Use a Compass

I don't believe there is one system that will unlock the secrets of management and leadership for all of us aspiring titans of industry (or small corner of the public sector in my case).  There is plenty (too much?) information for us to absorb on the art of management and leadership in the form of books and workshops, apps, podcasts etc, etc.  Combine this with all the other calls on our time:

• Emails
• "I just need to pick your brains for 5 minutes..." (losing you at least half an hour out of your day)
• Endless soul sucking meetings
• "We need to complete this spreadsheet, but it won't take long..." (yes it will)

With all these pressures it is easy to just stay in the fire fighting, reactive problem solving junkie mode.  It is comfortable, I don't have to think too hard, I can feed my urgency addiction through keeping busy and I feel that all these competing calls on my time mean I am needed.  Trouble is I am not actually achieving much, I am working through a to do list and keeping my in-box ticking over, but not really being productive.  I can find myself becoming very good a ticking things of a list and missing the more important stuff.

I need a compass to help me steer my way through all the information, emails, meetings and general busy stuff and help me to see if I am still on course with what I think are the important elements of my roles as manager and leader.

Each day I like to reflect on what I actually did as a manager and leader, rather than as a fire-fighting, problem solving junkie.  I do this by asking myself some questions about the areas I need to cover/stay on top of to function properly as a manager and leader.

Organised:

Do I know what I need to do and what the priorities are for my team?

Do I know where my boss is going to be and what his or her priorities are for the week?

Do I have a balance of urgent and important vs important, but not urgent tasks?

Disciplined:

Did I get on with the priorities or fall into busy work and the email trap?

Open:

Was I open to suggestions from my team and colleagues?

Did I ask questions first or jump in with a solution?

Honest:

Did I give constructive and honest responses?

Did I speak up or keep my mouth shut during difficult meetings and conversations?

Clear and Consistent:

Did I give a clear and consistent vision to my staff and colleagues?

Were my actions consistent with my words?

Was I positive in my interactions or a whingy timeserver?

Available:

Was I available for questions and support?

Did I balance that with the need to get work done?

Health:

Did I exercise today?

Did I meditate today?

Creativity:

Did I write today?

I know that I will not do all of these things perfectly each day, but knowing how I am doing, helps me to spot recurring negative traits and it is slowly pulling me away from wallowing in the fire-fighting, problem-solving junkie mode, and give more of my attention to supporting my staff and colleagues in achieving the organisation's objectives.

What compass do you use?

Management Guides and Systems - The Conspiracy

The bookshelves are full of books promising to make me a better manager, a more organised manager, a more effective manager, person and/or partner.  My inbox is often peppered with invites to seminars and workshops on how to lead, coach, inspire or other ways of influencing people to listen to me during business hours.

These two phenomenon are linked.  I think management guides and systems were cooked up by the publishing industry and the hoteliers to make money out of us keen to learn managers.  On the one hand the publishers get a constant stream of money from stressed out managers wanting a way to make the work problems disappear and when the books don't work the hotelier can squeeze us into windowless conference rooms and feed us tepid coffee and danish pastries whilst we get taught how to become a better, more effective, efficient, balanced, focussed principle driven manager/leader/coach.

Because if there was one way to become the best manager you possibly could be, there would be one book and one course and we would all get our companies to pay for it and bingo! we are all the best possible managers we could ever hope to be.

Except for life isn't like that.

It is obviously not that straightforward if you can fill shelves upon shelves in bookshops with "how to guides" and pearls of wisdom from business icons vying for space on said shelves.  And then there are the apps - countless dozens of them, all offering similar, but different takes on how to organise that pesky to do list or all those projects you have on the go.

So perhaps there isn't one system that can solve all your management ills in one go.  Perhaps all those books are wrong and you don't need to spend another afternoon in Basingstoke watching a Powerpoint presentation on the 5 (or is it 6?) key leadership skills every manager needs.  Perhaps you just need to find a way to adhere to some straightforward principles and check how many you adhere to each day or week?

Then you can borrow what you want from any of the systems on offer without having to subscribe to the Facebook group or write comments on blogs about management.

