An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest said Ben Franklin. And sometimes learning a skill will pay off in ways unintended and unanticipated.
My favorite interview question is to ask candidates,
What did they want to do, what did they want to be. The best candidates -- by that I mean the most contented candidates, have a thread in their lives of what they wanted to do back then and what they are doing today.
An expert interviewer, like Your (humble) Business Blogger(R), can discern the contentment and the fire in the belly of the job candidate, by analyzing any gap between high school plans and the current stage in life -- I find that the larger this gap, the more unhappy the candidate.
Unhappy candidates make for unhappy employees.
Critics of this crazy question accurately say that technology, markets, the world have changed since we were in high school, back in the day.
And they are right: the material world changes. Less so people. And what people love to do, and how each individual candidate would like to make a difference -- remains constant thru life.
Here is my favorite example.
She was a competitive swimmer in her youth. And wanted to be a Life Guard. Her dream job that would make a difference. She trained, studied and was certified.
She found her calling; her vocation but she never found that job.
A disappointed teenager, she took a position as an Assistant Cashier in the athletic center at Camp of the Woods in Adirondack Park of upstate New York in June of 1982. She didn't get what she wanted, but at least she was near the water.
One afternoon while ringing up a sale, the young girl heard a commotion from the pool behind her across the hall.
A woman was just pulled from the pool. Limp, on her back turning blue. Not breathing.
Stunned on-looking bystanders frozen.
Inaction.
The teenage girl darted to the woman. Started mouth-to-mouth. The woman moved, struggled, gagged, puked and breathed.
And Lived.
Our teenager never got exactly the job she wanted; that job she trained for.
But her education did pay off. Especially for one swimmer visiting Adirondack Park.
The management at the resort was concerned that the near death by drowning would cause adverse publicity, I suppose. The life-saving event was never reported. Bad for business, you see. Our young heroine was never thanked.
And she doesn't want to be thanked now. And really doesn't want this blogged.
Managing Management Time(tm)
Video production credit: Peter ShinnYour Business Blogger(R) opened up my Northern Virginia Community College classroom to guests and a camera to present an overview of Bill Oncken's Managing Management Time(tm)
The video clip is divided into five segments and totals some 70 minutes. Please comment on the section that worked best for you. Or the least.
Managers & Staff, Career Advancement:
How to Promote & Be Promoted. FREE
Managers, How do you train your team members to take more responsibility?
To Award a Promotion.
Staffers, How do you work to earn more responsibility?
To Earn a Promotion.
If your career management skills need to be sharpened, join us at the Northern Virginia Community College, Arlington, Virginia.
Who: Managers & Individual Contributors; Owners & Direct Reports
What: Learn the benchmarks to promotion.
When: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 4:00 to 5:30pm
Where: NVCC, Room 304, 4600 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203 Behind Holiday Inn. See Map.
Why: Increase the student's value to the organization
Cost: No Charge. Registration is required. Parking is limited.
Since 1960, over one million people have been trained in our practice of management. The MMT class teaches the manager, to leverage management time, and the time of your team, to get more done.
We teach Solutions to Your Management Problems.
Harvard Business Review published Managing Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? in 1974, by Bill Oncken, Jr.. The article, an edited excerpt of the MMT seminar, has gone on to become one of the two most requested reprints in the history of the Review. The training summarized in the article is sometimes called the "Monkey Management" seminar.
Jack Yoest, Adjunct Professor of Management and President of Management Training of DC, is a former Armored Cavalry Officer in Combat Arms. His military leadership training and experience guides his management philosophy at the core of Managing Management Time™. He has managed software, health care and international human resource management companies.
Jack also served in the Governor's Office of the Commonwealth Virginia as Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Resources where he acted as the Chief Technology Officer for the secretariat. He was responsible for the successful Year 2000 (Y2K) conversion for the 16,000-employee unit. He was also a manager with a medical device start-up and helped move sales from zero to over $12 million, resulting in a buy-out by Johnson & Johnson. Jack has consulted in China and India.
Questions? www.Yoest.com, Jack@Yoest.org, or call Jack at 202.215.2434 to save your spot.
Here's the script for the YouTube clip,
Manage Your Career: Learn How To Get Promoted, Managers & Staff, Career Advancement: How to Promote & Be Promoted. #9
This is Jack Yoest Your Business Blogger® with Solutions to Your Management Problems.
Managers: How do you train your team members in the right way to take more responsibility?
So that You can Award them with a Promotion?
Staffers: How do you work the right way to earn more responsibility?
So that You can Earn that Promotion...Or to keep from getting fired.
If your career advancement management skills need to be sharpened, join us in the seminar named
Manage your career: Learn how to get promoted & be promotable.
This course is designed for both Managers & Individual Contributors; Owners & Direct Reports
To Learn the benchmarks to promotion...or termination
The purpose is to increase the attendees' value to their organizations.
To successfully navigate the office politics of promotion and earn more money.
To learn more about getting promoted visit YOEST dot com
That's Y O E S T dot com
Your Business Blogger(R) is opening a Northern Virginia Community College classroom in Arlington, Virginia near the Ballston Metro for a one hour seminar:
Managers and Staff; Career Advancement: How to Promote and be Promotable.
There is no charge to sit in on the class. On Wednesday, Nov 19 at 4pm.
But you will need to email me to register -- class size is limited.
