Managerial Effectiveness

Nidhi Kadam

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EFFICIENT MANAGERManagers are the inviolable solid pillars of organisations on which depends the prosperity of the establishment they work for.

With the privatisation policy of the Government of India, the number of organisations under the management of private ownership is increasing, and in order to take such organisations to the zenith of efficiency, competent managers are the need of the day. Organizations also have started investing in retaining effective managers and developing their new cadre.

Managers are responsible for the quality working of the employees in any organization. They should act as leaders to plan, organize, implement, and control the activities and resources. They need to be emotionally intelligent as their interpersonal skills are the key element in meeting the desired goals of the organization.

Managers should continuously improve their skill-set. They should focus their time and attention enhance qualities like creativity, team-building, motivation, writing-skill, communication, leadership, cooperation, trustworthiness and handling tough situations.

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How to be anEfficient Manager

Creativity in Management

Goal Setting

Emotional Intelligence

Interpersonal Skills

Team Building

Leadership & Change Management

Multi-Cultural

Communication

Time Management

StressManagement

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CREATIVITY IN MANAGEMENT

Creativity is the ability to look at the same thing as everybody else and see something different.

-Charles "Chic" Thompson

A brilliant idea that sits on the shelf doesn't help anyone. It must be implemented. A manager who understands the value of creativity and knows how to facilitate it, also realizes project’s success more easily. Creativity is just one, albeit important, skill that must utilized for success.

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Creativity is now considered the most important leadership quality for success in business, outweighing even integrity and global thinking. In today’s business world, creativity is the key for major success and the survival of any business. A manager needs to make the best of his employees, by initiating and encouraging their creativity. Methods to be role model for creativity –•Lower cubicle walls•Come up with many ideas yourself•Call special meetings just for generating ideas and options•Provide feedback on new ideas•Promote your team members’ ideas to others in the organization•Be inquisitive – ask a lot of questions•Accept and promote different perspectives•Admit when you are wrong and tell tales about your mistakes•Use an Open-Minded approach•Don’t get too wrapped up in the details where it hinders creative thinking. •Create an inspiring work space•Fund extracurricular activities

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GOAL SETTINGWhy do 3% of Harvard MBAs make 10 times as much as the other 97% combined? Due to setting clear, written goals for the future and make plans to accomplish them.-(What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School’, by Mark McCormack)

If we think we don’t have time to write up our goals, we are never going to find the time to achieve them. So write everything down – the goals, plans and values etc.

Robin Sharma’s goal setting template is complete in this regard and is straightforward. Not just that, it’s brilliant and really works –

• Clarity – Write down your big goals and values and share them. If company behaves incongruent with defined values, employees are unhappy. Goals must be SMART.

• Celebrate – Write down your company’s recent past achievements, appreciations, celebrations in great detail to re-live them and get blown away. Stick them on notice boards.

• Educate – Write down how employees recently grew for achieving better results in work and balanced their personal lives? Awareness helps making better choices and better results.

• Graduate - Sequence organizational goals and put them into departmental plans. It will make goals real and tangible. You will see genuine progress and there would be no way to ignore or procrastinate.

• Visualize - Begin with the end in mind. Get everyone emotionally engaged in seeing company having achieved all the big goals with help of a vision-board or collages attached to a wall in your office or executive personnel’s homes. It embeds the goals into everyone’s conscious and unconscious both.

• Attitude - Attitude to life is the window of the world we look through. It is an indicator of how well we get on with our goal setting. Keep it good regardless the bitter realities or outcomes.

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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCESuccessful leaders in organizations don’t necessarily have the highest IQ (intelligence quotient) in common, nor do they have the best training, or hold the most MBAs.

In fact, the common characteristic of them all is that they have a higher than average EC (emotional control), which enables them to control situations better and handle their day to day problems, or those of their team, from a different perspective.

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Emotional control stems from an Emotional Intelligence and is based on two pillars –•Personal competence: Internal Emotional Intelligence (internal management)•Social competence: Interpersonal Emotional Intelligence (team members)

Emotional intelligence requires a manager to understand himself and his impact on other people. Below is a 7 Step model to improve emotional intelligence and discover what drives the behaviours and how behaviours help or hinder the success by sharpening the attention –• Observe to gain a complete understanding of how we think, feel, behave and impact others.•Interpret the common patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving within our teams.•Thoughtful pause to consider how to interact with others. •Direct thoughts towards actions rather than reaction to an event or circumstance.•Reflect our interactions to form a valuable learning to use in future interactions.•Celebrate positive interactions and reinforce the likelihood of future positive interactions.•Repeat each interaction to repeat the lessons learned.

