Bhetti asks: Management

My lovely Bhetti asks "I would so love it if you did a post on being a motivating manager. I've got projects in progress that are important to me that I want to succeed and I'd love tips on how to get my team(s) organised, on board and enthused! Being charity work, I don't quite have the luxury of selection (though I guess part of it is managing to recruit and find the right people with incentives aside from the monetary.)"


I'm going to separate the words organized, on board and motivated into three categories because although interlinked (potentially) they can exist independently.  I'll leave motivation to my last point because it's the most difficult to address. 

Organization is critical to any project and an area I excel in I believe this strength is responsible for my success. 

Organizational key steps for me:

• Know the goal and determine the end date.
•  
• Map out the steps/tasks needed to reach the goal. 
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• Determine strengths of those involved.
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• Assign tasks to individuals and or teams of people.  Set dates for completion.
•  
• Evaluate progress.  Reconfigure if required.  
• Finish and Celebrate the Success!!

Things that can get in the way of your carefully orchestrated plan: people, unrealistic time lines, or issues beyond your control.  Best practice is to have some contingency plans in place just in case.

Getting people on-board

Clearly communicate the goal(s) of the project.

Be very specific in regards to the role they will play.  Be task specific and make sure they have the ability/skills needed to complete them. 

Offer and provide authentic support.  No lip service.

Follow-up, follow-up and follow-up. 

In regards to recruitment use your current team to recruit others.  Keep in mind bigger is not always better.  If there are points where you need large numbers of volunteers (i.e. event) make sure you train them adequately to do their part. 

Motivating/Enthusing people

This one is tough. I've managed significant projects and have yet to find the key to motivating others.  The motivated people I've worked with seem to come that way already.  They are self-driven and have a drive to do well. 

What I have been able to do is inspire people using my own passion doing this I have been able to keep the team energy going with a positive, forward thinking goal-oriented drive. 

You can run a successful project without having terribly motivated people as long as you've clearly articulated the goals and the benchmarks of the plan.  They will know going in there is some measurement.  The motivated will be on it, the others will know their work will be looked at. I should point out that being motivated doesn't necessarily ensure success, if the skills are lacking or the focus missing then best intentions can be for naught.  Measurement and accountability for paid OR volunteers is critical. 

Real Success

Critical to it all is you.  If you are committed to the project and have something tied up in it - personal satisfaction, promotion, passion etc etc. then you will do well.  Good luck chickie!

A favorite reader of mine, David Foster, has a site with great management/leadership ideas please check him out too.

Change

I've been dealing with a regime change at work.  A much needed change and in many ways overdue.  I've moved ahead with some of my old team and have also chosen new ones, some have removed themselves in positive, healthy ways.  I'm changing things up in my organization because a new path is needed, - the following is an email I sent to my team.  Names have been changed to protect the identify of co-workers.  I hope choosing Adam and Eve isn't blasphemous, I kind of felt it was funny.  I have a weird sense of the ha ha.  I share this because I've been inspired of late and feel excited by the future - I shared this with my team, I'll share this with you too. 

I feel fortunate to be working with each of you. As I look ahead I see we have some obstacles to overcome, but to me they’re surmountable. First we will identify together what the barriers are. Some of them we’ll need to go around and some we’ll simply need to remove. As I see it our obstacles are not blocking our vision, which is fortunate as we are able to keep our eyes on the goal. I kind of see us as a relay team. Each of us have a part to run but at the end of the day we celebrate the victories together as a team.

Know that you are hand selected to take our team to the finish. You are not here by accident. Have confidence in your current abilities, you are good at what you do, or you wouldn’t be here. Forget what happened in the past, it’s key to future success, those who can’t let go, won’t. You can.
Adam leaves us soon but he is coaching us prior to the race we’re going to win. He has committed to being on the sidelines and cheering us on, offering his moral support even at a distance. Thanks Adam!

My passion is growing leaders. I’ve been fortunate to be part of Adam and Eve's development in an up close and personal way. I also know I can’t lay one bit of claim to their strengths, I can only help reinforce them. I’m looking forward to see each of you develop your leadership skills at the same time as I work on my own. Continuous quality improvement is not only the goal for the agency but for ourselves.

It’s important to look at what needs changing not what’s easy. We’re courageously agreeing to change. We’re also agreeing change is necessary. This agreement lends itself to belief that we’re heading in a great new direction. And we are. This belief will infect staff with a positive outlook, of that I’m sure. These are exciting times! Thanks for being a part of it.

Invictus

¡Hola! Everybody...
Last night I went to see Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Invictus (which translates to unconquerable), and I have to say that Eastwood only gets better with time. He has to be one of the better contemporary American directors. With the exception of Million Dollar Baby (a good first half besmirched by a banal second half), Eastwood rarely disappoints.

As usual, Eastwood is consumed by the revenge theme, it’s intended and mostly unintended consequences. Unforgiven was a masterpiece in this regard -- one of Eastwood’s best movies.

Morgan freeman does a fine job as Nelson Mandela, though I just couldn’t get with his South African accent. Maybe it’s me, I don’t know (BTW, I found many corollaries between Mandela's crisis of leadership and Obama's).

In any case, at a crucial point in the film, Mandela proposes that art can inspire us all to greatness. He mentions a poem that kept his spirit alive as he endured the unspeakable brutality of prison. I often claim that art kept me alive when the will to live seemed most weak. An intricately constructed Faulkner paragraph, a line from Neruda, Chagal’s sublime sense of the color blue -- all these and more were like food for my soul when I most needed it. It reminded me of the time when I was in solitary confinement and the luxury of great literature made that cell livable for me.

Here is the poem Mandela references and which forms the title of Eastwood’s film...

* * *

-=[ Invictus ]=-

by William Earnest Henley (1849-1902)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.