Managers work to control events, instead of events controlling them.They anticipate the future . . . adapt to the present. . . and learn from the past.
* * * The Managing Management Time™ class trains managers
how to apply this philosophy to their own leadership challenges * * *
Are you running out of time...while your staff runs out of work?If your management skills need to be sharpened, join us at the Northern Virginia Community College, Arlington.
Who:Managers who need to get in control of events or to better influence results
What:An introduction to Managing Management Time™
1.Vocational vs Management Time
2.Molecule of Management
3.Followership and Leadership
4.Management and Sales
5.Development of Direct Reports
When: Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 4:00 to 5:30pm
Where:NVCC, Room 304, 4600 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203
Cost:No Charge. Registration is required. Parking is limited.
Since 1960, over one million people have been trained in our practice of management. The MMT class teaches you, the manager, to leverage your management time, and the time of your team, to get more done.
Harvard Business Review published Managing Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? in 1974, by Bill Oncken, Jr.. The article, an edited excerpt of the MMT seminar, has gone on to become one of the two most requested reprints in the history of the Review. The training summarized in the article is sometimes called the "Monkey Management" seminar.
Jack Yoest, Adjunct Professor of Management and President of Management Training of DC, is a former Armored Cavalry Officer in Combat Arms.His military leadership training and experience guides his management philosophy at the core of Managing Management Time™.He has managed software, health care and international human resource management companies.
Jack also served in the Governor's Office of the Commonwealth Virginia as Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Resources where he acted as the Chief Technology Officer for the secretariat.He was responsible for the successful Year 2000 (Y2K) conversion for the 16,000-employee unit.He was also a manager with a medical device start-up and helped move sales from zero to over $12 million, resulting in a buy-out by Johnson & Johnson. Jack has consulted in China and India.
Your Business Blogger(R) was interviewed on a series of articles on Bad Managers, Maybe (Gulp) The Problem Is You and in Think Your Boss Is Bad?Some Managers Can't Manage. What to Do If You've Got a Boss Who Only Makes Things Worse. By Tara Swords, Special to The Washington Post, Sunday, September 28, 2008
Jack Yoest says many people haven't learned how to be good workers.
In my conversation with Tara, my concern was not so much with mis-managers as it was with subordinates,
"Jack Yoest, president of Management Training of DC, takes a harder line on the boss-employee relationship and says it's the employee's job to relieve the boss's anxieties, not the other way around.
"If you have a nervous, micromanaging boss who's always in your hair, he probably doesn't trust you," Yoest says. "The employee hasn't sold the boss on his ability to get anything done, and I'd say, most of the time, it's the employee's fault." "
We talk about leadership but not follower-ship. And we teach neither,
Yoest says most people haven't been taught the mechanics of being a good employee. Rather than insisting that managers empower employees, Yoest urges employees to convince the boss that they are dependable and can act as the boss would.
The goal should be to go from an employee who does nothing unless told, or who is always asking the boss what to do, to an employee who recommends a course of action and, after gaining the boss's trust, acts on the boss's behalf.
And the end result of being a good subordinate who can anticipate, adapt and learn is to give the employee more control over the timing and content of his workload,
"When you've reached that level, you're at a whole new level of job security" because you're behaving like a leader, Yoest says. And that puts you one step closer to being the leader .
Not everyone aspires to management. But everyone wants independence and respect at work.
Read the entire story here. And check out the comments.
###
Thank you (foot)notes,
Caution! Sales Pitch Follows: Check your calendar for Wednesday, October 8th at 4pm in Northern Virginia. I'm giving an open seminar on Solutions to Your Management Problems. No Charge, but registration is required. Email me for info.
Your Business Blogger(R) is an Adjunct Professor of Management at the Northern Virginia Community College.
Two Items for Your Consideration:
1) An Invitation
2) An Article Your Business Blogger(R)
An Invitation for managers (with direct reports, the power to hire and fire, and a budget) Wednesday, October 8th from 4 to 5:30 pm in Northern Virginia near the Ballston Metro. A brief overview on Solutions to Your Management Problems. No Charge. Email me if you'd like more detail -- click here.
Your Business Blogger(R) was interviewed for an article on dealing with -- and managing -- Bad Bosses. It is scheduled to run this Sunday, 28 September in The Washington Post, Sunday Source section.
Let me know what you think and do make plans to attend the class.
And remember, If you are near Charlottesville, Virginia tomorrow, Saturday September 27th, Charmaine is speaking at the University of Virginia on women in leadership.
UPDATE: The article is up. Please take a look and link to the article in WaPo and I will owe you.
Your Business Blogger(R) just returned from meeting a number of conservative friends in Minneapolis-St. Paul in preparation for the GOP convention. It was exciting to talk with the good-guys from across the country especially during the Palin pick for VP.
I ran into my good friend Morton Blackwell who has run conservative politics in Virginia for decades and heads up the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia.
Recently, I was honored to give a brief presentation on management to LI. The overview requested was on Managing Management Time(TM) created and developed by The William Oncken Corporation.
LI also asked about some time management techiques and I certainly obliged.
But.
But Alert Readers will know that Managing Management Time(tm) is a philosophy created to teach managers to be more effective; to control events. MMT is NOT a time management course.
The briefing is divided into four short segments.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
###
Thankyou foot(notes):
Full Disclosure: Your Business Blogger(R) is a licensed agent for The William Oncken Corporation.
