002 Relational Thinking: Tools to Resolve Common Management Issues
A Basic Management Toolset for Success
This fast-paced 90-minute Workshop is an introductory session on Developing Management Skills and Operational Planning Skills to meet the challenges of today’s complex business environment.
This workshop provides an overview of how to deal with the four major management issues that consume up to 90% of a manager’s time, energy, and resources.
Learning Outcomes
- The relevance of timing of action for managers.
- How to find the correct starting point in times of crisis or in calm.
- Problem-solving is important but the focus must be on raising standards.
- How to make better decisions faster and more consistently.
- How to ensure the success of any plan.
Key Issues Covered
- Problem Solving — Fixing things that go wrong.
- Decision Making — Choosing among options.
- Planning — The fine art of protecting future actions.
- Innovation — Raising the bar and improving standards.
201 How to Influence and Change Behavior
Learning Outcomes
- Helping others motivate themselves.
- Reward and punishment are movers, not motivators.
- Attaining commitment, not just compliance.
- Empowering individuals and teams through enlightened self-interest.
- Understanding and resolving conflict.
Key Issues Covered
- Fear is never an effective device because it only gains temporary movement at best and often causes long-term resistance.
- Peer pressure is fickle and temporary, and often not aligned with organizational goals.
- There are a few techniques as powerful as reciprocity of interest, general help for both parties, honestly given and received.
- Manipulation is ineffective, and most people will either ignore it or attempt to undermine it.
- Informal leaders and exemplars are key leverage points for behavioral change in others.
202 Developing a Performance Appraisal System
Learning Outcomes
- Evaluate performance and provide feedback.
- Avoid labeling and quick analysis of personality.
- Provide coaching regularly and informally with all employees.
- Provide counseling the moment performance deviations become apparent, no matter how awkward or unpleasant.
Key Issues Covered
- The importance of mutual agreement on roles and responsibilities.
- Effective performance evaluation.
- Providing constructive feedback.
- Dealing with poor performance.
- The difference between skills and behaviors.
- Basic behavioral measures.
- Behavioral interviewing.
- Coaching and counseling as an ongoing, systematic process.
Objectives for Effective Evaluation
- Evaluations should be frequent and informal.
- Evaluations should be written quarterly.
- The employee should participate and perform self-evaluations.
- Formal evaluations should be decoupled from wage increases.
203 Situational Leadership Styles
Managers are frequently called upon to serve in a leadership capacity and often lead others both actively and by example. The best leaders are successful because followers believe in them.
Since situations and people vary widely, the most effective managers rely on a range of styles that allow flexibility to adjust and change as situations dictate.
Learning Outcomes
- Managers understand that they become leaders passively, by example, and actively, by demonstrating accountability for initiatives and actions.
- Manager’s behavior is dictated by situation variables, not style preferences.
- Trust is a key factor in supporting “leader alone” decisions.
- The manager realizes that time efficiency is important but has to be weighed with the quality of the outcomes and the commitment necessary for success.
- Sharing the leadership style being used becomes a fundamental factor in helping followers see consistency.
Key Issues Covered
- The 5 leadership styles are defined.
- Choosing among leadership styles.
- Leadership and decision-making.
- Situational variables dictate management behavior.
This workshop is based on the research and teachings of Dr. Victor Vroom of Yale University. Vroom’s research, developed over the past 30 years, demonstrates that leaders are more successful when they choose within a “feasible range” of behaviors.
He published his model on “situational leadership” titled Leadership and Decision Making with Phillip Yetton in 1973 (University of Pittsburgh Press).
204 How to Communicate Effectively
- Preventing environmental and cognitive interference
- Allowing for differences
- The art of listening
- Getting others to talk
205 How to Negotiate Successfully
- Determining what’s negotiable and nonnegotiable
- How to conduct effective negotiations
- Handling tough issues and responses
- How to negotiate with customers
- Negotiation flow
206 How to Evaluate New Talent and Hire the Right People
The most expensive decisions managers make are hiring decisions. Poor hiring decisions are a major cause of lowering productivity, undermining morale, and turning off customers.
Few managers are taught the necessary skills to make intelligent hiring decisions. Even fewer receive any reinforcement or feedback about how well they’re using such skills.
As a result, most managers don’t make selective decisions at all. They simply settle for a warm body that is willing and available.
Simple, well-designed behavioral tests scored by professionals with expertise in organizational diagnostics and measurement can be used to identify the most important characteristics for job compatibility.