor of the internet - on being devastated with how it's now being used and owned. Good read.
2 - "It turns out that organizations and systems are more reliable, more efficient and more professional when they’re operated on principles that are actually true." - From Seth Godin - Seen this myself. Execs who stand up and spout values about people being the most important thing, and flow, and customers and yada yada yada - then go back to their spreadsheets and operate based on little but cost and command & control.
3 - For your business to be successful you need to work on your values.
4 - Why problem solving requires systems thinking.
5 - How to raise children who want to read. Interesting read for my parent readers.
6 - Do quarterly goals create more problems than they solve? I think so.
7 - I don't see this being different between creatives and non-creatives - incentives versus meaning.
8 - Open offices might not be the collaborative spaces many really think they are.
9 - Three strategies for transitioning someone to a leadership role. Good ideas.
Thanks for reading this week's edition of The Manager.
Thanks
Rob..