Introduction
Running a
growing company is perhaps the most challenging and
demanding job on the face of the earth. It requires the
energy of two or three normal people, the patience of
Job, enough singleness of purpose to make Sisyphus look
like he had attention deficit disorder, and a
very broad array of skills and abilities. To
take your company from launching pad to synchronous
orbit, you have to be able to envision the future,
understand financial statements, build customer
relationships, lead and empower increasingly diverse
workforces and much, much more.
Some of
these wide-ranging skills have far greater impact on
your ability to lead your organization than others. As
we move increasingly into an
information/knowledge/service-based economy, the skills
that seem to give CEOs the most leverage focus on
managing people rather than the "hard asset" side of the
business. Of course, you still have to know how to read
a balance sheet, control inventories and things like
that. But as technology continues to level the playing
field, the only way left to gain a competitive advantage
is with your people. In such a world, your people
management skills -- at the individual and group levels
-- will increasingly determine your organization's
long-term success.
A primer on
all the various people management skills could easily
consume terabytes of hard disk space. To keep this best
practices module manageable and to provide immediate
take-home value, we decided to focus on three specific
skills:
1.
Time
management/personal organization
2.
Coaching
3.
Change
management
Why did we
select these three? Each skill is designed to bring out
the very best in people. Time management starts at the
personal level (you), coaching relates to managing
people at the individual level, and change management
looks at the organization as a whole. By developing your
skills in these critical areas, you empower your people
(and yourself) to bring out the best they have so that
your organization reaches its full
potential.
Time
Management/Personal Organization
Your
effectiveness as a CEO begins and ends with the most
critical skill of all -- your ability to manage
yourself. When you manage your time (and therefore
yourself) well, your effectiveness as a leader and a
manager skyrockets. When you don't, it sinks like a
stone. CEOs who don't manage themselves as well as
they could fall prey to one or more of the following:
- Feeling
of futility. Often,
CEOs feel so overwhelmed by job demands and constant
interruptions that they consider personal planning a
waste of time.
- Lack of
knowledge/expertise. Many
CEOs simply don't know how to plan their days and/or
organize their lives.
- The
adrenaline factor. Most
entrepreneurial CEOs like a certain amount of chaos in
their lives. They avoid time management or personal
organization regimens that appear too rigid or
structured.
- False
reliance on technology. Buying
the latest wireless device or other technological
gadget does not automatically make you more organized.
Without a disciplined process for personal
organization, technology only automates your
disorganization.
Overcoming
these personal organization obstacles requires a
disciplined process that addresses four key areas: time,
information, projects and people.
Coaching
Picture the
following scenario. A highly sought-after senior
marketing executive mulls his employment options with
two different companies. Each company offers a
challenging position with plenty of responsibility and
opportunities for growth. Each has a good reputation for
providing quality products and treating customers well.
And each position offers almost identical pay and
perks.
In the
second company, however, the CEO makes it clear that as
part of the culture she meets with each of her direct
reports twice a month to assist with their personal and
professional growth -- not just to work on their
performance as management team members, but to help them
develop faster through a feedback and an exchange of
ideas. Everything else being equal, which job do you
think the marketing executive will take?
This
scenario represents just one of the many benefits of
coaching your people. And as the battle for top talent
escalates and companies become increasingly dependent on
their employees' continual growth and development,
coaching will become one of those leverage points that
sets the great CEOs apart from the merely good
ones.
Change
Management
Our third
leverage point deals with managing people at the
organizational level. In the corporate world, change
used to resemble white-water rafting -- long periods of
calm followed by short bursts of rapids. Within the past
generation, however, that trend has reversed itself.
Today, short periods of calm (if any) are immediately
followed by long periods of turbulent change. In most
organizations, unpredictability, uncertainty and
surprise have become the norm.
This
doesn't mean, however, that organizations should become
passive recipients of change. In fact, to survive and
thrive in today's "white water" markets, companies must
learn to proactively plan for and manage change, which
requires skill, guidance and direction from the person
at the top. Like the helmsman on a clipper ship in a
raging storm, your ability to guide your people through
a continual sea of change represents a major leverage
point in your quest for organizational
success.
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