Charmaine and I spent last week in Minneapolis and we just put her back on a plane this afternoon to attend the GOP convention. See her quotes in The Wall Street Journal. She is the president and CEO of Americans United for Life and former senior advisor to the Huckabee for president campaign.
The new Leadership Development Carnival #1 is up and running at Great Leadership, hosted by Dan McCarthy. The Carnival is a clearing house of leadership and leadership development advice and commentary from over 30 leadership pundits, including Your Business Blogger(R).
Carnivals serve a vital function in the blogosphere that is missing in most conventional blogs: Editorial oversight.
Dan McCarthy does this ably and without direct compensation. Bloggers work for links and traffic. Go visit.
Dan will be working as the editor of the Leadership Development Carnival every month. If you'd like to submit an article, use the carnival submission form.
Do you want your interns to be more organized, resourceful and effective?
The best internships enable interns to complete projects that create value for the organization, and to learn useful skills under the supervision of a mentor.
But interns often come to Washington with unrealistic expectations, which frustrate interns and mentors alike.
Send your interns to the Intern Workshop at the
Leadership Institute’s Stephen P.J. Wood building in
Arlington, Virginia on June 12, 2008,
from 9:15 am to 7:00 pm.
LI’s Intern Workshop teaches interns to set and achieve realistic goals during their internships.
Workshop speakers present tips about:
How to become an unforgettable asset
How to prioritize and get more done
Effective networking
Surviving on zero dollars a day
Personal development
This day-long workshop is free of charge.
It includes a free lunch and free dinner.
The Leadership Institute provides this service to philosophically like-minded organizations and offices to help you and your interns get the most out of your investment in them.
The Dreamer scored in the 93rd percentile in Math for her grade in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I promised her a reward night out -- But a daddy-daughter-dinner-date at Subways won't be happening.
A good deal of her education was in homeschooling where Your Business Blogger(R) worked with her on that topic that counted: Counting. The hard sciences that "girls don't do well."
Not good in Math? Not my girls. My expectation was that they would do well in the quantitatives. (Parent and teacher expectations are the biggest variable in the success of students.) My wife is a genius with SPSS and regression analysis . The Dancer and The Diva are rabid readers and love 'rithmatic -- and are bloggers.
The Penta-Posse are outliers on the bell curve of school age young'ums.
So. I promised The Dreamer a night out. But not at Subway. The restaurant is off the good-guy list for two reasons:
1) The company doesn't care for homeschoolers, and
Subway, the sandwich restaurant, wants to hear your child's story – unless he or she is home schooled.
The national chain's "Every Sandwich Tells a Story Contest" offers prizes and a chance to be published on the Subway Web site and in Scholastic's "Parent & Child" magazine but specifically excludes home schoolers. Subway's website states:
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Contest is open only to legal residents of the Untied (sic) States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted.
Subway will probably say they excluded home schools because of the main prize ($5,000 worth of athletic equipment to the winning child's school). But Subway could have given it to a local park, church or school of the winning home schooler's choice.
Subway's Web site promotion not only misspells "Untied (sic) States," but offers the grand prize winner a "Scholastic Gift Bastket (sic) for your home."
Subway's leadership clearly does not understand the value of homeschooling. In addition to learning how to spell, we are keeping our kids clear of the public schools' Family Life Education: Which is, as is commonly known, Sex Ed taught by liberals. When almost 20% of teens have herpes -- one would hope that this objective fact might persuade our feminist free-lovers that the condom classes might not be working.
Nope. The public payroll sex trainers are working even harder.
Here's some of what appears in Family Life Education for grades six through eight,
6.1 The student will learn that there are many health care and safety agencies in the community. No need to talk with mom or dad, or aunt Sally or uncle Joe. The Planned Parenthood abortion clinic is just around the corner.
6.7 The student will be able to describe the etiology, effects and transmission of the HIV virus. Clean needles for drug users? Contaminated blood supply? This is more important than spelling or math? The school will not reveal the detail of homosexual sex acts in the spread of the HIV virus. I did see a very nice man who teaches the course, however.
6.8 ...[E]valuate ...sexuality, and gender stereotyping... The feminists are determined to get women in combat in the armed services.
7.7 The student will recognize that sexual behaviors are conscious decisions... The public schools are a bit confused even about their own world view: homosexuality is a conscious decision; a preference -- not an orientation. FLE lurched into the truth.
So Subway supports only public schools, can't spell and doesn't like homeschoolers.
Dinner at Subway? No sirree -- We all are a-going to Chick-fil-a. Chick-fil-A
###
Thank you (foot)notes:
Tom Peters once remarked that excellence should permeate an organization, especially for managing the perceptions of the customer. This is why managers make so much money. Airlines, in the consumers' mind, must understand that if the tray tables are dirty, the airline doesn't do engine maintenance.
The Army taught if boots were not shined, the soldier couldn't shoot straight.
If Subway can't spell, their food will make you [sic].
Launching area for the crew regatta
click on image for live feed web-cam Building Teams and Teamwork is the mantra of the modern manager.
How does a manager take a group of talented individual contributors and motivate them to, well, pull together as one unit in the same boat?
Last year The Chronicle of Higher Education lurched into the truth in an article All for One.
It was a story on rowing.
And in it Your Business Blogger(R) read a business lesson.
