Management Skills

Being a manager might not be so complicated if it weren’t for all the people you had to deal with. Every single process you have under your responsibility relies on qualified, well-trained and highly motivated people to be successful. And people, being what they are, come in all shapes, sizes, attitudes and personality types, each with his or her own set of needs and problems. We understand how hard that can make your job, so we designed a powerful Management Coaching Skills class to assist you in the interesting task of taking this diverse mixture of humanity and turning it into a highly effective team. Let us coach you, and awaken the successful management coach that is hiding inside you just waiting to come out.

Let go of some time-sucking duties, and see what you can really get accomplished.

Q: I've heard you talk about "hands-off" management. Isn't that a dereliction of my responsibility as the owner of my company?

A: Dereliction? It's anything but. Hands-off management has sometimes been derisively compared to some Victorian-age version of governmental laissez-faire. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Hands-off management is really just another weapon in the arsenal of the small-business owner. It allows the business owner to get more quality work done in less of his or her own limited time.

Resource Guide
Help yourself become an effective leader with this series of books:
First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D.

As the owner of a small business, you're probably often frustrated by the lack of hours in a week. "If only I could work more hours; if only there were more hours in a week." Well there are more hours in week—and they're all around you. They go by the names of Sue and John and Phil. Moreover, they're dying to make your life easier and to build their own skills, at the same time. It's those five or six employees working for you that can add hours to your week, to your life, to your free time. Just as important, they can breathe new life into your company. Recall when you first started your business. Every function you performed was done your way. After a while, when people asked why you did some things a certain way, you probably said, "Because it's the best way." Well, it is certainly one way, but it may not be the best way. Sue John, or Phil may have a better way—a way to allow your business to grow faster, bigger and more profitabable.

Therefore, you must take the first step. Understand that others can perform some of your duties as well or better than you can. Loosening the strings doesn't diminish your importance; it increases it. And continue to remind yourself that, with only so many hours in a day or week, you are limited by those hours.

Start to practice hands-off management. Every day, give your employees more tasks and responsibilities. It's perfectly OK to tell them how you handle each such task and, of course, tell them why you do some things a certain way. Then, reassure them that you want them to experiment, to find better ways of producing the product, delivering the service, billing the client, generating new sales. Let them know several important things. You expect and respect failure. That you learned from your mistakes and they will learn from theirs. Remind them of the great confidence you have in them. And pledge to them that you are there to help if they run into trouble. Let them know that although business has been good up to this point, it can't get better without even more help from them.

You must spend more of your time on the grand vision of where the business is going. It wasn't that long ago when we had a bright, decent man in the White House: Jimmie Carter. He was known as a hands-on manager. Nothing happened in his administration without his involvement. Well, President Carter will go down in history as a nice person, but an ineffective leader and a one-term president. His successor, Ronald Reagan, was just the opposite. He was a renowned for delegating just about everything. History remembers him as a strong leader, and the people rewarded him with a second term and a warm spot in their hearts.

When you retire, don't let your business retire with you. Build it now so it lasts for generations. Begin by practicing hands-off management; get out of the way of your employees.

By Rod Walsh & Dan Carrison

"Management Training - Hands Off Approach"

Management Skills Quote
"Today, a skilled manager makes more than the owner. And owners fight each other to get the skilled managers."
Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Suggested Reading:

Management : A Skills Approach (2nd Edition)
by Phillip L. Hunsaker

Management: Skills and Application with PowerWeb
by Leslie W. Rue

Mastering Management Skills : A Managers Toolkit
by Ramon Aldag, Loren W. Kuzuhara

Life Management Skills: Taking Charge of Your Future
by Joann Driggers

The Conflict Management Skills Workshop : A Trainer's Guide (The Trainer's Workshop(TM) Series)
by Bill Withers

Training in Management Skills
by Phillip L. Hunsaker

Management Skills for New Managers
by Carol W. Ellis

Supervision: Concepts and Skill-Building with Management Skill Booster Passcard
by Samuel Certo, Samuel Certo

Management Skills for It Professionals
by George M. Doss

Nonprofit Management Skills for Women
by Public Management Inst Staff

Management Skills for the Occupational Therapy Assistant
by Amy Solomon

Management: Skills, Functions, and Organization Performance
by Carl R. Anderson