My Mind, My Heart, My File

Time Management and Technology

To many people, time management means segmenting their lives (especially their work lives) into little boxes, with each box representing a certain number of minutes or hours. To me, time management means putting things in perspective. Think about the 4.5 billion years Earth has been in existence. Think about the 70-plus years the average person spends on Earth. Put into that perspective, we are here on Earth for the blink of an eye. We have much to accomplish in such a brief time.

Time management is learning to appreciate the value of every moment you have on Earth. Not every moment will be earth-shattering. There will be moments of excitement, moments of success, moments of failure, and moments of introspection. But no moment should go to waste. You can’t plan every moment of your life (or your reps’ lives), but you can look at how you and your team spend your moments and think about whether or not you are spending your time wisely—and if not, find ways to make necessary changes.

The Time Management Test

There’s an old saying that goes, “It’s not how hard you work, it’s how smart you work.” Although we’d like to think otherwise, hard work alone doesn’t guarantee success. There are many people who work hard all their lives and don’t achieve success. Working smart is the ability to make sure that while you work hard, you use the most productive means possible to get the job accomplished. It’s the ability to do a task, evaluate it, and see how that task can be done better the next time. It’s discovering how you can become more efficient each time you do something. It’s understanding what your strengths are, and building on them. It’s learning from every action you take and converting that knowledge into the ability to make a better decision the next time.

The best way for your reps to work smarter is to manage their time so that they know what kinds of tasks they have to accomplish, and the best times to accomplish them. That often means dividing their time into face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) sales time, and non-selling activity time.

There’s an exercise I use in my sales management training seminar, designed for managers to give to their whole team, called the “Time Management Test.” It’s really very simple. Give your reps these directions: Starting on Monday, keep a journal of what you’re doing every hour that you’re working. If you start at 9:00, stop work at 9:55 and record what your last hour’s activity has been. Do the same thing at the end of each hour throughout the day. On Friday, compare that week’s activity and productivity to the week before.

I guarantee your reps will have accomplished more during their journal-keeping week than they ever have before.

Why? Because they had to think about everything they did. They were forced to think about the hour they just spent and how they could have improved it, and the hour to come and how they were going to spend it. It’s proactive thinking about how they can work more efficiently, whether that means increasing their time in front of customers or on the phone, changing the time of day during which they do paperwork, or changing their driving route so that they spend less time on the road. Your reps automatically start allocating their time more wisely.

This test is all about the ability to look at the big picture and take the time to think about what you can do to work smarter. Sometimes that’s all it takes—not making giant changes, but taking the time to think about what you’re doing and what small changes you can make to improve your overall efficiency.

“You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”

Five Best Ways to Manage Your Time (and Your Reps’ Time)

1. Emphasize balance. Obviously, your job is to keep everyone efficient and productive at work. Just remember that work is not everything. When the pressure at work is at its worst, people tend to neglect other areas of life that are equally important. For yourself and for your team, keep that perspective in mind. Balance your time among work, family, and personal interests. Urge your reps to make a list of the top 10 things they want to do in the next 12 months—not just work goals, but personal goals as well—and to look at it at least once a week to check their progress.

2. Get out from under your e-mail. E-mail has its good points, but it can be overwhelming. It’s easy to feel that we are at the mercy of our email—that we have to pay attention to it at all times. People will call and say, “Did you get the e-mail I sent you 15 minutes ago?” The solution is to think of your e-mail as being delivered like your paper mail, and that you will only check it at a specific time. The idea that you must send an instant response is damaging to productivity.

3. Rearrange your environment. Are you convinced you are managing time well because you’re doing things the way they’ve always been done? It may be that you are just taking the easy way out. You don’t have to make major changes to be more efficient, just make minor adjustments. Simply moving a file cabinet, changing your filing system, or moving your desk to a new position may make a huge difference. Look at your reps’ spaces and think about ways you might change their environment. And if it doesn’t work out, you can always put things back the way they were.

