Napoleon I Bonaparte once said: "There are no bad soldiers - there are only bad generals." This formula is quite applicable to the field of organization management. Why do staff listen to the opinion of one leader and completely ignore or sabotage the orders of another?
Western management has long asked a similar question. Our domestic science of management in this area has not yet come up with anything fundamentally new and focuses, for the most part, on the experience gained by the United States and Europe, in particular, on the work of R. Parkinson, P. Drucker, M. Meskon, M. Albert, etc. What does this experience suggest?
Management is, first of all, the art of working through other people, and therefore the task of any leader is to be able to think and anticipate, organize and plan, motivate and control. For this process to be effective, the following rules must be followed.
- Clearly define your goals.
You must know exactly what kind of result you want to get. Goals should be expressed in measurable units and not be abstract.
For example, instead of “expand the client base”, it is better to say “attract 20 new clients this month”, and instead of “promote the project” - “ensure that the project pays off / makes a profit of at least 5% of the invested capital over the next three years” .
- Outline ways to solve them
You and your subordinates must fully understand the entire chain of actions that are necessary to achieve specific goals.
For example, based on previous experience in attracting additional customers, in order to attract 20 new customers per month, each specialist must call 50 potential buyers per day.
- Decide on the performers, deadlines and responsibility for non-compliance
After you determine for yourself the ways to achieve your goals, you must convey the order of work to each subordinate involved in the project. Remember: most errors are the result of bad instructions.
The deadlines for the execution of each stage of work should be strictly limited in time. At the same time, it should be remembered that according to one of Parkinson's half-joking Laws, "work always fills all the time allotted for it." This means that if you instruct an employee to complete a task in a month that requires a week to complete, it will take him the whole month to complete the task. So try to stick to realistic deadlines.
- Organize a feedback system.
According to Western experts, the most important communication channel in any organization is the one that goes from bottom to top. The manager must know what thoughts are in the minds of his workers, and his efforts should be constantly directed to keep this channel open.
And since communication is so important, according to Drucker, for example, reading poetry and prose is very useful for managers, because it teaches them to appreciate the meaning of words.
- Be open to new ideas.
And remember, rationalization proposals require a special approach, constant encouragement. If you act like someone else's good ideas are just a reflection of your own, you won't get them in the future.
- Know how to get along with people
It should be immediately noted that this in no way implies familiarity. A successful leader always knows how to encourage an employee with a kind word, but he will never let him get too close to his own world.
Be sincerely interested in your subordinates, their success in work, do not infringe on pride. Remember that for your subordinate, the main person in the world is himself.
- Don't break the rules.
No organization can function effectively if its rules and regulations are not fully implemented. The art of management in this area implies the ability to identify in time those rules that have "outlived" their own and interfere with forward movement. All other instructions must be strictly followed, including by you.
Someone said, “Gentlemen don't break the rules. They just change them."
- Take into account the experience gained, control the results.
Many Western theorists of management science recommend keeping your working diary and writing down both various ideas and accumulated experience in it. This will allow you not to step on the same rake twice.
Pay attention to slackers. By getting a decent job from them, you get a good job from everyone else.
Remember: continuous monitoring of performance is the key to effective management.
- Delegate authority, but not responsibility.
If the purpose of your existence is not a tombstone with words of thanks from your employees for the fact that you have exhausted yourself with work, completely freeing them from the work load, then learn how to delegate authority correctly. And remember: the leader is responsible for the results of the work of his subordinates, but his job is to properly organize the production process, and not to do everything himself.
- Watch yourself.
Everything that the leader does: his appearance and manner of speech, his family and social circle, his punctuality and lifestyle - all this is under the close supervision of subordinates. Rumors spread instantly. And it's good if these rumors do not become a reason for sloppiness. You may not be loved, but you must always be respected.
But here everything seems to be fine. The work process is organized "for five plus", the company works smoothly, like a single clockwork. But through communication channels, you will still find out that there are dissatisfied people. What to do?
Don't get angry or embarrassed about complaints, even if they're directed at you. People are never completely satisfied. Even if they are doing well, they want to be better. This is a property of human nature. Never mind. This is part of the price you have to pay for leadership.