For both my business practice and The Dreamer's crewing at her high school.
***
Race Course
Click on image for live feed
web-cam The Oak Ridge Rowing Association and the Scholastic Rowing Association of America is sponsoring the 2008 National Scholastic Championships in Oak Ridge, TN. Several thousand visitors will go down to the river and pray for blue skies and flat water.
We are packing up the monster Huck-a-truck and the Penta-Posse (minus The Dreamer traveling with her team) and will gas-guzzle our way to the Volunteer State to watch our girls compete at the regatta.
The Women's coach was able to persuade decision makers to allow his team to use the Invictus. A new and faster boat used by upper class men at their high school.
Where tenths of a second determine winners, the perception of crewing a world-class shell can make the difference. If the women think they are faster, they will be.
Rowing is 90 percent mental, the other half is physical.
Scholastic Rowing Association
of America
Regatta 2008
Which brings us back to Notes From Academe, in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Writer Scott Smallwood visited the Cambridge University Boat Club in the UK to write about the yearly Oxford-Cambridge competition.
Alert Readers will recall that Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) read at Oxford and attended our first rowing event on the narrow creeks that pass for rivers at ox ford.
Duncan Holland, the Cambridge coach with some 20 years experience, helped Dutch rowers to an Olympic medal. He well understands that even though he's got winning seasons, only one race matters as a condition of (enjoyable) employment:
Beat Oxford.
Picking eight rowers seems like an easy task for a coach,
With rowing machines that can spit out reams of numbers about how fast and hard every rower can pull, what's so hard about choosing a team? Why not just pick the eight strongest guys and be done with it? It turns out...that team dynamics are trickier than that. The eight who are eventually chosen will be not necessarily the fastest individual rowers, but the best combination of rowers.
Smallwood continues,
Quintus Travis, a past president of the boat club and now treasurer, puts the mystery more bluntly: "There are always a couple [of rowers] who are stunted, but somehow they make the boats go faster."
The Brits can be brutal.
Mr. de Rond is a professor at Cambridge's Judge Business School and is studying the Cambridge athletes and the team and the coach,
...de Rond sees the answer [of the faster boats] in how team members bond. He draws a comparison from a 2005 paper in the Harvard Business Review by Tiziana E. Casciaro, of Harvard, and Miguel Sousa Lobo, of Duke University. The pair studied likability versus competence. Their work boils down to this: When choosing whom to work with, do you pick the lovable fool or the competent jerk? People, especially managers, often say they value competence above all. But in practice, they'll often trade some of that competence for likability. And that may not be so dumb.
Mr. de Rond doesn't think any of the Cambridge rowers are incompetent. No matter how lovable you are, you can't get in this boat unless you're a top-notch rower.
But here the Cambridge rowers become a self-directed team. Something business managers talk about but seldom see,
When the tentative roster was chosen," says [de Rond], Dan wasn't originally on the list." The other men successfully lobbied the coaches to put him in the varsity boat, even though by the numbers he was a borderline choice. Now, he says, [Dan's] social skills -- he's the class clown, really -- have improved the psychology of the entire team.
Like the coaches, this is where managers work their magic. To assemble a team that maximizes strengths and minimizes weaknesses, as Peter Drucker said.
So the women's coach got a better boat for his team. Coaches and managers get paid to figure out the immeasurables; the intangibles that go into building a winning team.
This Freshman Women's coach has got it figured out.
If he reported to me, I'd get him a raise...
###
Yorktown Crew Boosters Thank you (foot)notes:
On April 7, 2007, in the 153rd match-up: Cambridge beat Oxford.
“There’s this saying that ‘Miles make champions,’ ” Michelle Guerette said. So she spends up to five hours a day on the water, doing a variety of workouts. Mix these pieces into your own sculling training:
BUILDING BLOCKS A base training session “addresses fitness, feeling and rhythm,” Charley Butt said. As with a runner, he said, what matters is “how a rower gets in the miles.” He advised rowing for 25 minutes at 75 percent of full pressure at a stroke rate of 16 to 20. Then, he said, paddle for 5 to 10 minutes and repeat. Maintaining a low stroke rate allows you to concentrate on technique.
Good management looks easy when good numbers come in. But when the numbers are down -- whether in sales or votes -- managing begins to look like real work.
As recently as this past November, the New York Times was trumpeting Hillary Clinton’s “No-Nonsense Style” as a manager. The story hailed her as a well-organized leader who had “honed” her skills, adjusted her style after the health care reform debacle, and had generated enduring loyalty from a cadre of skilled aides operating smoothly in HillaryLand.
Continue reading at the jump.
###
Thank you (foot)notes:
Kentucky and Oregon are voting today. Obama cannot win. Hillary cannot lose.
Full Disclosure: Charmaine served as senior advisor to the Huckabee presidential campaign.
Dr. Mom has written extensively on women in management. I appreciate her writing: it keeps her and Charmaine out of Nordstroms...
Here is a speech she gave some 20 years ago -- it seems that mom was on the cutting edge.
Note her use of 'alliances' used by managers to get things done. Your Business Blogger(R) was using the term "networks." Bill Oncken uses "support" both as a verb and as an adjective describing 'system' in his "molecule of management."
Dr. Crouse has the better word, I believe.