4. Concentrate on one thing at a time. David Allen, a business expert, once said, “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.” What I take that to mean is that you can do it all, but you can’t do it all at the same time. You have to acknowledge that you are a human being with human limitations. You have to take everything in sequence. Write down the sequence and say, “I’ll do this task first, it should take me this long. Then I’ll do the next one.” Otherwise, it’s like gridlock with everybody trying to cross the intersection at the same time. No one goes anywhere. This applies not only to business, but to life in general. It’s all about setting up a sequence of priorities. It’s common sense, but it’s difficult to think about when you’re caught in the fray. That’s why you need to make it a habit in your life.

5. Customize your time management method. There are many useful time management tools and programs on the market today. One of them may work perfectly for you, but none of them work perfectly for everyone. Find one— or create one yourself—that is best suited for you as an individual. Every high achiever I’ve met has an individual system that he or she has devised to help manage time. Some are complicated, and some are as simple as a little black book. The system you use is less important than using a system that works for you.

“/ am definitely going to take a course on time management…just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.”

Source : Superstar Sales Manager’s Secrets, Revised Edition by Barry Farber 

Because the term motivation is so essential to the understanding and definition of leadership, it needs to be carefully defined and explained. But in order to understand what motivation is, we first must understand what it is not. The reason for this is easily under- stood when we make an analogy to the smoker, alcoholic or drug addict, who says, ‘‘I don’t need this stuff. I can quit any time I want to.’’ But the real test comes when the substance is taken away.

We’re not talking about the kind of motivator who comes to town and stirs everyone up and then leaves. Most of those who attend this type of ‘‘motivator’s’’ lectures are back in the doldrums again before the ‘‘motivator’’ even leaves town. That is not motivation. Real motivation lasts longer than twenty-four hours. Real motivation fol- lows the guidelines set by nature, not the ones set by men. Real motivation is the key to effective leadership, and leadership is the key to effective motivation.

WHEN LEADERSHIP IS SEEN AS MOTIVATION
Defining leadership, in whole or in part, as motivation is not an attempt to oversimplify. It is instead an attempt to make our descriptions consistent with what we see in front of us. It is common sense. But there are also some secondary benefits. The reason that people have been running around in circles, asking questions like ‘‘Are leaders born?’’ ‘‘Are leaders made?’’ and ‘‘What is leadership?’’ is because so much of the leadership field has been tied to motivation, and motivation has not been defined. But as seen in this book, when it is defined, leadership will no longer be a circular, neverending debate or a can of worms. It will be operationally defined. Other benefits of being able to clearly define leadership include being able to train, select and identify leaders in organizations and to do the same with potential leaders. Programs that define leaders can be replicated, which is the goal of any scientific pursuit. Fewer flawed leaders will be chosen because our definition of leadership considers the nonconscious as well as the conscious components.
These are the characteristics that people often try to hide when applying for a job or looking for a leadership position. This is often referred to as the dark side. We call it the Silent Side.
Finally, the tendency to avoid emotions, dark-side characteristics, affect and passion have resulted in theories of leadership and motivation that are basically bankrupt and insolvent. They describe, but they don’t explain. They give a lot of details, but they don’t give implications. In many ways, they itemize but they don’t clarify.
Motivation is the Silent Side of leadership. It is wholistic because it looks at all facets of the person. It is selective because it only picks leaders who are capable of understanding motives and motivation, but it is inclusive because it will train and educate anyone who can understand. It broadens and widens the field of potential leaders. It offers performance above and beyond expectation. It amplifies and embellishes dedication, commitment and responsibility because it includes human emotion and passion rather than excluding these essential traits and ingredients.

Source : Motivation, emotions, and leadership : the silent side of management / Richard C. Maddock, Richard L. Fulton.

WHAT IS OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT?
Every organization has an operations function, whether it is explicitly called operations or not. A traditional view of operations is that it is:

Those activities concerned with the acquisition of raw materials, their conversion into finished product, and the supply of that finished product to the customer (Galloway, 1998, p. 2).