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The management guru tells how not to lose your main competitive advantages during economic difficulties
According to the consulting firm Ernst & Young, companies are reacting to the financial crisis in predictable ways: they are laying off people and cutting spending on advertising, training and consulting, and research and development. This is both a right and wrong decision at the same time.
In Mexico, I advised a very large real estate company. The mistake of this company was typical of times of crisis. Its leaders spent a lot of time trying to get new loans from the bank. After analyzing the situation, we found that raising capital is too expensive for the company. Most of the expenses were interest payments on loans taken earlier. The worst thing that could be done in such a situation is to build up debts. The company did not have to spend money on loans and pay additional interest. She just couldn't afford it.
I suggested going the other way and selling some of the inventory. What for? To increase cash flow. Even when you have to sell assets at cost, even when you lose money by covering variable costs, you partially offset the overhead costs. In the long run, this approach is not good, but it will allow you to buy time.
The company's executives almost made another mistake. They were about to lay off employees!
Of course, you will have to survey your organization and identify those who are not working effectively and eating their bread in vain. Get rid of them. But this should have been done a long time ago. Why do you need ballast? Why keep people who are not useful? Why did it take a crisis to force you to clean up? Maybe your problem is that you do not keep your finger on the pulse of the organization all the time? Do you really need a crisis in order for you to pay attention to the problems of the company?
But don't fire good people just to cut costs. Many traditional counselors recommend this. They see that you have too many expenses. They put you on the scales and say. "You know what? And you're 20 pounds overweight! You need to drop them." Then they cut off one of your legs. Now your weight is perfect, but you don't have a leg. I'm not talking about a situation where the company is threatened with bankruptcy. In case of gangrene, the leg will have to be amputated. But you don't have to cut off your healthy leg to make your weight ideal.
You should lose fat, but not muscle. Parting with good people - the muscles of the organization - in order to make the reporting indicators look more optimistic, you are deceiving yourself. How much money will be spent on hiring and training new workers later, when the crisis is over and they will be needed again?
I once asked Ferdinand Porsche, the son of the founder of Porsche: “Ferdinand, if you had to make a choice between losing people or losing equipment, what would you give up first?” - "From the equipment!" Why? You buy machines, spend some time programming them, and they are ready to go. But imagine having to re-hire people, educate them, build relationships, recreate a culture…”
Notice that the most difficult task for a company is to create an organizational culture. Sometimes it takes years to find worthy employees who know how to object without showing hostility. Out of a dozen applicants, there are hardly three suitable ones, but first they will have to be selected from the general mass of those who wish, to train, develop and educate them and create an atmosphere in which relations between people are constructive. And then you fire them?
Some executives have told me, "I understand, but it would cost me too much to refuse to layoff." Perhaps the cost of labor during a crisis can really be overwhelming for you. But is layoff the only way out?
It happens that the company works in a labor-intensive, rather than capital-intensive sphere, and the wages of workers are indeed the main item of its expenses, but at the same time, the employees are talented and efficient professionals, and the problem is a drop in demand for its products in the market. In such cases, I would recommend that instead of layoffs, transfer everyone to a reduced working day. Let your company go into hibernation like bears in winter, and the troubles due to reduced workload and lower earnings will become a common disaster for the entire organization, including top management. If you divide the work among all, everyone will suffer, but to a lesser extent, which will allow you to save labor resources.
Take an example from the Japanese. When a Japanese company finds itself in plight, the first to have their salary cut is its president. If the situation becomes even more serious, it is he who is the first to resign. In Japan, they don’t start with the dismissal of ordinary employees - the Japanese believe that there are no bad soldiers, there are only bad generals.
What to do with people after you cut their working hours to cut costs? It's time for creative thinking. Previously, when demand for your products and services was high, the company didn't have enough time to get creative—think about what else it could do or how it could do its job better. Now that economic growth has slowed down and employees have free time, the time has come to assign them a job that will bring innovation.
