[MUSIC] In this reasonably short video, we are just going to highlight some of the key attributes when looking to aspire to be an effective manager. Many books and theories have been written about management. And in fact as we've seen earlier on, many books and views are there to think about, is it management, is it leadership, or is it both? But the purpose of this video is just to outline some of the key areas that we all need to think about when we're managing. The first is to be confident. Because when you're working with a group of people, or your team or you peers, if you're confident, you inspire confidence. Behavior breaths behavior so you'll convey messages with conviction. You are conveying messages with clarity, you're making good decisions. You're sharing information that's correct. People are building up their trust in you. You're building up your credibility. So, to be confident is really, really important. The organizational grapevine is incredibly clever. It's incredibly powerful. The organizational grapevine will know more about you as a manager than you know yourself. And particularly, if you're going to a new role in a different part of the organization or to a new organization. I promise you, the organizational grapevine will have got there before you. They all have heard something about you. You'll have a reputation. Some of it might be really good, some of it might be based on folklore. Some of it might be miles off, but either way you're going to have a reputation before you get there. But what that means of course, in an organizational setting is, you're unique. There isn't going to be anybody like you when you manage because you're an individual. Which means all the different skills and competencies that you read about, that you aspire to develop, you'll do that in your own way. So never have doubt at all when you're managing people or managing a resort, you're going to do that in your own unique way. Clearly also, an attribute of an effective manager is the ability to communicate effectively. Now, elsewhere in your studies, as well as briefly now, we'll talk about the importance of effective communication. Without exception or effective managers have this ability to communicate effectively, whether that is one-to-one. So maybe doing weekly catch ups. Whether that's one to the team, in a team meeting, whether that is electronically via email, or remotely by Skype if part of your team are working virtually. The ability to pick the right delivery channel, the ability to be clear and concise, and correct, and regular is fundamental as an attribute of being an effective manager. It's also really important that you value the people that work with you. I used the word with you deliberately, rather than for you. It depends how you view your managerial role, that's for sure. But my perspective, remember we're all unique as managers, my perspective always has been and always will be, nobody ever works for me. People work with me. And what that means is that you need to, as part of having people working with you, respect what they bring to your team, to your group, to your cohort, to your community. Which means you have to open your mind to what they say. It means you have to open your mind to the skills and competencies they bring. It also might mean, that somebody knows more than you. And you need to respect that, you need to value that. Your best advise, not to fear it. Although some managers do, they feel threatened by things like that. I always remember, my father when he was alive used to say, some classic one-liners. And many of those one-liners feedback files that he sent, they will stay with me forever obviously because it was my dad, but also because of what they meant when he said them. In my early days of management and as an individual now, but I've learnt an awful lot along the way. I drive myself to be the best that I can be with whatever limitations I have alongside me and I'm sure I have many. I drive myself to be the very best that I can be and I always remember going back a few years, which I sense the powerfulness of the message in terms of showing respect. I never ever consider myself as being someone who'd be disrespectful, I never ever been brought up that way. We were having a conversation, me and dads, and my dad said to me, I wouldn't like to work for you. And the show stopped. What on Earth does dad mean? I have no idea. It came from nowhere. And my dad said, I wouldn't like to work for you and I paused. Not too many times in my life have I paused in the conversation but that was one. Several times in my life, my dad and me with that sort of conversation that's happened, powerful. So I said to my dad, what do you mean you wouldn't like to work with me? because I always thought I was quite, feedback and career building, and what have you had demonstrated something somewhere was going okay. And he said, what you need to realize is that not everybody is as driven as you are. Okay, so the conversation carried on. But that message then was embedded right away across my mind. One, because my dad had said it, but two because of what he said, because it really got me to think. And I thought this through in terms of showing respect. So I thought, well what have I done that shows respect? So I always value people, recognize what they've done, recognize the skills they bring, so I thought well, that's okay. But what I also realized, and I never really thought about up until that point, was that whatever limitations I have got though, I would drive myself to be the best that I could be. And I could never understand, so internally got quite frustrated by the fact, if I just didn't do the same. So, for example, working extra hours to get a job done or taking an extra work to prove a point, whatever it might be. Or doing something to a particular standard to get it and then push it a little bit further. And up until that point, I never thought about the fact one that other people might be, I'm going to say, you don't need to do that. But also just to really respect a little bit more, where members of my team starting points might have be, so they're not quite as crazy as their boss was me. Because it made me think about the way I did things in a really different way. The moral of that story of course for everybody, and I'm sure lot's of you do this already, part of being an effective manager is the ability to welcome feedback. And if you get to the situation where the people that work with you feel comfortable. Just say, look, David James, that was really good, and this is why it was really good. Or conversely, and tone of voice is always a give away if they're going to tell you