Being, Telling and Getting Done

Management Meant Problem Solving

Critical thinking, coping until stress and problem solving are three main key elements of management. Problem solving or trouble shooting are effectively illustrated by the ability of the manager to perform under pressure. Problems are an everyday part of life. Handling them and dealing with them reflects our capabilities to cope with many other things. Like coordinating your wardrobe or what time you have coffee n the morning or even to the extent of what time you're wife expects you home for dinner. Trivial little things like these if they are not controlled properly and managed efficiently go on to lead to major catastrophes.

Of course when we see them in the light of truth there is an element of jest there. What I am really saying is if you fix the basic necessities everything else will slow through and follow on accordingly. Problem solving is a task to be endured it is a rewarding self satisfying interest that manifests itself into the life cycle of the organisation. If efficiently managed a large team can be easily and effectively controlled to see and enable that all else goes well.

It is sometimes a matter of picking holes in things, while other times it is a matter of waiting for problems to occur. The thing about problem solving is that it is a never ending battle, one thing after another going wrong and having to be fixed. Of course the more we streamline and effectively balance the organization the greater our relationship is created with it. In the mean time though it is just time enough to form another problem. Ion the end we are judged by how well we handle our problems.

Management Meant Team Work

In any industrious organization there needs to be mutual understanding people working harmoniously together and that means team work. Granted it is not an easy task to put together a well trained, environment effective working team. It means hard work, diligent planning and some kind of corporate bonding or company affiliation that knits together the team members into an up and running working tea.

There are many obstacles to be overcome, their personal traits and characteristics that contribute and need to be developed in order to mesh properly. Their id differences of opinion and conflicting ideas that penetrate into the organisation well as evolving from within where realization is a way of life instead of a positive contribution to the organization. Putting a team together means selecting the required skills and abilities and combining then with effective leadership.

By this combination you're are developing and shaping you're team of people, along with consideration of personality type and compatibility characteristics you are helping yourself and complementing yourself through teamwork managements technique and style is not important originally as you're team will build, be molded and develop their own. These are facilitated by the unique individuality of people and therefore you're working tea. Teamwork assists in the smooth functioning of procedures, streamlines production and adds to the greater output capacity of the industry. Like cogs working in a gearing system all link together to provide the one turning organization that aims to please, produce and succeed.

Management Meant Telling

Of course in the business world people like to be asked to do something. But in some cases they also like to be told or even prefer it. If they are of low self esteem or ignorant. Respectively speaking there is an old uncle from my vintage that says you ask some to do something and if they don't do it you tell them which goes on and leads to dismissal if you still can't get the job done.

But simply you're employees should want to work for you anyway and if you have to continually tell them what to do they should be terminated. The fact is that management are telling different things that are going on in their business they are telling what people are or are not doing anyway. It might be considered a form of know or judging If you like. The reality remains though that manager that tells what is going wrong and fixes it survives.

A manager that knows what is done right is actually telling where he can improve or increase. Telling and turning go hand in hand they lead to productivity and turnover which are forms of generation and regeneration. It's almost like a life cycle system that renews and regenerate on a continual basis. Telling is just a byproduct of getting thing done, like noticing you're low in stock of something and reordering like recognising sales are bad and correcting that accordingly or like just seeing that you're staff take 1hr for lunch no more and no less. Sometimes a manager just knows everything, he sits back on his assets and ceases to be aware of what is going on around him. He becomes unproductive and obsolete just like the things he is trying to sell. He ceases to be efficient or worthwhile, because he is not telling what is going on Managers need the power and authority to tell.

Management Meant Listening

I remember back when I was trying to climb the corporate ladder. One manager telling me to do this and another telling me to do that and occasionally you came across a manager that knew what he was talking about. When it was worthwhile listening, acting and responding to ideas, thoughts and methods that worked and proved beneficial over the years to come. Management means listening, I had to know what to do, when to do it and how to do it, I needed the knowledge gained from listening to acquire the ability skills and repertoire that eventually leaded me and got me promoted to manager.