This article is an excerpt from the book Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, Itzhak Adizes, Managing in an Age of Crisis.
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Is it possible to identify and begin to develop the leadership qualities of a leader? Can. First, it is necessary to identify, and then - the formation of leadership qualities for managing employees and the company. How to do it? Is it possible to find and "grow" a leader in yourself?
You may have heard that there are no bad soldiers, there are bad commanders. This philosophy is hammered into the heads of all students of military schools. They learn leadership qualities by giving commands and carrying them out. This is a normal way of life in a military environment. Anyone who does not know how to give orders and carry them out will not take root there. In this environment, discipline reigns, and no exceptions are made for anyone.
The same can be said about business: there are no bad subordinates, there are only bad bosses.
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Leadership development: what it takes
Think of all the companies you have worked for. If any of them experienced financial difficulties, had an unhealthy morale, there was low productivity, a drop in sales, an increase in overhead costs, then all this was usually due to poor management. must take responsibility not only for the success of the team, but also for possible mistakes. Too often, entrepreneurs attribute their failures to the poor performance of their employees, the state of the economy, or the actions of competitors. However, the best businessmen, first of all, look at themselves in such cases and look for their own mistakes in order to learn from them.
Moreover, you are not at all required to quit your job, close the company and go to military school to master the skills of a leader. There are many other opportunities in life to learn this skill and to learn how to build and inspire a team to accomplish a mission.
Sports are a prime example. Become the captain of the local football team. Other possibilities are to join one of the commissions of the church parish, the supervisory board of an organization, or to take on the preparation of a charity event. Having taken one of these leadership positions, you will not only develop the necessary qualities in yourself, but also acquire the necessary contacts, which is never superfluous in business.
It is worth emphasizing that leadership involves the ability not only to give orders, but also to carry them out. To be a good leader, you must first learn to be a good subordinate. Only then will you be with those around you and be able to convince them to follow you. Many small entrepreneurs fail in their attempts to move into big business because they do not have sufficient interpersonal skills. They are still able to manage a group of 10-20 people close to them in spirit, but they cannot cope with large teams consisting of people who differ greatly from each other in education and upbringing.
If a person successfully communicates with others one on one, this does not mean at all that he will be able to establish communication with a hundred, a thousand or a million people just as successfully. By training your leadership qualities, you will be able to influence many people.
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Any businessman should understand that soldiers will always be bad - this is a team. It is impossible to educate everyone, everyone will be lazy in their own way. However, when a general is good, he has a good army. And bad soldiers are just the exception that proves the rule. They are necessary. After all, only in contrast to the 10% of obvious idlers can you see that the remaining 90% are really working.
Dmitry Zhitomirsky
In case, if you like everything - you have 100% idlers. This is a team in which everyone must perform their specific functions, because each of us was born exclusively for certain actions.
Everyone educated himself exclusively for these actions, and therefore in any company a person must take HIS place in order to be useful and work as efficiently as possible. And these are, by definition, people who have different abilities and characteristics. Like the liver, heart, kidneys and brain are absolutely different, but nevertheless they are part of one organism and only in such an algorithm are they able to ensure its full functioning. The brain can never be in place of the rectum.
Do not forget that each individual employee is a separate system. And therefore, as in any system, it has both pluses and minuses, both negative and positive features without which the system would not exist. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And therefore, to carry out what may seem to you in the highest degree noble, without having objective opportunities and abilities for this, should not be under any circumstances. Everything must be done with dignity, measuredly and reasonably and reap the positive fruits of their positive actions. Everything is exactly like this: any employee should work only with positive motivation, and not at all under duress or because of a threat. Employees should not be kept in Fear and has never benefited anyone.
The key to success is not to get into the habit of doing what inspires fear in you, but only in a competent and realistic analysis of the situation and high degree labor investment. Anything else will probably help you run away from the wolf, and fear, if you have it, will help you run faster in this case, but the task of any businessman is not to run, but to defeat this wolf.
Find a gun and shoot, and if there is no gun, grab your throat with your teeth! Then, and only then, will success and victory await you.
