The Manager - Edition 64 - Effective Management means you're mean - By Rob Lambert
Welcome to the Cultivated Management Newsletter
Hi,
I hope you've had a cracking weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead.
It's been the usual hectic life here but it's all good - I cannot complain.
I'm just putting the finishing touches to the Cultivated Management Online Course which I hope to release very soon. And yep - I'm still writing the squirrel book :)
Rob..
Effective = Mean
I remember a few years back I took a trip to our San Francisco office to build relationships and get to know some of the challenges faced by being in a remote office.
Upon arriving I saw a few familiar faces and we exchanged pleasantries, but the reality was - I didn't know many people in the office, so I had some work to do.
However, most people scuttled off and tried their hardest to ignore me.
As a Vice President in HR I was surprised to find so many people actively avoiding talking to me. It was weird. I couldn’t understand what I’d done. I kind of expected them to be chewing my ear off with complaints and challenges and opportunities.
Scared of me
On the second day I went for lunch with one of the sales people. Over a posh San Fran lunch they mentioned the reason people were avoiding me was because they were scared of me!
They had heard how I ran a tight ship, set high standards and got great business results. They therefore assumed I was a tyrant.
I was staggered. Me?
For those that have met me - I get described as the Nice Guy. I am. So this took me as a surprise.
I was feared!
I’ll be honest a little bit of me liked this. I’d never been imposing or scary and I think I liked this. But it wasn’t me - that’s not who I am. I am friendly.
Isn’t it funny how so many people assume effective business results means the manager is a tyrant? I see it so often.
The Lesson
The lesson I learned is simple.
Many people assume that effective managers are tyrants.
This is wrong. You can change this perception. You can be friendly, caring and set high standards. They are not opposed to each other. Being effective does not mean you're being mean. Being mean does not mean you're being effective.
The Cultivated Management approach does not rely on shouting, dictation or mean behaviours - far from it.
Being effective does not have to be at the expense of being liked.
By setting high standard, treating people like people and delivering business results you will be described by some as a tyrant, corporate, boring, demanding, outstanding, a natural leader, scary, professional and everything else in between.
So how do you get it right?
There is little you can do about what people call you. What you can do is simply build your character and be you. It won't take people long to see the real you.
Aim to create the sort of workplace YOU would want to work in. And those that share those values will flock to you.
Go forth.
Be professional and deliver business results - let other people stick a label on you.
Rob..
Cool Stuff To Click On
1 - Some good ideas about how to be better managers, 7 of them in fact - I like most of the points in this. Worth a good read.
2 - I always wonder how many people in the organisation know about some of these massive mess-ups at Facebook? How many managers knew about this and did nothing about it, or couldn't do anything about it (at least they thought they couldn't)? Members username and password stored in clear text....really? We're still doing this?
3 - I like this - how to read more. Ties in with this week's book of the week - and my own goal to reduce my tech usage.
4 - I found this article about MySpace losing lots of users data in a migration really interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, years of history and work and updates have gone missing. This is tragic in itself - all that creativity lost. Secondly, the comment "How do you archive an interactive, ever-changing space?" - many companies do it. Technically I don't suspect it would be too tough - it's whether they had the right tests, checks and balances in place - and were working under the right management and leadership support. Thirdly, it made me realise that yes, if I lost my backups, there would literally be a massive gap in my history. How sad. No printouts, paintings, photos, journals, life.......so I'm doing something about it. Regular photo books, back to paper and pen and more analogue creative memories for me and my family to look back on. Compelling stuff.
5 - Like a boss - Three typical management activities that get poor results and three that get good results. Inclined to agree. I love the first one that doesn't work - team building retreats - couldn't agree more - it's why I refuse to do them for companies - they simply don't work.
6 - The power of paper. Back to basics.
7 - Heartbreaking but truthful post that the cause of mental illness are still unknown. We cannot say with certainty what causes anyones mental illness. I don't talk about it much but I had a horrible year of feeling rock bottom with depression and anxiety. I got through the worst of it and have to be really really careful with my food, drink and work life to stay more on the highs than the lows. Until we truly understand what causes the many mental illnesses and what cures them - they will remain a challenge for so many people.
8 - I saw this myself recently. A company gathering so much data about it's people that it's requiring even more complex data analysis and modelling tools. Seth Godin sums it up nicely - far better than I did with a client of mine. "Most problems don’t require more data. They require more insight, more innovation and better eyes." The company already knew what they needed to do.
Book Of The Week
This week's book of the week is Digital Minimalism, another book by Cal Newport who I featured last week too.
I really enjoyed this book. It's not the most high paced book to read but the subject is close to my heart - the movement to only use tech for what it's good at amplifying and not to fall down the rabbit hole of surfing and social media. I'm trying hard to reclaim my creativity and get big work done - so much harder when connected to the web so much.
Really clear book with plenty of ideas on how to break any tech addiction you might have, and how to get big work done.
Good book if you're wondering whether you're using tech too much.
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.
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Thanks
Rob..