What to do With My Time at Work

We are all struggling with not having enough time.  If we had enough time as a manager and leader what would you do with it.  Here are my suggestions:

Now all I have to do is clear my diary of unnecessary meetings and stop emails sucking time from my day and the rest is easy!

Motivation

I went for an interview the other week. The feedback was clear and uncompromising. I came across as cynical and jaded (in places) and I slouched. My ego flounced off to its room and ate chocolate for a week, but I also started thinking that perhaps a new job is not really what I am after and I should review my options with my boss.

The discussion did not go as I thought it would. It was like walking into a room and expecting to sit on a comfortable sofa, but instead I was confronted with a hard wooden chair and a lamp shining in my eyes.

I am cynical and jaded, I don't look like work gives me a buzz. This was the first time my boss had mentioned any of this to me. He needs someone who finds the information agenda exciting and if I am not going to grasp the opportunity then he will find someone who will.

After that motivational speech I went home avoiding high bridges and railway tracks.

On reflection though he is right. I have been treading water, albeit expending a lot of energy doing so. I am busy and look at the fires I have put out, but what have I achieved? What projects have I driven forward recently?

Time to sit up straight and sort out what is important.

Another Brick in the Wall

Parents' evening. A time to discuss your child's successes, failures, likes, dislikes and crucially, their potential. Alternatively you can drown the spark of educational enthusiasm in targets and performance measures. At one point my daughter's tutor went into a detailed explanation of the necessary sub-level improvement each child needs to make in their SATs. The aim is to show how a child's performance has improved, but we are mired in the details of sub-level data collection. What the measure can tell us about a child's performance is lost in the drive to list all schools in a league table.

The performance measure has become an end in itself. Education is being reduced to how far a child progresses up a scale, but only in as far as it helps the school. Once that level is reached on goes the parking brake, because the box has been ticked for that little darling.

For my daughter the necessity to show improvement has helped her Maths no end. She can dance through Maths problems, where previously it was a weary trudge to the wrong answer. English is her strong suit, so time to unlock her full potential? No, she's doing fine, but other kids need to be pulled up, so she can tread water. Especially as it is SATs year. All energy is focussed on getting enough points on the school board, and the children are a means to that end.

Teachers want to teach and the kids (mostly) want to learn, but we are hemming them both in through the need for teachers to understand how performance levels are measured and how many sub-levels each child has to pass through on the way to a good Ofsted report.

We need to get back to the goal of education, which I think is:

**Every child has the opportunity to realise his or her full potential.**

Victims

Politicians pontificate and shake their heads

Inquiries about inquiries are announced with a straight face

And still the victims wait for justice.

A grey faced middle aged man says he knew nothing 

Another grey faced middle aged man shuffles the chairs at the BBC

And still the victims wait for justice.

Every paper discusses the grey faced man

And what next for the BBC?

And still the victims wait for justice.

Other middle aged men continue to make decisions

About children and their welfare

More victims who will have to wait for justice?

Talent Costs

We are told that to have talent at the top of a bank or business costs a lot of money, but it is the best way to guarantee returns to shareholders and drive economic progress.  The revelations over the last few years of how business and media work, suggests that the system is now run completely for the benefit of the few who go to the top universities, work up through large corporations and award themselves huge pay settlements.  If these few choose the political route, then after setting in place light touch regulation and making the countries business friendly, they can walk into directorships at the very corporations that have benefited from such largesse. 

Now since the crash of 2008 we are propping up the banks and the ethical hole in the middle of the system has been exposed.  The system was about making returns for the holders of capital, if you look at the pension mis-selling, the insurance mis-selling, unsound mortgages, toxic derivatives, LIBOR fixing and loan mis-selling and even phone hacking, it points to a rotten ethos and culture of making as much money whilst you can at the expense of customers, shareholders, taxpayers et al.

The rotten foundations upon which the modern financial system seems to be based, are now being propped up by taxpayers to the tune of about £20,000 per household, that is the true cost of the talent we have running our banks and businesses.