Another way to think about operations is that operations is what the company does. To identify the role of operations with an individual organization, ask the question, ‘what do you do?’ Amazon.com might answer that question with ‘we sell books and other goods on-line’. Isn’t selling different from operations? In this case no, because here selling involves the operations of transferring the ownership of products from the retailer to the buyer. Amazon.com’s front-line sales process works so well that the company’s customers come back over and over again. A hospital treats patients, and so we might ask: ‘isn’t that medicine?’ It is, but if you look beyond the doctors and nurses who treat patients, a whole organization exists to supports their work – facilities management, staffing, catering and so on. All of this comes under the responsibility of operations management. So it’s important to bear in mind that operations take place throughout an organization. It’s often impossible to speak of operations taking place in just one specific area. Operations will take place in different ways in the entire organization and, as you’ll see throughout the book, we will provide ways for you to understand the nature of the operations taking place in each case.
Within organizations, operations management describes the functional area responsible for managing the operations that produce the organization’s goods and services for internal or external customers or clients. Operations management gives us a way of thinking about operations that helps us design, manage and improve the organization’s operations in an orderly fashion. Operations managers are the people who design, manage and improve how organizations get work done.
A key aspect of operations management is that it focuses on processes. A definition of processes is, as Hewlett Packard describes, ‘the way we work’. Due to the significant role that processes play in operations, operations managers frequently use tools and techniques developed for analysing processes, and we shall see a range of these in the book.
Operations management also describes the academic study of the different operations practices used by organizations. In this context, operations management draws lessons from organizational success and failures and makes those lessons available to students and managers.
Studying operations management gives us the tools to analyse the operations of an individual organization or groups of organizations and to prepare them to compete in the future. The study of operations management is highly relevant to whatever work you do or plan to do. Most managers are involved in some aspect of operations every day, but many never realize it. Familiarity with operations enables managers to manage their responsibility better, whether they are directly responsible for the organization’s goods and service outputs or not.
Similarly, studying operations management is useful for all management students, because you can apply operations concepts to everyday aspects of your study and work activities. Also, because operations management is at the core of what any organization does, it has important connections with other functions including marketing, human resource management and finance.

Source : Operations management: policy, practice and performance improvement by Brown, Steve

Exercising Influence: A Guide For Making Things Happen at Work, at Home, and in Your Community by B. Kim Barnes

Influence is a skill-set that everyone needs; yet the necessary techniques and fundamentals of exercising influence are rarely taught.

In this revised edition of Exercising Influence, Kim Barnes draws on her thirty years of consulting, teaching and observation to demystify the process of influencing others. This vital resource teaches how to accomplish more with less effort.

It shows readers how to create work, family, and community relationships that are more balanced and mutually rewarding, and to take charge of their lives in a powerful, ethical, and productive way.

Exercising Influence uses a practical real-world model that will help readers discover how to:

·        Develop effective influence behaviors and a strategic and tactical approach to influence

·        Plan for influence by preparing, setting clear goals, implementing, and reviewing an influence opportunity

·        Design and apply an approach to real-life situations

·        Resolve problems and conflicts

·        Create relationships that are more balanced and mutually rewarding

·        Accomplish far more in their organization with less effort

·        Take charge of their professional lives in a powerful, ethical, and productive way.

Management Science

Management science is the application of a scientific approach to solving management problems in order to help managers make better decisions. As implied by this definition, management science encompasses a number of mathematically oriented techniques that have either been developed within the field of management science or been adapted from other disciplines, such as the natural sciences, mathematics, statistics, and engineering. This text provides an introduction to the techniques that make up management science and demonstrates their applications to management problems.

Management science is a recognized and established discipline in business. The applications of management science techniques are widespread, and they have been frequently credited with increasing the efficiency and productivity of business firms. In various surveys of businesses, many indicate that they use management science techniques, and most rate the results to be very good. Management science (also referred to as operations research, quantitative methods, quantitative analysis, and decision sciences) is part of the fundamental curriculum of most programs in business.

Management science is a scientific approach to solving management problems.

As you proceed through the various management science models and techniques contained in this text, you should remember several things. First, most of the examples presented in this text are for business organizations because businesses represent the main users of management science. However, management science techniques can be applied to solve problems in different types of organizations, including services, government, military, business and industry, and health care.

Management science can be used in a variety of organizations to solve many different types of problems.

Second, in this text all of the modeling techniques and solution methods are mathematically based. In some instances the manual, mathematical solution approach is shown because it helps to understand how the modeling techniques are applied to different problems. However, a computer solution is possible for each of the modeling techniques in this text, and in many cases the computer solution is emphasized. The more detailed mathematical solution procedures for many of the modeling techniques are included as supplemental modules on the CD that accompanies this text.