The Managerial Woman
SETTLING IN, BRANCHING OUT, MOVING UP
By JANICE SHAW CROUSE, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs,
Taylor University
Delivered to the Career Women’s Council, Marion, Indiana, August 19, 1986
It is with a tremendous amount of gratitude and to be honest just a few pinches of regret that I stand here today and officially close the first year of the Marion-Grant County Career Women’s Council. I hope that you all share in the sense of satisfaction at what has been accomplished this year. There is a summary of the year’s activities at your place setting. Here you see the joint product of the hard work of this year’s officers and committee chairs as they worked to launch this organization and to plan challenging and interesting programs. I am proud of the growth and development that has occurred in our founding year and I know that you join me in expressing appreciation to each person who made this year such a success. Further, I look forward to the coming year since I know that the new officers whom we installed today are well-qualified and the plans which they have already begun laying out for next year are exciting. I look forward to seeing the continuing progress and growth which is sure to come under their leadership....
Your Business Blogger(R): and
Your Circle of Friends When Your Business Blogger(R) served a tour of duty in government, I learned the harsh reality of what academics called "Multiple Points of Accountability."
I thought that my boss was my only constituent.
Nope. I learned that I had better pay attention to the press, to other department silos, to numerous associations (aka lobbyists), other political appointees, elected officials -- and finally: The Voters.
There is no difference between management in government and business. The basics are constant.
The first thing every manager learns is that he has multiple points of accountability. Points outside his silo.
The manager must nurture multiple points of accountability to turn these to multiple points of support.
He’s got to turn his silo into a circle -- of friends.
Management Training for Church Leaders:
The QuestionsYour Business Blogger(R) would often tease Preachers about their work-load.
After all, they only work one hour a week. On Sunday.
Pastors always laugh at that old joke. Diplomacy is part of their discipline.
But as managers, Pastors have double duty.
They have the work of an individual contributor.
They have the responsibilities of management.
Between the christening, marrying and burying, they really do have the hardest job on this side of eternity.
***
The Christian Church which shepherds believers and their faith worldwide, is nevertheless much like any organization in terms of order and structure. Basic management principles apply.
Pastors often must focus on numbers: numbers: attendance, budget, seating, parking, programs.
But the Pastor as manager doesn’t manage numbers, he manages behaviors.
If not of the congregation, then hopefully of his staff.
The following questions concern management strategies. The numbers will follow once skills are in place.
All church organizations and staffs experience personnel challenges and management concerns. The following questions concern management strategies and skill building for pastor-managers who can benefit from knowing that the numbers will follow once the staff is trained and trusted, and skills are in place.
Remember:
The Pastor leads people and manages behaviors.
The Pastor doesn't manage numbers; he manages behaviors.
The Pastor doesn't manage staff; he leads people.
The YouTube video presents 5 common questions. Here are the 5 answers and bonus solutions to many church management problems.
1. What does the church leader, the manager really do?
Plan, Lead, Organize, Control, Motivate.
The pastor’s focus must be on both the congregation and his staff. This requires skill building and continuous learning as the pastor also undoubtedly must commit serious time and attention to study and sermon preparation.
Here the Pastor is radically different from the manager in business and government. In business there are many areas of which the manager will know little or nothing. But he depends upon department heads to support him.
A great deal of the Pastor's time is consumed in the research and review of the sermon. This is work that only the Pastor can do -- this is vocational time.
The Pastor is one of the few managerial disciplines that has considerable management time and the vocational-knowledge responsibilities of an individual contributor.
For most managers the formula is simple: Knowledge plus Network equals Success. The manager's success is dependent on getting his network...to work. To succeed, the manager needs the support of his Ruling Board, outside peers, and staff.
2. What does the individual contributor do?
The work. The individual contributor does the hands-on work -- in business it would be the accountant, brick layer, college professor. This is the vocational, the knowledge-worker.
The manager, in a routine management position, has few vocational duties.
Except for the Pastor.
His is one of the few positions requiring both extensive hands on -- sermon writing -- and management skills. Little wonder Pastors run out of time.
3. Pastors, why were you hired?
If management wasn’t mentioned, that’s not unusual. Indeed, the search committee had a list of KSA’s (knowledge – skills – abilities), but often they don’t delve into management maturity or the candidates ability to garner support of his network. Pastors usually are hired for their wisdom and judgment.
Traditionally, seminaries haven’t focused on the day-to-day management challenges. So even pastors over 50 may only have the management maturity of a twenty something. Henry Ford once said that, "If you take all the experience and judgment of men over fifty out of the world, there wouldn't be enough left to run it."
4. Can the church manager be a victim?
Many Church leaders feel this way – but the Pastor must have impact on his church and the community. The manager must be in control of events or favorably influence outcomes.
The successful Pastor- manager is able to develop a team that is proactive. The Pastor and his staff are on the "offensive" for good. For example, a church received visits by the police for violating noise level ordinances. That church was on defense.
The best Pastor-manager and his team would have anticipated any community friction and worked out solutions.
5. What happens when the team/church staff is angry?
Even if the staff displays no emotion because they are “people of faith,” they still need
a trusted manager to whom they can turn and who knows how to deal with their concerns and get to the bottom of the matter. The worst outcome of an angry staffer in a church work environment is not disobedience, but incentive-stifling compliance. Such negative attitudes, in turn, damage the manager who will often need his team to protect him from (his) mistakes.