something that is perhaps not as wonderful as you might want it to be. So they've got indifferent feedback to give you. You need to accept that and you need to learn from it, and you need to value it. So that's another way of showing respect to members of your team. As an effective manager, to different degrees depending on what role you've got, you need to know what's going on. You need to be knowledgeable. We need to be quite careful about what we mean when we say about being knowledgeable. Does it mean you need to know about every single aspect of every single responsibility that members of your team have? Well, possibly, some managers would say and maybe they're right. Does it mean you need to have enough knowledge to be able to manage your team to optimum and ever increasing levels of performance. That's where I would fall into. And the reason I would fall into that is you get to a point where you can have a level of too much knowledge and too much detail. Which means you're spending too much of your time doing stuff that really ought to be secondary in terms of your role as being an effective manager. So there's a balancing act to be achieved there. On the one hand, demonstrate the thirst to constantly acquire new knowledge to constantly look to develop because they'll see you as being part of a role model anyway. There's a new process coming. All right, okay, so you need to understand how that works so you can share that with your team. There's a new piece of legislation coming in and our organization that needs to comply with. Well quit clearly, you need to know what that is and you need to demonstrate that you're compliant and the rest of your team are expected to do exactly the same way. So having the appropriate level of knowledge commence that with the managerial role that you've got, is also really, really important. Is anybody as a manager, or anywhere else actually, perfect? Well, maybe you've met them, I've not. And would I ever pretend to be perfect? Categorically, not. So what does that mean in terms of being an effective manager? It means that if you've made a mistake, if you've made an error, bluffing and blagging, denying liability. Blaming somebody else, is not the way to demonstrate being an effective manager. Quite an interesting example of that, which I will never forget. In one of the roles that I had as a senior manager. We used to have morning meetings with my senior team. And ultimate responsibility for the whole operation was mine and absolutely I was delighted to accept that responsibility. But we had a very empowered team where we all shared what we needed to do because, we wanted a collective situation where collectively, we moved our business unit forward and with a vengeance. So whilst everybody in the team knew that the responsibility, the buck as it were stuck with me, we had an element of collectivism which was great. It become a very powerful unit. In terms of mistakes, there are different ways of hearing about how you've made them. And the situation that I'm going to share with you now was one particular way of how I was informed that I've made a mistake. We had, we used to call it a scorch books but effectively, it was a phone book. A phone with a speaker in the middle of the desk with a very hierarchical organization. And that particular morning, we were in the middle of our meeting and I'd appear in those days. She knocked in the door and she said, my boss was on the phone. Could I take a call, and I think I'm in the middle of my team meeting. But he's my boss, okay, and my PA I said it needs to be now. So, automatically thinking, this is not going to be good. So, I put on the speaker phone. I'm glad I did because it was collective, but I also wish I hadn't because it was something that I had ultimate responsibility for. So you always know when you are going to get exciting news. If nobody says good morning to you, and the sentence begins, you have unprintable, unprintable, done it this time, David James, was the opening line of the conversation. And I thought, good morning to you boss as well, but that was not it. What had happened was in a process transaction, which was going from the UK to Africa, a very large amount of money had got lost and it had got lost in technology. And the closing on that conversation from my boss was, you had better unprintable, unprintable. Track down this money by 5:00 tonight or you don't come in tomorrow morning. End of phone call, it just went dead. So I thought, right, okay. [LAUGH] Disbelief around the room. Ultimate responsibility was mine, and seeing a manager, no question, and I'm automatically thinking where I may going to be working next because it was a big amount of money. The really powerful part of that for me was first, the responsibility was mine and mine alone, no question about that. The person who had accountability for managing that process on a day-to-day basis had made a mistake. But collectively, as a team, we sorted it out. Not long before 5:00, but before 5:00. And we managed to track this money down which thankfully, hadn't got to a place where we'd never got it back. So we did, I did worked my way around that. And I think looking back, because again it sort of sticks with you for life, we were there as a team. And that worked very well for me then, because if my team for whatever reason thought, that's great, we can hang this guy out to dry, they could have done so. But as a team, we sorted that out. And I think one of the reasons for that was because the conversation I had with my team straight afterwards that, that stops with me, can we sort it out and we did. The final aspect for this video about being an effective manager is as well as admitting mistakes because we're all human. As well as the other things that we've mentioned that we'll recap on in a minute, is to demonstrate that you've got a life. In other words, you've got a work/life balance. There's some emblance of normality about you as a manager. So what you do outside, whether it's family, whether it's football, whether it's sailing, whether it's running, whatever it might be, let your people know in a kind of very gentle or appropriate way, what it is you do. Say, this manager, you know, he's okay. He's got some part of him at least that's normal, even if it is outside the workplace, which is demonstrate you do other things. It may be charity work, or work within the community. It just demonstrates a human touch. So what we've tried to do in this reasonable short video is to demonstrate a number of competencies that I hope you can all see in a very practical sense. Demonstrate different ways in which we can look to be an effective manager. [MUSIC]