Finally, as the various management science techniques are presented, keep in mind that management science is more than just a collection of techniques. Management science also involves the philosophy of approaching a problem in a logical manner (i.e., a scientific approach). The logical, consistent, and systematic approach to problem solving can be as useful (and valuable) as the knowledge of the mechanics of the mathematical techniques themselves. This understanding is especially important for those readers who do not always see the immediate benefit of studying mathematically oriented disciplines such as management science.

Management science encompasses a logical approach to problem solving.

Source : Introduction to Management Science, Ninth Edition By Bernard W. Taylor III -  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Both Leaders and Managers

Overview

‘Yes, certainly,’ I replied.

‘And so, in the language of today, they were leader-managers?’

‘Yes, good ones.’

‘Can’t the “captains of industry” be both leaders and managers also?’ he demanded.

‘Of course’, I said. ‘It may be helpful to distinguish from each other the concepts of leader and manager, and to tease out their undertones of meaning, but I have suggested all along that they overlap very considerably. It is more questions of emphasis than anything else.’

‘No, you’ve said more than that,’ said the young manager. ‘You said a little earlier that the role of leadership - the responsibility for providing the functions necessary to achieve the task, build the team and develop the individual - is the essence or core of management, command, ministry or what-have-you. The “shapes”, as you called them, depend on the field in which leadership is applied. Doesn’t good administration, which you seem to be saying is a positive undertone of management, really come under leadership? It implies planning - according to you a key leadership function - and organizing so that the needs of the task, team and individual will be met. Making sure that your soldiers are clothed, fed and well cared for is administration, isn’t it? Can you imagine a good leader who is not an administrator - or manager, if you like - even though he may delegate much of the administration to his chief-of-staff and immediate subordinates?’

‘I cannot,’ I admitted. ‘You lead me to conclude that good managers are invariably leaders, and good leaders are also managers.’

‘I am happy with that,’ said the young manager. ‘I can see now that I am having to forge a new concept for myself out of these old words and images - it’s a leader-manager concept. I want to be both. Not always at the same time, mind you. But I can see that some situations are going to call more for leadership than others - especially where change is needed. More routine activities - running an organization - require the more managerial parts of my make-up and experience.’

That conclusion struck me as true, but I could not resist pointing out that the routine option - merely keeping the show running - was becoming less common. Indeed, I can think of no organizations today that can afford to stand still. If they try to do so they invariably find they are going backwards. Even in organizations that are not growing or moving forwards, such key functions of leadership as team-building, setting an example and developing each individual are still necessary. The young manager agreed, and continued:

‘Yes, I can now begin to formulate my own concept of the leader-manager or manager-leader. But one thing troubles me. Wasn’t Hitler a good leader in your definition?’

‘A good leader in many respects,’ I agreed. ‘He was certainly inspirational and had a sense of direction. But he was not a leader for good. He was leading in the wrong direction, towards evil ends. He was a misleader. Moral values cannot be left out of leader-follower relations.’

‘Let me attempt another summary,’ said the young manager, standing up and going to the flip chart. ‘I think these are the keypoints I shall take away:

Keypoints

• Leadership and management are not the same. In industry and commerce they should go together. In government we often think of political leadership and public service management, but the latter also requires high-quality leadership.

• Leadership is about giving direction, building teams and inspiring others by example and word.

• You can be appointed a manager but you are not a leader until your personality and character, your knowledge and your skill in doing the functions of leadership are recognized and accepted by the others involved. This is a very fundamental difference.

• Leadership and change go together. Managing in the form of running an organization is more appropriate where there is not much change going on. When change is endemic, as it often is nowadays, managers must learn how to ‘lead’ it.

• Managing entails the proper and efficient use of resources - good administration. Good leaders care about administration, the less good ones don’t.

• Management that ignores or resists change will never inspire others.

Above all else, I would like to stress our unity as a party. This was undoubtedly the biggest single factor in the final result, for the ascent of Everest, perhaps more than most human ventures, demanded a very high degree of selfless co-operation; no amount of equipment or food would have compensated for any weakness in this respect.

