The Manager - Edition 88 - One step at a time
THE MANAGER - BY ROB LAMBERT
Hi,
I hope you are doing well and staying safe.
As usual it is crazy here at Lambert Towers. The kids enthusiasm for home schooling is waning and my own ability to get things done is being tested daily. I've taken on a new project of returfing the lawn and there is plenty of client work to do still.
I've also been hard at work with a new project called Meditations on Management. It's a book that I hope will include a plethora (love that word) of management insights in a beautifully designed book. My goal is to make a book you actually want to flick through. There will be plenty of personal challenges and lots of ideas for you to implement in your world of work.
Don't believe the hype
If you read the business news often, or spend enough time on LinkedIn reading the Pulse feed, you may be lead to believe that there genuinely are plenty of overnight successes in business. Or you may feel inferior to many others in the business world who seem to achieve astonishing success easily.
Or that the only path to success is being a Type A personality who is awesome at everything.
It's nonsense.
The business press loves to tell a good "war" story. It loves "victories". It loves a good sports analogy. It likes to talk about people who "retaliate" or use their "anger" to achieve.
They essentially boil complicated and complex situations (and people) down in to bite sized chunks of epic-ness and inspiration. Someone wins. Someone loses.
But behind the scenes it's not that glamourous. in fact, behind each one of these stories are people persevering. Moving from task to task. Mistake to mistake. Obstacle to obstacle.
Never quitting, but instead learning and improving.
So if you want to grow a successful business, become a better manager, add more value than anyone else, it's simple; take the next step; do the next task well (like it is your last task to ever complete); act on that problem; have that difficult conversation; improve that process.
Businesses are built one step at a time. Every step we take builds to something bigger.
So when we take that next step, let's be sure we do it right. Let's be sure it's a step that needs to be taken. Let's remember that the long-cut, the long haul, the long journey - that's how great people, and great businesses, are made.
Stay safe.
Rob..
FOOD FOR YOUR MANAGEMENT BRAIN
1. This week I listed the guiding principles I use to Release Agility in an organisation. - https://youtu.be/IxFtsByJH5k
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2. Be careful in work about creating and spreading conspiracy theories. I see them all the time in companies and it's rarely useful to engage in them. Sure, they may be fun, but here Seth Godin points out why it's more useful to understand something...like a scientist. - https://seths.blog/2020/05/but-what-if-it-works-3/
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3. Interesting article on the research and development stages that consumer app companies use to gain a huge amount of customers. https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-the-biggest-consumer-apps-got
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4. Every managers should have an internal comms strategy. Here's how to build one from scratch. - https://www.allthingsic.com/how-to-create-an-internal-comms-strategy-from-scratch/
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5. Lot's of generalising going on here, but interesting idea that "the most interesting companies are both consumer and enterprise". I suppose the question running through my tiny brain though is "does it matter?" - https://nbt.substack.com/p/consumer-and-enterprise
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6. Protect your mental health whilst working remotely - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/protect-mental-health-when-remote
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7. Cracking article on what "psychological safety" actually is - https://www.shanesnow.com/teamwork/psychological-safety
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8. How to spot an incompetent leader. - https://hbr.org/2020/03/how-to-spot-an-incompetent-leader - there are plenty of them out there btw, so it's not a rare sight. (harsh)
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9. We could learn a lot from Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia - the hallmarks of good service and good leadership. Here's how they quickly switched to producing masks. - https://gearpatrol.com/2020/05/14/patagonia-forge-mask-making-operation/
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10. There are very few interesting newsletters out there. Of course, The Manager is a good one :), but James Clear seems to knock it out of the park with his. https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/may-14-2020
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11. Why are some people better at working from home than others? - https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200506-why-are-some-people-better-at-working-from-home-than-others
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12. Nick Cave on how to use the internet for good. - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/27/nick-cave-red-hand-files
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13. Love this. Man tries to embarrass his wife on zoom calls. - https://www.boredpanda.com/husband-zoom-trolling-quarantine-cara-fields/
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14. Dropbox care packages! Some interesting things to keep you entertained during lockdown - https://www.dropbox.com/care-package
Thanks for reading this week's edition of The Manager.
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Thanks
Rob..