John Zavacki asked-
> Elsewhere on this list, and others, Joan has made these comments, and has
> quoted quantified results. Could we have an overview of the toolset, Joan?
The tools are what a manager/executive must do to turn ordinary
people into highly motivated, committed, creative team players who
love to come to work. These tools are based on three common human
characteristics which are relevant to managing people -
1- Belief in the same good values and that their opposites are bad,
but with differing standards for each value based on experience.
Values are used to judge what occurs around us and reside in our Gut,
our good-bad compass. Values give us much the same hopes and fears,
cares and woes, and wanting to be the best at what we do. Our values
dictate our responses to others - Excusing our own poor performance
when others act in violation of our values, causing us to feel
indebted when someone treat us better than our value standards. Our
values also dictate our view of consequences, both positive and
negative.
2- Over 90% of us are closer to being externally directed conformists
(followers) than to being internally directed non-conformists. What
we follow are the value standards implied in what we experience in
the workplace. Followers waste about 60% of their productive effort
in following as compared to a non-follower who does what they believe
they should do in accordance with their own value standards.
3- Each of us has an innate ability to choose - how we act, what we
think, what we say and how we react to others and events. This power
cannot be removed by anyone although we can (as conformists have) be
almost coerced into not using this power.
These characteristics dictate that the only way to manage people is
to lead them to use high standards for all values and to become
internally directed, their natural at birth state, the way we know we
must be in our private life.
Leadership is communicating value standards to subordinates through
what they do and do not experience. Causing these experiences to lead
them to high motivation, committment, creativity, teamwork and
reliance on internal vice external direction is the best management
of human resouces. To do this, a boss must understand the values
involved and how to communicate them in the process of a normal work
day.
There are 23 values of particular concern -
- honesty, confidence and industriousness are "must have".
- positive attitude, smiles, cheers and praise, perseverance, success
and winners are the "fire in the boiler".
- compassion, humility, admission of error, fairness, forthrightness,
forgiveness, trust and courtesy are "does the boss care".
- grit and heroism are necessary to success.
- knowledge, integrity, loyalty, quality and selflessness have
special applicability to managing people.
The tools include specific actions by which to communicate these
values individually.
There are also tools and guidelines by which to reflect high
standards of all values in every aspect of support which any boss
must provide to juniors so that juniors can be successful - training,
discipline, rewards, tools, parts and material, technical advice,
planning, information, documentation, procedures, rules, coaching,
peace of mind and direction. To enhance a boss's coaching abilities,
information is included to prepare any person to cope with common
workplace conditions (bosses, peers, comradeship, bureaucracy,
change, unions, customers, priorities, competition inside,
communication, committees and discrimination) and personal behaviors
(personality, likes and dislikes, ego and prestige, assumptions, bad
morale, bad attitudes, stress and emotionalism) including a change
procedure based on how the concious brain can reprogram the
sub-concious brain's behavior.
For instance, giving orders is presented as one of the weakest and
most destructive actions a boss can take. No one likes to take orders
and too many destroys our creativity and our ability to independently
think, makes us into robots who think we are just numbers. An
Anti-Robot procedure for supervisors and higher bosses is given so as
to respect people and lead them to commitment and creativity.
The quality and standards of the support which the boss provides to
people, whether it is done directly or indirectly, are the standards
they will use in the performance of their work. Juniors are therefore
twice customers of the boss, once for the actual tool or training or
discipline and once for the standards which they reflect. This
relationship is what must dictate the boss' attitude toward other
team players. Besides, customers are always the best judges of
whether the support is good enough, timely enough or whatever.
In order to be able to find out one's leadership deficiencies as a
boss, one must be a very skillful listener. Listening is, in fact,
the door to any subordinate's commitment since a boss who listens and
provides reasonable, timely answers and actions by way of response
convinces us that we are valued members of the team. The "Don't Shoot
theMessenger" procedure and guidelines provide exactly how to
accomplish this aspect of respecting fellow members of the team.
Getting out of the office to listen to your people is important to
managing people and business and warrants specific rules and
guidelines. This is one of only two ways a boss can discover what is
wrong with support and thereby demonstrate real caring for people,
the extent of which is how much they will care about their work and
their customers.
The second way to find and correct leadership deficiencies is to hold
Group Meetings. They are five times more effective in changing
culture than one-on-one sessions as long as they are conducted for
the purpose of receiving and answering complaints, suggestions and
questions. Listening is the boss' key skill herein as he/she causes
juniors to participate in problem solving through applying common
values. This is the primary mechanism for releasing juniors from the
bondage of following to internal direction through values. There are
eleven valuable culture changing orders which become very credible in
front of a group such as "Act in accordance with your own values and
not by what you think the boss wants - be your own person and don't
waste time trying to detect my value standards or anyone else's."
There are many guidelines and rules for conducting meetings and
developing corrective actions which involve and don't deny people
team membership and reflect high standards of respect, forthrightness
and caring.
This tool set is a coherent whole wherein values are the glue. If
anyone want a little more understanding, I will email them the
article "Leadership is a Science not an Art".
Regards, Joan
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Joan Pomo The Finest Tools for Managing People
Simonton Associates Based on the book
jpomo@gate.net "How to Unleash the Power of People"
--"jpomo@gate.net" <jpomo@gate.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>