Jack Welch - Management

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.” - Jack Welch

Outside of work everyone is a manager, because everyone manages their own life: money, time and decisions. But in work, we often don’t think of ourselves as a manager until we have some form of control and/or authority over other people.

A manager has a wider picture. Not only do they inspect and monitor things now, but it is also usually their job to make predictions, to plan ahead, and to decide how things will change and develop. A manager also generally reviews the past when planning and forecasting the future. Thus, the difference between the two is perhaps their viewpoints: the supervisor is often mainly concerned with the present, and the manager with future, present and past.

Benefits of Mentoring

Effective mentoring benefits everyone involved – the mentee and mentor, the organisation and the mentee’s line manager, in the employment context. Much the same is true in a community context; where there are major benefits for society from helping people overcome disadvantage and disaffection.

For the mentee, mentoring provides a safe haven to explore personal, work and career issues. The mentor provides a sounding board for difficult decisions, an independent view to put things into perspective, someone to encourage you when things aren’t going well and sometimes a role model for some of the personal goals you want to achieve.

For the mentor, mentoring is a great opportunity to develop the skill of developing others, away from the confines of his or her own team. It is also one of the few opportunities for the mentor to take reflective time out during the working day. Working with the mentee’s issues often leads the mentor to valuable insights about relationships with their own team. When asked for what they have gained from the relationship, mentors most commonly talk of intellectual challenge, of learning, and of the simple satisfaction at seeing someone else progress.

For the organisation, mentoring contributes significantly to the attraction and retention of talent. People, who have mentors, are less likely to leave the organisation, or at least likely to stay much longer. Various studies indicate, for example, that salespeople with mentors sell on average 20% more in their first year with an organisation. Having a mentoring program also contributes to the organisation’s reputation as a caring, people-centred employer.

Building Sustainable Relationship

This killing tendency is all too common. When you talk at someone, you’re talking down to her. You’re being condescending. Often this kind of approach is accompanied by pointing a finger or pen, and the frequent use of words like “I want” and “you should.” It can’t even be called “giving orders” — it is attacking people with rank and the threat of retribution. The result? Over time, team members will either leave or, perhaps worse, gradually become what your tyrannical style is teaching them to be: responsive only to direct orders … not self-starters … distrustful of management … uncommitted to your vision … unmotivated to operate beyond performance minimums. This absolutely destroys any connection or rapport with the person you are trying to reach.

Manager should talk with team members. One of the best ways to do this is to start using the words “we,” “our” and “us.” “We’ve got our work cut out for us in order to make the deadline we committed to.” “Well, we blew it on that order. Let’s figure out what we learned and do our best not to repeat the error.”

The Developing Person Through the Life Span

Delegation

A concept related to authority is delegation. Delegation is the downward transfer of authority from a manager to a subordinate. Most organizations today encourage managers to delegate authority in order to provide maximum flexibility in meeting customer needs. In addition, delegation leads to empowerment, in that people have the freedom to contribute ideas and do their jobs in the best possible ways. This involvement can increase job satisfaction for the individual and frequently results in better job performance. Without delegation, managers do all the work themselves and underutilize their workers. The ability to delegate is crucial to managerial success. Managers need to take four steps if they want to successfully delegate responsibilities to their teams.

1. Specifically assign tasks to individual team members.
   The manager needs to make sure that employees know that they are ultimately responsible for carrying out specific assignments.
2. Give team members the correct amount of authority to accomplish assignments.
   Typically, an employee is assigned authority commensurate with the task. A classical principle of organization warns managers not to delegate without giving the subordinate the authority to perform to delegated task. When an employee has responsibility for the task outcome but little authority, accomplishing the job is possible but difficult. The subordinate without authority must rely on persuasion and luck to meet performance expectations. When an employee has authority exceeding responsibility, he or she may become a tyrant, using authority toward frivolous outcomes.
3. Make sure that team members accept responsibility. Responsibility is the flip side of the authority coin. Responsibility is the duty to perform the task or activity an employee has been assigned. An important distinction between authority and responsibility is that the supervisor delegates authority, but the responsibility is shared. Delegation of authority gives a subordinate the right to make commitments, use resources, and take actions in relation to duties assigned. However, in making this delegation, the obligation created is not shifted from the supervisor to the subordinate — it is shared. A supervisor always retains some responsibility for work performed by lower-level units or individuals.
4. Create accountability.
   Team members need to know that they are accountable for their projects. Accountability means answering for one’s actions and accepting the consequences. Team members may need to report and justify task outcomes to their superiors. Managers can build accountability into their organizational structures by monitoring performances and rewarding successful outcomes. Although managers are encouraged to delegation authority, they often find accomplishing this step difficult for the following reasons:
   

• Delegation requires planning, and planning takes time. A manager may say, “By the time I explain this task to someone, I could do it myself.” This manager is overlooking the fact that the initial time spent up front training someone to do a task may save much more time in the long run. Once an employee has learned how to do a task, the manager will not have to take the time to show that employee how to do it again. This improves the flow of the process from that point forward.
• Managers may simply lack confidence in the abilities of their subordinates. Such a situation fosters the attitude, “If you want it done well, do it yourself.” If managers feel that their subordinates lack abilities, they need to provide appropriate training so that all are comfortable performing their duties.
• Managers experience dual accountability. Managers are accountable for their own actions and the actions of their subordinates. If a subordinate fails to perform a certain task or does so poorly, the manager is ultimately responsible for the subordinate’s failure. But by the same token, if a subordinate succeeds, the manager shares in that success as well, and the department can be even more productive.
• Finally, managers may refrain from delegation because they are insecure about their value to the organization. However, managers need to realize that they become more valuable as their teams become more productive and talented.

