How I Went from Macro to Micro Manager - Your Career Intel

How I Went from Macro to Micro Manager - Your Career IntelBeing a macro manager means two things. One, I expect you to beas accountable as I am. Two, you must be able to read my mind, or have a photographic memory, or both. I consider myself a hands-off managerjust ask my sales team. I want the role to come as naturally to you as it did for me.The long and the short of management is that it isnt one size fits all. In fact, the best managers and leaders I know can adapt their style to each team member. To me the thought of being micro causes me to break out in a rash or opt for a hot stick to the eyeuntil now. Recently I tried micro, and I liked it. In fact, I found that many successful managers are micro in their leadership to various extremes, and it does exist in the arsenal of all great leaders.Heres how I put my micro management style into action with my sales team and lived to tell about it.Take short and deep dives into activity, strategy, and technique. Before you guess where your team needs more help from a management standpoint, take a look at the data and metrics available. Is there an issue that can be solved by tighter planning with a solid prospect list? Do you need to help your employee create healthy habits (i.e. call blocks, eliminating distractions)? Is it as simple as some active role play to help them tighten their technique, close the gaps?Create a repeatable and logical process. It should follow the K.I.S.S. model. I see my team creating processes that resemble complex algorithms. Impossible to follow and tough to recognize where, if at all, they are winning. Simplify your dailyprocesses into three moves or less. Prospect lists are now active and Prospects. Thats it.Stop and Listen. . Listen to their calls and their interaction with clients. We all need immediate coaching and feedback related to improved communication. Use this as an opportunity to auto-correct schwimmbad habits and praise the attempts at good ones. Parenting 101 Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. My team appreciates immediate feedback and they are applying the coaching I share with their peers to their own process people are listeningHelp your team recognize why they win. Connect with ten people? Thats a win. Help them recognize its the process, the plan and the execution that produces a win. The closed sale is really just the end result. Its NOT the win. Cement this new, winning behavior by meeting each week to talk about their success. Listening to them share their wins builds their recognition of why they win.Applaud. Applaud. Applaud. Believe it or not, this is the hardest part for me, because I personally dont need the praise and I am not a natural cheerleader. However, research says we must offer regular praise. This is where I have to adjust to meet the needs of my team. Everyone benefits from a pat on the back, a spontaneous note, recognition in a meeting or a thoughtful gift on their desk. Determine your style and stick with it . This small act produces some of the greatest and longest lasting results.If you made it this far and feel like it all seems daunting, Im with you. I thought so too, until I started building micromanagement in to my arsenal. I stick to allotted time for coaching, training and mentoring. I hold my team accountable to their side of the preparation. I give my energy to those who are benefiting and value the feedback. I pull back from those who dont. We celebrate when they are no longer in need of my micro focus. I secretly celebrate my return to my macro management style for a while. And we all get on with the business of winning.

5 Good Reasons To Stop Canceling Plans, According To Experts

5 Good Reasons To Stop Canceling Plans, According To Experts For many people, canceling and rescheduling plans, whether in the workplace or in ones personal life, is a regular and seemingly-avoidable occurrence.Thanks to calendar apps and the popularity of texting and email, canceling has never been as easy as it is today... but many experts believe that we as a society would find more positive experiences in both our professional and personal lives if we resist the urge to put off that meeting for another week or to invent an illness to dodge a friends birthday party. Read on for five compelling reasons to stick to your commitments, backed up by experts from the Harvard Business Review, Stanford University, and the Wall Street Journal.1. Constant canceling causes guilt.Sometimes, rescheduling or canceling an appointment cant be helped last-minute changes of plans happen, and colleagues and friends will typically excuse the occasional so sorry, I double-booked...as long as it doesnt become a habit. But if you find yourself canceling commitments more often than you keep them, then you may discover some adverse responses to this behavior, both from others and from yourself. The thought process of canceling still isnt pain-free. We feel guilty about it. We waffle over what to do and the indecision is draining. Finally, we cancel, and we undermine our confidence in ourselves. It reinforces our conviction that we cant do it all that we cant control our schedule, or even our effort, cautions executive coach Whitney Johnson in the As we just mentioned, the consequences of canceling plans on the reg can affect your self-esteem and your interpersonal relationships. And, as you might imagine, it can also wreak havoc on your professional image. CNBC recently reported on Stanford Universitys policies for best business practices, and their outlook on employees who constantly reschedule is as follows Employees who consistently overcommit and then cancel eventually spiral d own a rabbit hole of skipping calls, not finishing assignments (or finishing them poorly) and being routinely late. Not only do they become unreliable, but they become a liability to their employers.3. Three strikes and youre out is a common (but unspoken) rule where rescheduling is concerned.If youre gearing up to reschedule a work meeting or a social hangout, consider this conclusion drawn by the Wall Street Journal three strikes, and youre out. By the third time I departure to get suspicious This is a brushoff, says Jennifer Pinck, president of a real estate advisory and project-management company in Boston. You may ascribe it to nefarious intent, but you dont really know. So she always gives a gracious reply Look, it sounds like youre really busy. Im still very interested in meeting with you. Let me know when you have time, the Wall Street Journal states.4. Breaking commitments can read as immature.Still wondering whats so wrong about canceling a lunch or rescheduling a budget m eeting? In addition to showing inadequate regard for other peoples time, this habit also reads as childish to outside observers. Keeping commitments is a sign of maturity. Employees who dont finish assignments, for instance, or finish them late or poorly, or are themselves routinely late, miss meetings, and cancel appointments, are an imposition on other gruppe members and a liability to their employers, explains the Harvard Business Review.5. A bit of planning (and honest self-awareness) can help you make commitments that youre willing and able to keep.Its easy to shrug your shoulders and tell yourself I guess Im just bad at sticking to plans. Nothing I can do to fix that However, the HBR has a few helpful tips for keeping yourself on-task and upping your reliability factor Commit yourself to not agreeing to do things unless youre going to follow through. Ask for time to think things over if youre unsure. Dont overschedule yourself. If youre truly overextended, you may require a tr ansition period to weed some things out after that, once you say yes to something, stick to the yes.--