AT recent times the phrase that the gift sent by the Lord is always packaged in a problem is becoming extremely popular. But this is nonsense! The amount of material wealth produced by man on the planet is something limited, the amount of happiness produced by man on the planet is also something limited, and therefore, if someone is richer, then someone is poorer, and if someone laughs, then who is crying. We often laugh at jokes, but as soon as we penetrate into their essence, it becomes clear that someone else's failure made us laugh. And where is the justice? Others laugh at the fact that someone is very bad. And this resonance will always be! It is he who balances and maintains the harmony of the world. One is crying, the other is laughing.
The Lord gives every person the opportunity to go his own way and realize himself as a thinking and feeling being.
And be that as it may, we all make mistakes - both conceivable and sensual, based on this, sometimes we feel good, and sometimes very bad. But to refer in this case to the "heavenly freebie", excuse me, is a sin. After all, if the Lord gave you the opportunity to win a lottery ticket, remember how many people also wanted to win, but did not even go and buy it.
It will seem surprising to someone to see a ray of light in the middle of complete darkness, but the question is: how did you get complete darkness?
Would this ray of light really be so massive in this span of life if before that you loved everyone and everyone loved you? I think we all remember Bonaparte very well, who was condemned by the whole world, but he still remained Bonaparte. After all, having lost the war, in his entire life he did not suffer a single defeat, the military glory of Bonoparte was not tarnished. As a general, he was the best, but this does not mean that all his soldiers were good. But it's not just about generals and soldiers...
Whatever one may say, one person cannot conquer the whole world, one cannot become the owner of all the money and all the world's happiness - and this is the justice of the Lord. He will never let just one person get everything. After all, it is possible to be happy only against the background of the upset, and to be upset - only against the background of the happy. The Lord never gives a person problems. I have never agreed with the slogan of one of the largest European companies: "Take everything from life." But does a person need as much as he takes from life, and has he set his aspirations correctly?
Did he correctly direct himself and his desires in order to master all this?
Will the power to which he aspires - spiritual, material - bring happiness to him? Take from life what is necessary and sufficient, take even a little more, but remember that if you took a little more, you made someone poorer, and at the same time you will get revolutionaries at the gates of your castle tomorrow. And the more you take, the more the poor and the evil will be. And therefore, is it worth taking everything from life? A person’s problems do not come from the Lord at all, but precisely because a person does not appreciate what he has and cannot control it, or because he does not even want to lift a finger in order to have at least something. Handsome and ugly, stupid and foolish, strong and weak - anyone in this world can adapt. For each of us there is a certain cell and niche. This is how the world works. And if we were born - we have already occupied it. And what we will do in this space is the task that everyone has to solve. The gift of the Lord always appears to a person only in its pure form, while problems begin from our inability to use this gift.
In addition, the more a person has everything, the more time and effort should be spent on managing it.
Requests are on the rise. I understand that before a person had regular pants, and now he wants pants exclusively from Calvin Klein, the price range of which varies five times. What can be offered to such a person? Take these pants, boil them in a pan and put them on the table instead of the first dish, and then take others and compare: do they smell the same or not and can they be eaten? Everything is absolutely true - expenses increase in line with income, the more you earn - the more distinct the temptation to spend money and surround yourself with more and more material goods becomes. But everything material requires care. So, if you have one car, it is enough for you to take care of one, and if you have three - already three. Nevertheless, you can’t travel alone in three cars, which means you need to hire drivers and car mechanics, and a crowd of guards should also be hired. And for what? Why do you need all this? Each person has categories according to which he chooses what is more important to him, and if he chooses everything, then by and large he does not need anything other than the third-party opinion of others. That is why you should always start with yourself - to clearly understand for whom you are trying and for whom you are doing all this. After all, if you take from life only what you need, alas, you will not be able to find yourself in everything. Become well-mannered, cultured, educated, put in your work - and work until the end of your days. I knew myself, I reached heights, so produce material wealth - grow carrots or help your children raise their grandchildren.
Seeing the meaning of your whole life grow is truly rewarding!