Written Communication Skills

Written communication has several advantages. First, it provides a record for referral and follow-up. Second, written communication is an inexpensive means of providing identical messages to a large number of people. The major limitation of written communication is that the sender does not know how or if the communication is received unless a reply is required.

Unfortunately, writing skills are often difficult to develop, and many individuals have problems writing simple, clear, and direct documents. And believe it or not, poorly written documents cost money. Therefore, managers must be able to write clearly. The ability to prepare letters, memos, sales reports, and other written documents may spell the difference between success and failure.

Interpersonal Communication is real-time, face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversation that allows immediate feedback. Interpersonal communication plays a large role in any manager’s daily activities, but especially in organizations that use teams. Managers must facilitate interpersonal communication within teams and reduce barriers to interpersonal communications. Common barriers to interpersonal communication include the following:

• Expectations of familiarity (or hearing what one is expected to hear). After hearing the beginning comments, employees may not listen to the remainder of the communication because they think they already know what a manager’s going to say.
• Preconceived notions. Many employees ignore information that conflicts with what they “know.” Often referred to as selective perception, it’s the tendency to single out for attention those aspects of a situation or person that reinforce or appear consistent with one’s existing beliefs, value, or needs. Selective perception can bias a manager’s and employee’s view of situations and people.
• Source’s lack of credibility. Some employees may negatively size up or evaluate the sender based on stereotypes. Stereotyping is assigning attributes commonly associated with a category, such as age group, race, or gender to an individual. Classifying is making assumptions about an individual based on a group he or she fits into. Characteristics commonly associated with the group are then assigned to the individual. Someone who believes that young people dislike authority figures may assume that a younger colleague is rebellious.
• Differing perceptions caused by social and cultural backgrounds. The process through which people receive and interpret information from the environment is called perception. Perception acts as a screen or filter through which information must pass before it has an impact on communication. The results of this screening process vary, because such things as values, cultural background, and other circumstances influence individual perceptions. Simply put, people can perceive the same things or situations very differently. And even more important, people behave according to their perceptions.
• Semantics and diction. The choice and use of words differ significantly among individuals. A word such as “effectiveness” may mean “achieving high production” to a factory superintendent and “employee satisfaction” to a human resources specialist. Many common English words have an average of 28 definitions, so communicators must take care to select the words that accurately communicate their ideas.
• Emotions that interfere with reason. Tempers often interfere with reason and cause the roles of sender and receiver to change to that of opponent and adversary.
• Noise or interference. Noise does not allow for understanding between sender and receiver.

Coaching Tips ........

Give the leader a wake-up call about how the organization is changing — Make sure that the leader understands the complexity of the changes required of her. What new results are expected from her in a changing business climate? What impact will this have on the competencies that will be required of her to be successful in the future?

Don’t be afraid to confront the leader — Confront her in a compassionate way if you feel that even though others need her to change, she is more comfortable acting the way she always has. Make sure that she fully understands the implications to her own career, to others she is working with, and to the legacy she is leaving the organization. This last implication is especially
important for leaders whose excuse for not changing is that they are soon to retire.

Use a “coachable moment” while you are working with the leader — Stop the discussion in the coaching session and point out how you are reacting if the leader is exhibiting the same behavior with you that others are finding counterproductive. For example, some leaders resist change by being the perpetual cynic, dismissing new ideas as being unworkable or portraying other senior management as being unrealistic in their expectations. During the coaching session, it may be appropriate for you to comment if you see any similarities between how the leader behaves with you and the patterns identified in the feedback from others.

Knowledge Workers: Asset Not Cost

Management’s duty is to preserve the assets of the organisation in its care. Knowledge workers own the means of production. It is the knowledge between their ears. And it is a totally portable and enormous capital asset. Because knowledge workers own their means of production, they are mobile. Manual workers need the job much more than the job needs them. It may still not be true for all knowledge workers that the organisation needs them more than they need the organization. But for most of them it is a symbiotic relationship in which the two need each other in equal measure.

Management’s duty is to preserve the assets of the organisation in its care. What does this mean when the knowledge of the individual knowledge worker becomes an asset and, in more and more cases, the main asset of an organisation? What does this mean for personnel policy? What is needed to attract and to hold the highest-producing knowledge workers? What is needed to increase their productivity and to convert their increased productivity into performance capacity for the organization?

Attract and hold the highest-producing knowledge workers by treating them and their knowledge as the organization’s most valuable assets.