In the army the cliché was, “Take care of the troops and they will take care of you. And if you don’t take care of the troops, they will take care of you – the troops always get even.” But even if the staff displays no emotion, the manager will often need his team to protect him from (his) mistakes. The worst outcome of an angry staffer is not disobedience, but supervise compliance.
Of course church staff aren't really into vengeance; they just hurt, withdraw, and stay
out of sight as much as possible. This is especially true for staff with a distracted pastor-boss and it is why staff-building events, lunches, silly contests and required prayers together seldom work.
Your Business Blogger(R) and Charmaine
and the Penta-Posse on Easter Sunday
2005 Grand Canyon6. Who are the church ‘constituents’ and ‘customers’?
This is the classic dilemma in the non-profit world – the disconnect between who gives and who gets. The constituents, who tithe in the pews, are not the customers; recipients of charity from the pastor’s discretionary fund or outreach budget are the actual customers.
These ‘customers’ probably are not even members of the church. This poses unique challenges for church managers and staff, who need skills and understanding. Many church employees, especially the young, don’t know that the dynamics they find frustrating are the result of working for a non-profit.
7. When is counsel, coun-‘sell’?
A council of advisors - akin to a church’s Administrative Board or Vestry - should ‘sell’ counsel, advice to the pastor. The pastor can buy the advice or not and making the best decision is the wisdom of mature management.
If the senior pastor isn’t trained to make good decisions by asking for recommendations, people at all the other levels will suffer the consequences and have no opportunity to express themselves.
8. What is the most important concern for the church staff? The work/ministry, the people/congregation or the boss/Pastor?
The Pastor. (Staff and Pastors always get this wrong – staff thinks it has the answer and gives the wrong answer. Pastors know the right answer and give the wrong answer, out of embarrassment…)
Even in the atmosphere of 'servant leadership' the Senior Pastor is the final arbiter, the final decision maker and sets the tone for decisions made by subordinates.
Here again, the church leader is quite different than other business leaders. In any other 'industry' some managers might prefer to be low profile. Pastors do not have this option; commanding a pulpit three times or more a week puts him, well, front and center whether he wants to be seen or not.
It is the Pastor's direction that counts in making decisions on the strategic direction of his church. Every church staff member, of course has his work to do.
The staffer does not have his own agenda.
Only the Pastor.
9. Is office politics good or bad?
Politics is the normal interaction of people and power and position and process. Office politics in a church setting is a tool to be acknowledged and used by church management.
10. Is it better for the church leader to have the answers, or to ask the questions?
Neither. It is best for the church leader to have competent staff who anticipate questions, research alternatives and present recommendations. Why does the pastor have to think of everything? (I know, I know…I’m sorry to ask.)
But if the structure only allows for a few associate pastors – those who insulate the church leader or senior pastor – to offer information, the intelligence and experience of other staffers who work in different parts of the church is wasted.
The subordinate should bring not only questions, but suggested answers. The church leader can then grade the answers and make decisions on staffer’s recommendations.
11. How does the Pastor know when he is managing well?
The best church staff will bring a memo/course of action/decision that will require nothing more than the Pastor’s signature.
There is friction if communications channels aren’t in place. Many challenges may not even be known to some staffers who could make a difference; the manager should be looking for input.
12. Does the Associate Pastor have the “right” to church resources?
Nope. The mere position of authority may or may not command compliance from the church bureaucracy. It has to be earned.
Church managers, like mid-level managers in any organization, do not have a "right" to assets or support from his peers in sister departments -- even if the manager's position warrants.
The professional manager nurtures his network.
13. Who is the boss? Who is the subordinate? How can an observer tell if the Senior Pastor they trust as their spiritual leader is the one really making the decisions?
The military has the template. There is a term for a subordinate in the Army called, “Action Officer.” There is no doubt when the superior officer and junior officer work together, that the action, the next steps remain with the lower ranking Action Officer. Management training teaches managers and staff to understand who is tasked with an assignment and what the follow-up will look like. Training reviews the understanding of clean lines in the chain of command and who has the next move.
14. Is there a relationship between the time a manager ‘works’ and the results?
No. The manager should see himself, not just as the captain of a ship – but as the helmsman with a light touch on the rudder. Where the slightest movement, the smallest effort moves the rudder and can direct the largest vessel.
15. What is the Pastor responsible for?
All that his church does, or fails to do.
Even if The Senior Pastor delegates to another pastor and gives him both the responsibility and the authority, the congregation will likely still demand that the Senior Pastor do it instead: the christening, marrying and burying.
16. What makes for the best Associate Pastors?
If the Associate Pastor, or any staff, waits until being told what to do or has to ask what to do, the senior pastor is not running a healthy organization -- he is running a kids-daycare center for adults. Associate Pastors need to know what to do, how to do it, and when. Training and discipline preparation for them is not unlike the Army’s definition: Prompt obedience to orders or the initiation of appropriate action in the absence of orders.
Every Senior Pastor’s deam.
Every Senior Pastor should be training his successor.
17. When should the church leader raise his voice? – When should the church leader not take counsel?
When the sanctuary is on fire. And a fire-and-brimstone sermon, to be sure.
Emergencies are the few times that a direct order -- or direct shouting -- is required. And maybe not even then if you’re Presbyterian…
In most instances the Pastors should make a moment to take council of the mature adivsors. Seldom in any situation will the manager need to raise his voice.