It meant not only listening to superiors but staff, customers and friends that gave inspirational, creative and positive ideas that made me and shaped me I not the person that I am today. When you listen you have to judge and discern for yourself what's right and wrong, what's worthwhile taking on and what not, what will stand the test of time and what works for the moment. Of course I made mistakes, I spent many hours doing things again but overall listen and developing skills to hear are what makes one individual rise and shine above another.

Understanding people is one of the most important parts of management, people care whether or not they are listened to. Listening is the response to communication it is the interactive link that makes communication two ways. Listening enables you to know and understand another's thoughts feelings or ideas or something that go on and lead to the generation of business, industry and world events.

Management Meant Waiting

Timing is an important and critical evaluating feature in the assessing and decision of what needs to be done and how to attain it. In order to produce something you must have gone through all the necessary stages to enable the understanding of the undertaking.

First you would utilize the preliminary stage to plan, gauge estimate and predict the task and time to be done. Then there would be the elementary stage which would enable an exact time for the task to be started and completed. Then thirdly there would be a final stage of checking and revision to ensure that everything has gone according to plan. But the whole operation has to be timed and scheduled.

There is no point finishing stage two before you start stage one or doing stage three first. You must wait for each stage to start before you start another one. Once completed you can progress onto the next stage. Management meant waiting because there is a right time to do everything. Like there is no point making another hundred products before you have sold the first fifty. The fact that you can't put the cart before the horse means that everything must be done at its perfect time.

Management Meant Asking

The old saying guess that if you never ask for something don't count on ever getting it. The problem is in this day and age some people think that they grab, snatch and take and they will be able to get away with it.

The fact is you can't. He who asks receives and rude people can be sure their sins will find them out. We must remember in management that people are human, that when we want something done we must show them the courtesy and respect their rights by asking. It also generates loyalty. It is true that management expect jobs to be done anyway and a manager would assume that trained people knew what to do. But in reality people need guidance, reassurance and leadership in getting them to perform their tasks. The reason a manager asks is because basically the employee is paid to do the job anyway.

So it is expected that they will do it anyway. Asking can also mean or be for profit, extra sales or expansion. By communicating to subordinates what is expected, required and desired he is seeking to obtain greater worth for the company. Leadership and direction giving is basically just a form of asking for increased results. Though diplomatic relations and enhancement of performance the manager is actually creating investment in his company. It is a game of people and it is a matter of generating revenue. Politeness and protocol are the extraneous props that feel out and flow through internal systems. Sometimes it's just a matter of concept awareness, having knowledge and being aware that asking seems to obtain results. But really it is just a matter of having a decent set of principles.

Management Meant Questions

In any market area or any remaining underlying field there is questions. How did you do that? Why is this here? Who wanted what and where to? Simple logical questions create, generate and source more business buy the use and manifestation of information. We might ask, who sells that or where can I get one of those? How much is that? Or do you think you make it for that price? Questions, questions and more questions. Sales are driven and measured by questions. The answers, the structuring and the ideas. Questions probe, stab and seek out what the person wants to do, what they hope to achieve and where they want to be heading.

Questions, motivate, clarify and divulge information in the form of answers that give us the necessary ability to make decisions. Management meant questions because, problems have got to be fixed, people have got to be satisfied and things have got to be right. Therefore a question deserves and answer because that what makes the world tick, that's what makes the merry-go-round go round and that is what makes life interesting exciting and enjoyable. Questions create, source and dig information that inevitably leads to us getting what we want, the right idea the understanding of how to get on with each other, the capacity to live, learn and love.

Other questions might be like, how's sales? Did you beat last week's budget? Is your action plan going to be ready by Wednesday? More management style, more probing, extracting more and more details until you get the desired result. Simple questions require simple answers, not so simple questions require more detailed answers. Are we putting ourselves in the picture? Are we creating that visual scene? Are the effects what we want? And are they at the desired level? These questions plus many more put us in a daily perspective of gauging our position in the market. It is healthy to ask questions. It is essential that questions are asked.