Emotional Intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests it is responsible for as much as 80% of the "success" in our lives.

- Freedman et al

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INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

One crucial element of good interpersonal skills is being sensitive to, appreciating, and honouring differences among individuals.  Part of this skill lies in being aware of the various ways individuals can differ in how they perceive themselves. The other part of the skill is being willing to accept those differences without evaluation and to adapt one’s own style and behaviour to accommodate the styles and behaviours of others.

Interpersonal Skills are THE most important skills you need for success on the job.

Interpersonal skills are a fundamental requirement for any manager. Traditionally communication skills were emphasized upon, but now it is about interpersonal skills.

A manager has to communicate on a regular basis with subordinates, customers, peers and senior management. Interpersonal skills are about communicating with others, getting along with them and working together for a fruitful collaboration.

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Behaviours to Adopt –Behave in a friendly way, smileMake people feel importantBe a good listenerRemember people’s namesFocus on the other’s concerns If you can’t do, don’t commitGive and receive feedback graciouslyShare the credit; when people excel, acknowledge itBe interested in people and disclose yourself to themRemember the facts of people’s lives and ask about themDo the right thing, even when it’s not convenientBe honest and straightforward with everyoneIf you’re wrong, admit it but let people save faceBe encouraging, involved and enthusiasticBe there for people when they need you

Behaviours to Avoid –Negativity

Being and doing wrong despite reminders

Preaching what others should do and not do

AbrasivenessFoul language

Overreactions to stress or bad news

Panic is contagious but unproductive

Making jokes at other people’s expense

Make them feel worthless

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TEAM BUILDING“Team building” and “Finding the right people” are very important for an organization as they have a direct impact on the work.

The Apollo Syndrome is a good example of this, where highly intelligent people often perform worse in team. Another excellent example is Janis’s concept of Groupthink, wherein members of a team are so like-minded in their pursuit for a solution to their problems that they come to a consensus without having weighed the pros and cons of each possible solution.

T E A M = Together Everyone Achieves More

Managerial Effectiveness focuses by and large on the managerial ability of managing self, managing subordinates and relationships. This enhances the subordinates’ ability to perform well.

Team building is about getting people to like each other.

Goal setting is a very important aspect in this regard because people want to belong to something that matters; they want things to believe in. When we give them those things, collectively they will work through many personal issues and challenges, and they will also become more committed to the end product.

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Benefits of Team Building –Improve the way team members interact and enhance their ability to solve their problems. Better problem solving means better efficiency in general. Increased efficiency tends to boost morale and productivity. It also helps to decrease stress, turnover and operating costs. All of these improvements bolster the organizations public image. Once established an effective team becomes self perpetuating.

Team Building Can Evolve Into –•Defined work objectives•Better operating policies and procedures•Good communications as team members and as individuals•Increased department productivity and creativity•Team members motivate themselves and each other  to achieve goals•A solid climate of cooperation and collaborative problem-solving•Higher levels of job satisfaction and commitment to the company•Higher levels of trust and support between individuals and departments•Diverse co-workers working well together

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The Efficient Team-Building needs –•Goal alignment and agreement•Finding the right people•Members’ commitment towards the team and each other•Members’ belief in each other•Mutually setting agreeable and acceptable behaviours•Team should be built on trust•Supporting team decisions •Generate conversation instead of offline discussions or e-mailing•Seek team’s help and each tem member to get comfortable with it•Make them responsible and accountable•Help to build good relationships among team members•Learn each other’s strengths and find ways to capitalize on those strengths•Team members need to understand where they fit in and what their roles are•Enhance their behaviours and skills•Identify the subject matter needs of the team and align all members for contribution•Members should be able and willing to collaborate and share credit•Members should be able to participate and lead effective meetings•Comfortable and competent at group problem solving•Willing to continuously learn

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LEADERSHIP & CHANGE MANAGEMENTWhen we assemble

more than one person, there is someone who is leading the effort.

The difference between a good team and an exceptional team is often a question of leadership.

Anyone can develop leadership traits even if they are not born with them. While attending management classes and reading books can all help, the best path to building those qualities is to observe great role models and exhibit those same behaviours. Here’s a list of them -

• Leaders don’t hang back, they are neither half committed nor reluctant.

• Leaders take initiative instead of waiting for someone to figure out what to do?

• Leaders take responsibility not only for their work but also for helping others.