Professional managers know well that Knowledge can be nil in the formula and the manager can still be successful.
The Pros know that, if given a choice between Knowing and Getting -- for example, the hiring manager evaluating a candidate for a management slot -- chooses the ability to garner support.
Even more than knowledge.
A manager can know nothing -- but as long as the net in his network is well constructed, he will not be let down.
The transcript is at the jump.
Knowledge plus Network equals Success
The Penta-Posse (-) and Einstein
at Princeton University
Monkey Business
Management
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Thank you (foot)notes:
*Your Business Blogger(R) is an Adjunct Professor of Management in Business Technologies at the Northern Virginia Community College.
Press Release: The William Oncken Corporation Announces Licensed Marketing Agreement With Management Training of DC, LLC
Dallas, Texas, July 4, 2007 – The William Oncken Corporation (WOC) is pleased to announce it has signed on Management Training of DC, LLC, (MTDC) to launch an initiative to broaden the world-wide reach of WOC’s leadership training products.
Since 1961, The William Oncken Corporation, (WOC) a management consulting company, has trained more than one million managers and leaders. WOC’s flagship seminar, Managing Management Time™, was specifically designed for those individuals in an organization who are valued as much, if not more, for their judgment and influence than for their time and personal effort.
For more on William "Bill" Oncken see bio at the jump.
Barack Obama with
America Hater Jeremiah Wright "I'm here to help you get elected. Do you want me to campaign for you? Or against you?" Quipped Jerry Falwell to a conservative candidate.
Your Business Blogger(R) once served on the Board of The Family Foundation in Virginia and had the honor of meeting Falwell and learning how he was so effective in politics.
The burden of the candidate is to know how to gather support, package it and send it forth, was Falwell's philosophy. Falwell has a lesson for Obama.
Jeremiah Wright had said, "God D@m America" from the pulpit. Wright is a part of Obama's life, formerly with the campaign.
Gary Baurer, left, Jerry Falwell, and John McCain far right
Liberty University function, Lynchburg, Virginia, 2006
photo credit: Charmaine Barack Obama must distance his candidacy from his pastor. Obama's problem is to know who should do the talking.
And it's not him.
Every sales professional, account manager and marketer knows the value of using surrogates, or testimonials as they are known in business. The classic Xerox sales training program, Personal Selling Skills or PSS, taught that a sales rep only uses proof when faced with customer skepticism of the value proposition.
To use a third party if the sales rep was not believed.
If the customer didn't believe the sales representative, then, and only then would the sales pro present backup evidence -- a believable third party endorsement who does the talking. The sales rep knows that this is when his voice is silent and the customer should hear the testimonial from another customer or respected authority.
The salesman, like the politician must shut up. Difficult for both to do.
Barack Obama is sounding like a salesman who keeps talking and talking when the sale is not being made. It sounds like pleading, like whining -- even if the words are elegant: it doesn't sell.
Your Business Blogger(R) carried as bag as a sales guy for decades and made the same mistakes as Obama is doing, but without the eloquence. But the problem has a simple sales solution.
Barack with the cussing "Reverend" Wright or to a much lessor extent, McCain with Pastor Hagee, should not keep talking. The candidate as sales guy is not going to fix the unfavorable endorsement in this instance.
Only the witness, the source of the testimonial, the endorser can help the candidate/sales rep. Obama has said enough.
Jeremiah Wright could help Obama by telling all, telling early, telling often -- only Wright can now convince voters that Obama does not hold Wright's Hate America First position. Only Wright can, well, preach that Obama does not believe that white people are evil. Only Wright can now say that Obama has different values.
Only Wright can make right.
Wright should do the talking -- but with out the hate, with out the cussing.
But McCain shouldn't worry: Wright won't be able to do it. And Obama will continue to think he can talk his way out of this.
Obama is wrong. And he will lose.
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Thank you (foot)notes:
Full Disclosure: Charmaine served as senior advisor to Mike Huckabee for president campaign.
Ladies, You are not perfect, and you don't have to beLadies only please. The first step Your Business Blogger(R) advises women who are managers or who aspire to take on more responsibility is to understand -- and appreciate the risk of failure.
And how really unimportant failing is.
Men also need to be reminded of the nature of risk -- but men are hard-wired differently from women on risk-taking. Men naturally take risks. Women less so.
Women are indeed more relational and nurturing -- but the real challenge is to understand that perfection is not required. No, biology is not destiny, but it is instructive. For example, women are hard-wired not to assume risk. Women as care-givers for infant children know instinctively that failure in her "job" will result in a dead baby. Perfection in constant care and attention and feeding are absolute. Don't feed a new-born for a few hours and the outcome can be tragic. Women are not permitted any margin of error in infant care. Women worry about children and relationships -- Charmaine wrote about this in her book: Mother in the Middle: Searching for Peace in The Mommy Wars. Men worry less about the kids when at work.
We see this in Academia. Studies have shown that male scholars will publish more articles -- but they will be of lower quality than compared with their female counterparts. Women will publish fewer papers, but they will be cited by other scholars more than male-authored articles. Women write better articles.
Women, I have also learned from clients and students, are perfectionists: they do not guess at test questions, do not use aggressive test taking or management strategies.
Women prefer all the traffic-control lights to be green before getting in the car to leave town.