Management Meant Follow Up

In management under the restraint of normal procedures, in order for things to be done, there must be planning, action and follow-up. Follow-up sounds like a buzz word or cliché. But in actual fact it is the simply matter of checking on things until they are done. The criteria around the pursuance of any job until it is done is that if you start a job the policy is you finish what you start. Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule, like budget blowout, over expenditure and the like, or simply a better plan or idea comes along and supersedes the existing one. Follow up can be wrongly illustrated as clamping down or ruling with an iron fist, putting people under the thumb so to speak.

But really follow up is just taking the necessary steps to supervise and ensure that the task is carried out and accomplished to the manager's satisfaction or that the required levels or standards are to be met, managed and obtained. Under any instigation or invitation of task or job there can be many steps or stages that come into play or fall into line along the critical path of job attainment.

Follow up usually starts at the second or third step and continues until the job s complete or all several of the steps for example are accomplished. Once a task has been delegated to a subordinate it is the manager's job or responsibility to see that the person doing the task know how, what and they are doing it. That means careful instruction and continual follow-ups until that person is recognized as capable of doing the job. That means that follow-up is essential.

Management Meant Greatness

In the corporate climb to the top of the hierarchy there are many pitfalls and obstacles on your way up the ladder. If however you do manage to get there, there are many advantages and rewards as well as the feeling of prestige and a degree of greatness. Greatness is however not all it is cracked up to be.

There are responsibilities, accountabilities and amongst the many joys and pleasures, there is a great amount of pressure and demand abilities. Greatness is I guess envisaged as a feeling of awe and grandeur but alongside the many advantages are the expected negatives that can pull you down and cut you down to size as soon as you get there. The very nature of management is power seeking, control orientated and centered and revolving around the expectancy of greatness.

There is a secret to maintaining the desired level of position within the corporation and it is called humility. Great people are human hearted, self relenting and desiring to help them achieve what they have already accomplished. In other words the greatest are often the ones who will lower themselves far enough in order to achieve what they desired or what they set out to achieve. Meaning that unless the CEO can talk to the mail boy he is unable to hold and withstand his position of greatness.

Management Meant Overseeing

Within the organization structure and hierarchy we have Directors, line manager's supervisors and other key and pivotal positions. Overseeing is simply a matter of viewing the job or work to be done from a superior position. It means that one person will have more power and control than another. It means that one person will watch while another person works. This is all gauged on experience knowledge and productive ability.

One does not walk into a leadership position, one acquires it with tactical learning and development through years of subordinate learning and training. Overseeing or leadership as it can be mistaken for is about the fundamental direction giving and instruction supplying of ideas and tasks that enable the company to generate an income. The main idea or whole surmounting of the idea is give guidance and direction to willing and striving workers. One would think that overseeing was an excuse to dictate, rule and capitalize an unskilled or untrained worker. But in fact that is totally destructive and to be avoided and discouraged at all times.

The fact is that people are people. Humans are humans and are to be treated accordingly. If an animal goes crazy it is killed or locked up. The same goes for people up to a point. But really there is an enormous difference that must be recognized. Overseeing could be travelling to overseas countries or it could be an oversight of something important that was in desperate need of attention but here the point I am trying to get at is that there is different social levels and structures different levels of management all following the hierarchy rules out procedure and priority. Overseeing is fun.

Management Meant Secretaries

Managers or doctors have usually got a need for someone to attend to their overwhelming and excessive amounts of workload and scheduling that is brought about and generated but the very nature and design of their position and their authoritative responsibility.

A secretary is someone who attends to the personal requirements and expectations of the business leader and his ability to manage the capacity of workload and schedule work activities to alleviate his time spent on office activities which frees him up for inspection, direction and managing of his company, organization hierarchy and department integration and knowledge. The secretary would look after appointments, personal matters and needs and would type letters and mail them personally.

The function is not one of glorification but rather necessity to free up time. They should be competent accurate and pleasant in nature well dressed and presented for charismatic leadership to the controlling manager. Initiative and a good general knowledge along with intelligent idea of common sense helps to formulate and establish an efficient door to the on the ball manager.