• Leaders communicate openly and honestly and leave nothing to chance or guess.

• Leaders believe in what’s possible and never use depressed terms.

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Delivering change in anything more than a gentle evolutionary approach requires strong leadership.  Any form of significant change creates uncertainty and fear which manifests itself as resistance throughout the organisation – sometimes for all the wrong reasons.  Industry bodies such as PMI quote that more than 70% of change projects underperform or fail.

Change Leadership incorporates all the behavioural and technical skills necessary to lead people through a change. It is a specialised set of skills and behaviours that build upon line management or "business as usual" leadership –

•Process re-design compares the "as is" with the "to be" and identifies change sand the interdependencies.•High Performance Teams are teams that deliver results in excess of the sum of its parts. •Facilitation extends from running meetings for 2 or more people to running major workshops. •Organisation design starts with understanding the strategy and its impact. •Project management ensures alignment, coherent behaviours, performance and quickly resolve problems as they arise.•Executive coaching establishes outcomes sought for the individual and for the company.

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MULTI-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONIn Asia, simple gestures that would be benign or complementary in one country could be a gross insult in another country. 

Acts that US citizens perform every day and phrases that they use all the time with each other would be offensive and judged negatively in many of the Asian countries You cannot treat

everybody the same regardless of culture without adverse consequences.

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It would be a pleasant reinforcement to practice in today’s global marketplace. To be successful, you cannot afford to lose time by “accidentally” disrespecting someone’s culture.

•Do you travel a lot?

•Are you employed in a multi-national workplace?

•Do you know to talk to multicultural audiences?

•Can u resonate with many of those regardless of their country of origin?

•Are you considered sensitive to the viewpoints and experiences of others from different parts of the world?

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Points to overcome cultural road-blocks –•Read-up on cultural norms before your encounter •Do NOT over generalize and avoid advice that closes the mind•Reactions may also depends on context and timing•Slow down for those who have different native language•Think in terms of audience and speak to their understanding •Don't make long speeches to lose your group•Pay attention to your audience•Be an active speaker and listener •Smile and be open•Shun humour. What’s funny in a culture might not be in another•Adopt a formal communication approach until developing rapport•Take the time to learn to correctly pronounce names•Be congruent - same message by body language, actions and words•Be patient and learn to step back •Adapt and check meanings•No negative questions or answers•Ask for feedback•Summarize if required in written

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TIME MANAGEMENTTime management is an important aspect of effective managers. Managers need to maintain their time intelligently and help subordinates not to waste theirs.

Time management, like any learned habit, typically will take at least three weeks to develop and then many months and years to refine until you master the discipline.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

-C. Northcote Parkinson

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To Manage Time -•Use To-do list and daily-monthly-yearly planners•Prioritize tasks in the to-do list•Balance the efforts for long and short terms goals•Find out your most productive time for critical accomplishments•Take enough breaks to reenergize to avoid exhaustion•Work at least 45 minutes non-stop before a 5-10 minute break•Reassess to-do list and planners•Keep a log of your progress•Keep some time for fun and hobbies•Relax as needed•Sleep for at least 7-9 hours•Learn to say NO •Avoid time wasters•Keep margins to prepare for interruptions•Plan your day ahead•Learn to multi-task•Don’t postpone things you’ll never do•Learn to effectively delegate

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STRESS MANAGEMENT

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

–Albert Einstein

Stress might lead to various problems and discontentment. Effective managers should manage their stress levels and even of their subordinates.

Every individual responds and adapts to changes and their associated stresses in different ways

Stress is simply the body’s response to change. Whenever external forces (changes) are acting on our bodies, they trigger reactions on the internal forces affecting the physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual aspects of our existence. Stress is a measure of these internal forces; its dimension is pressure.

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Not all stress is bad. There are three kinds of stress –

Eustress is good stress arising from motivating situations or inspiring circumstances.

Neustress describes sensory stimuli that have no consequential effects; it is considered neither good nor bad. 

Distress denotes the bad type of stress, commonly referred to as negative stress or simply stress. Negative stress can be acute (high in intensity with short duration) or chronic (typically with lower intensity, but prolonged duration)

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To Overcome Distress –More effective stress-relief strategies –

Exercising or playing sportsPraying or attending a religious serviceReadingListening to musicSpending time with friends or familyGetting a massageGoing outside for a walkMeditating or doing yogaSpending time with a creative hobby

Less effective Strategies-

EatingPlaying video gamesSurfing the Internet

Watching TV or movies for hoursGamblingShopping

Smoking or drinking

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