It is clear that over the past 50 years, during the time of megacities, the scale of values has undergone strong changes. Although in the outback, I'm sure, even now they value decent relationships, friendship, honesty and hard work. Labor is highly valued, especially where there is still subsistence farming, the attitude towards labor is appropriate, and in megacities, where people often receive money in no way in accordance with the labor invested, the scale of values is lost. And that is why people more and more often waste their lives aimlessly.
Reference
Dmitry Zhitomirsky, general and founder of Artkom SPb. Born August 30, 1972. Education: Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Faculty of Radio Engineering and Cybernetics. Experience: 2001–2003 - General Director of Technocom LLC. 2003 - head of the sales department of Canoset LLC. 2004–2007 - Head of network department of LTD Larga. In 2007, he founded his own company "Artcom SPb" as a group of companies "ARTCOM" - the official LG-Ericsson in Russia.
For many, change is worse than red-hot iron, and the word crisis makes you grab your head. “But if nothing changes, then you are already dead,” says management guru Yitzhak Adizes. We publish several excerpts from his new book "Managing in an Age of Crisis: How to Keep Key People and the Company".
Change has always been and always will be. And the stronger you are, the more changes and problems there will be, and you should not be afraid of this. This book will help you meet life and professional challenges head-on.
Crisis is an opportunity
Crises lead to progress. Crisis stimulates ingenuity, leads to discoveries and new strategies. The one who conquers the crisis, triumphs over himself, not submitting to circumstances.
“If you have problems, don't worry. This means that you are in good company, among the living.
In fact, every problem is an opportunity. AT Chinese the concepts of "problem" and "opportunity" are denoted by one hieroglyph. There are no differences between them. Agree that this is logical and indicative. What is your opportunity? This is the problem of your client or competitor. The problems of others become your opportunities.
As the Steel Was Tempered
Surely your parents warned you in childhood: “You can’t go out into the cold after a hot shower! You'll catch a cold!" But in Finland or Russia, people, having steamed up in a bathhouse and sweated well, rush into the snow. I have no doubt that, following their example, I would most likely catch pneumonia and die. How are we different from each other?
It all depends on how strong your body is. If yes, then the changes will only harden you, if not, they can destroy you. This applies not only to people, but also to organizations: those that are ready for change grow stronger in difficult times, and those who are not prepared get sick and risk bankruptcy.
belated ball
One of the components of strength is the ability to quickly respond to change. You are not an aircraft carrier that takes five miles to turn around. You are a torpedo boat that can change course with lightning speed.
Imagine that, while playing tennis, you run towards the ball only after it has already hit the ground. Agree, while you are unlikely to be able to successfully beat him off. Problems that you didn't notice in time are like a lost tennis ball.
The player must be able to predict where the ball will land and take the appropriate position in advance. The same applies to changes in personal life and work. To stay in the game and win, you need to be able to anticipate and stay ahead of change.
Bad generals
If it's time to change - take an example from the Japanese. When a Japanese company finds itself in dire straits, the first person to get their pay cut is its president. If the situation becomes even more serious, it is he who is the first to resign.
In Japan, they do not start with the dismissal of ordinary employees - the Japanese believe that there are no bad soldiers, there are only bad generals.
Change starts with personal responsibility.
Scars on knees
Mary Kay is a famous American entrepreneur who has created a huge cosmetics empire. Starting from scratch, her company has made millions.
People often asked her, "Mrs. Kay, what is the secret to your success?" And she said, “See the scars on my knees? That's the secret of my success!"
Success is achieved not by the one who rarely falls, but by the one who quickly rises to his feet.
How to outrun a lion
Two people are walking barefoot across the African savanna when they meet a lion. One begins to quickly put on his sneakers. Another asks in surprise: “Why are you wearing sneakers? You still can't outrun the lion!" And he replies: “But I don’t hope to overtake a lion, I want to overtake you!”
How long does it take you to "jump to your feet"? If you are strong, change allows you to move faster and stay ahead of the competition, and crisis becomes your ally.
Every problem is a lesson. The question is whether the study will be a gift for you or you will be able to benefit from it. teaches to benefit from any crisis.