Michael Marland, a visionary London headteacher wrote “The Craft of the Classroom” which has had a profound effect on the development of effective teachers.
In it he wrote:
“The craft won’t work without a spirit compounded of the salesman, the Music Hall performer, the parent, the clown, the intellectual, the lover and the organiser, but the spirit won’t win through on its own either. Method matters. The more “organised” you are, the more sympathetic you can be.”
Teachers and managers are both paid to help individuals to explore and develop their potential and I think that Marland’s quote about the teaching craft probably also holds true for management.
If this is true which facets of ’spirit’ and ‘method’ do you most urgently need to develop?
As the legendary Bruce Springsteen said back in the 1970s when he just started to win recording contracts - ‘When they pay you $400 a day you get to have $400 dollar a day problems’.
I found a great blog yesterday that quoted some research on the relationship between wealth and stress.
The following five types of deal were offered:
The Bum Deal: Being stressed out, overworked, and making less than $100,000 per year.
The Really Bum Deal: Being stressed, overworked, and making less than $25,000 per year.
The Submission Deal: Making around $20,000 per year, but accepting your dirt-poor status. Your dire situation, in turn, leads to a sense of resignation that allows you to relax and enjoy your free time.
The You’re-An-Idiot Deal: Being ultra-rich (making more than, say, $3 million per year off interest income), having nothing to do, and stressing out over golf games, financial managers, and all the poor people trying to bilk you out of your fortune.
The Sweet Deal: Making more than $3 million per year off interest income and relishing your liesure time with hedonistic pleasure. At the same time, you’re conscious enough to avoid misogyny and gambling addictions.
Now I think that sometimes the deals people settle for are a reflection of their self worth, as much as of their potential or achievement.
Sue Wylie is the office manager at re’new in Leeds.
She has attended four PMN workshops and has used much of what we have covered in her work. In this podcast she talks about PMN and how it works for her.
Sue explains why;
she thought she would never have enough time for 121s - but now would not be without them, and
how 121s actually save her time and avoid interruptions in her working day
how the principles and practices have driven progress in her team
the impact that 121s with her manager have had in her
If you have attended PMN training and benefitted from it, and would like to make a podcast with me - just let me know! You could become an iTunes star!
One of my favourite films is Office Space. In this clip the job evaluation consultants ask ‘our hero’ Peter Gibbons to talk them through a normal day - and he does…
Enjoy!
If you haven’t seen the film you might like to ponder what the results of Peter’s honesty were!
Watch out for tomorrow’s post!
And if anyone asks you why you are watching videos on the company’s time tell them it is management development.
Another copy of People Management drops onto the doormat and once again I am reminded about the potential for Human Resource Management to help negotiate the credit crunch. My favourite piece of advice - ‘Look for ways of saving money without laying people off’! - Just wrong in so many ways. How do ‘membership magazines’ get away with such dross?
And then there are the usual mantras about talent management, talent recruitment and talent retention. There is even a glossy supplement on Recruitment Marketing that shows just what lengths some organisations go to in order to recruit the best. Pictures of gyms, yoga classes and the Bourneville Sports Ground all provided to help retract and retain talent. Articles headlined ‘The Talent Crunch’ - and then over 30 pages of very expensively crafted and placed adverts many of them from organisations that consistently under-invest time and money in people development. (They obviously take the CIPD advice seriously and see training as a place where you can ’save money with having to lay people off‘. Indeed it even saves you the expense of redundancy as you can watch your talented people walk out the door on their own volition! Double bubble! Indeed many of the recruitment ads are from the NHS where the recent Healthcare Commission report showed that the chances of you getting even an annual appraisal that you feel is helpful are less than 1 in 4!
Most wars are stupidly expensive and damaging - and the war for talent is no different.
This is because people have an innate and practically limitless potential to learn and develop. Some people have switched on to this potential and been developing it successfully for a while (this is what we mean by talented). Others have not yet learned to believe in and develop their potential.
So if you really want to develop a great team of talented people don’t join the talent recruitment wars. Instead fight for more engagement with people, more feedback, more coaching and more work based opportunities for development. Fight for the right of every person to be supported effectively, frequently and professionally to develop their own potential. Practice the rhetoric of investing in people instead of flying the flag for it.
Don’t head hunt other peoples talent.
GROW YOUR OWN.
Not only will you find remarkable talents in some quite unexpected places - but you will also get a reputation as a place where talent can flourish, people can express themselves and explore and develop their potential - and that is more appealing to talented people than the sexiest job advert or well appointed gym.
I get to work with a lot of businesses. Some of them are successful. Very successful.
And all of the successful businesses have one thing in common - a successful management team with diverse talents. Between them they are able to produce a great product or service, market and sell it brilliantly and have in place first class financial management, planning, forecasting and controls.
If good management teamwork is a pre-requisite for a successful organisation then why are so many management development programmes designed to work with individuals and to promote the cult of individualism rather than good management teamwork?
If you have been to one of my training sessions there is fair chance that you have heard me rant about whack a mole management. Whack-a-mole is an arcade game in which you try to hit ‘moles’ that pop up randomly on a board using a rubber mallet. Every time you hit a mole, you get a point.
It’s fun and people experience a ‘high’ as pent-up energy is released by whacking the moles. The challenge of not knowing where the next mole is coming from adds to the excitement.
Whack-a-mole management is based on the same principles.
The challenges are the ‘moles’. As each challenge presents itself to managers, they hit it hard and fast with the hammer of position and conventional wisdom. Slam! They get one. Slam! They get another one.
It requires quick decision making in a fast moving game. It’s exhausting, but fun. Each night the players go home, knowing their job is safe because they have successfully ‘whacked’ enough organizational problems to stay for another day.
Problem One: Whack-a-mole lures people in because it works in the short term
Problem Two: Whack-a-mole management is more concerned with looking good than with being good.
Problem Three: Whack-a-mole management always ends by making things worse
Want to learn more? Try this blog post over at Slow Leadership
Another reason why 121s are so powerful dawned on me this morning. And it relates to the Stephen Covey Priority and Time Management Quadrants shown above.
121s almost compel you to focus on quadrant 2 type activities.
Quadrant 1 stuff has to be done almost immediately- it can’t wait for a 121. And who is going to continually bring quadrant 3 and 4 items into play with their manager?
So the existence of 121s more or less forces attention onto the important but not urgent quadrant which is the one where the greatest value tends to be created.
So pay attention to the content of your 121s and see what you can do to bring the focus onto quadrant 2.