From The Ascent of Everest by John Hunt

Source : Not Bosses But Leaders—How to Lead the Way to Success, Third Edition by John Adair

Qualities of Leadership

‘Tell me about leadership,’ began the young manager. ‘What actually is it? I have recently read two books on the subject and I am none the wiser.’

‘Forget about the books,’ I replied. ‘Look back upon your own experience. You have been both a leader and you have been led by others. What do you think makes a person a leader?’

The young manager looked out of the window and thought for a few minutes. ‘I suppose that it’s the ability to influence others to achieve a common goal.’

‘That’s not a bad definition, but what constitutes this uncommon ability you have just identified? Why does one person emerge as the leader in a group rather than another?’

The young manager had some ideas about that. He mentioned several qualities that he felt were significant, such as courage and perseverance. He stressed the importance of knowledge. After listening to him I suggested that it might be interesting for us both to look at the research relating to the subject of leadership.

‘Not that it will tell you much that is new,’ I added, ‘but it may help you to put into better order what you know already - so that you can make more use of it in your own career as a manager, and - perhaps - to develop leadership in others more effectively.’

‘That seems like a good idea. Where do we begin?’

‘As the King of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland said, let’s begin at the beginning and go on until we come to the end, and then stop. Consider first the most widespread assumption about leaders, namely that leaders possess certain qualities that will make them leaders in any circumstances, such as initiative, determination, patience, and so on. Not long after research into leadership had got underway some 40 years ago, some researchers had the idea of looking at the various lists of leadership qualities which were beginning to appear in the studies. They found that there was apparently little or no agreement on what the qualities of a leader are.

‘When I was Adviser in Leadership Training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, for example, I reviewed all the lists of leadership qualities being taught in schools for young officer cadets throughout the Western world - the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, France, Germany, the US Army and the US Marine Corps among them. The only quality which appeared on all the lists was courage.’

‘But surely that doesn’t help much,’ interjected the young manager. ‘I imagine that all soldiers need the quality of physical courage, not just the officers.’

‘I agree. Physical courage is really a military virtue, not a specific leadership quality. That leads us to the second drawback of the qualities approach, as I call it.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Even if a list of leadership qualities could be identified the qualities approach does not form the best starting point for leadership training. It is often associated with the view that leaders are born and not made. You may have heard the story of the business executive who read in his annual report “Smith is not a born leader yet.” What do you suggest he should do about it?’

The young manager laughed. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘But does that mean the qualities idea has nothing more to offer? I noticed that a few moments ago you said there was only an apparent lack of agreement about leadership qualities. What did you mean?’

‘Well, I believe that we do know some things about the qualities of leaders. In the first instance, leaders should possess and exemplify the qualities expected or required in that particular working group. Physical courage, for example, may not make you into a military leader, but you cannot be one without it. You could apply the same principle to all working groups - engineers, accountants, academics, nurses, ministers, politicians…‘

‘And managers?’

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘If you want to be leader of managers - a managing director or chief executive - you should personify the qualities which are expected or required in all managers. We should have to return to the question of what they might be. But leadership is more than possessing the qualities that are required and respected in your walk of life. There are certain qualities which are the hallmarks of good learners. Let me write down some headings on the flipchart:

‘From the last point you can see that it’s the juxtaposition of qualities - that pattern of qualities - which matters most. Just as oxygen combined with hydrogen is somewhat different from oxygen when it links up with carbon so - for example - a sense of humour takes on a different nature if allied to one set of qualities rather than another.’

‘And so it’s still worth thinking about qualities. But can you develop them. How about a sense of humour?’ suggested the young manager.

‘Yes, all leadership qualities can be developed - some more than others - by practice and experience. Part of that process, which takes place over a lifetime, is contemplating the qualities of other leaders.

‘Each new leader you meet, or perhaps an attribute which you have never quite seen before. It’s like contemplating the different facets of a diamond. However, valuable thought it is - especially in the longer term - the qualities approach is not the best starting point for leadership development. Research changed direction.’

Source :Not Bosses But Leaders—How to Lead the Way to Success, Third Editionby John Adair