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP who engineered the merger with Compaq, writes about perfection in her book, Tough Choices. She calls this management philosophy "perfect enough" to encourage HP's culture that mistakes will be made, but this is the only path to success. "The goal is not perfection; the goal is progress," she writes.
The Dude getting a hit 2007In seminars, I review baseball's at-bat analogy. If a batter only gets on base 4 out of 10 times, he is a super star.
Many women might view with horror a 60% failure rate. But management, like baseball does not deal in perfection. A manager can have a lot of strike outs, but an occasional home run will win games. A .400 batting average will make you a rich woman and win games.
Please watch the short video clip and let us know what you think. Our comments section is down so please email us.
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Thank you (foot)notes:
See the video script at Management Training of DC. I originally wrote about women getting to first base -- so consumed I was with the baseball metaphor -- that Charmaine had to remind me that the base running has taken on another meaning in our sex-drenched culture.
Biology is not destiny, but it is a co-conspirator. Apologies to Sigmund Freud.
William Tecumseh Sherman. National Archives Our friends at Military.com have a short, four question test to determine which military model of leadership you might fit.
No wrong answer.
No bad answers either.
Your Business Blogger(R) tests out as Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Well.
I married into a Georgia family with deep Confederate roots. Poor back then, they would remind me when we visit near Atlanta, No slaves.
They are still mad about Sherman's March to the Sea. They'all are not going to appreciate my test results.
When in the south, do not say "Civil War." It was technically, "The War Between The States." We just wanted to leave, say my southern kin. The North wouldn't let us be and came after us.
But if you are thankful for our current, reunited uniformed services, you might consider the Grateful American Coin. It is a Challenge Coin to present to veterans. Neat gift. 100% of Net Proceeds Benefit Wounded Veterans.
Why are we doing all of this? ...The answer is gratitude.
Grateful American Coin was founded on the belief that it is out of a deep sense of gratitude that we should honor and acknowledge the sacrifices of members of the U.S. military. In doing so, we should individually do what we can, however small, to help those service men and women who have sustained the most severe injuries.
We feel that there are a great many Americans who share our sense of gratitude and are looking for an ideal way to express it.
Grateful American Coin is a non-profit organization and has submitted a 501(c)(3) application.
Grateful American Coin is based outside of Tampa, FL and is entirely staffed with non-paid volunteers.
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Thank you (foot)notes:
Thanks to John Howland at USNA at Large for the referral to Grateful American Coin. Unpaid link.
If your business is growing more than 20% a year, you must buy some debt or sell some equity -- this is the only way to fund receivables, unless you have a cash business (or a Dell business model...).
In marketing run the numbers down the funnel: how many touches going in at the top, to an action, to a sale at the bottom of the funnel. Work that sale backward up the funnel to learn the size needed for your marketing budget. (And remember: Half your marketing budget will be wasted. You get paid to figure out which half. Apologies to John Wanamaker.)
Your job in business is to create a customer and make a profit. If you are not doing this, you do not have a business; you have a hobby.
If you are looking for the perfect gift, go visit NYCSubwayLine. Your Business Blogger(R) did all his Christmas shopping on-line and got the coolest backpacks, clutches, hoodies and shirts for the Penta-Posse. The hoodie is The Dreamer's favorite. The cutting edge, high quality products are the brain-child of actress Lynne Lambert,
One day, while waiting for her train, Lynne found herself staring up at the subway signs with its big colored circles with the letters and numbers inside and thought "Why hasn't anyone ever done anything with these quintessential NYC icons? I bet people would wear them if it was done right!" And so the NYC subway Line was born. Licensed from NY State's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the tees have appeared in movies like "Bring It On" and "Prime," on MTV, BET and VH1 by artists and their audience, and worn by celebrities such as rapper "Fabolous" and President Clinton. Recently, Ms. Lambert was awarded the Make Mine a Million Business award that was founded by Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence along with OPEN from American Express where she received financing from OPEN, one year of intensive business coaching and mentoring from a dream team of successful women entrepreneurs, business software and training from Intuit, discounts on shipping and business services from FedEx, marketing assistance from QVC, and assistance on work/life issues and financial security from AIG.
The Dude and Baby Boo circa 2005
USAF Academy The Dude wants to fly military war planes. Never too early to start planning. So which branch? Air Force or Navy?
John Howland who runs USNA-AT-Large has (very) Alert Readers who have written in with suggestions on just this topic. The following deserves a wide audience to aid the high schoolers -- and younger -- students in picking a military academy.
"Bill Taylor provides this handy guide for young Americans who have the choice --
Great comparison of USAF vs. USN Aviators. Pretty much fits my experience.
Regards, Bill
The piece is written by Bob Norris, a former Naval aviator who also did
a 3 year exchange tour flying the F-15 Eagle. He is now an accomplished
author of entertaining books about U.S. Naval Aviation including "Check
Six" and "Fly-Off".
Check Six
Bob Norris
In response to a letter from an aspiring fighter pilot on which military
academy to attend, Bob replied with the following:
22 December 2005
Young Man,
Congratulations on your selection to both the Naval and Air
Force Academies. Your goal of becoming a fighter pilot is impressive and
a fine way to serve your country. As you requested, I'd be happy to
share some insight into which service would be the best choice.
Each service has a distinctly different culture. You need to ask
yourself "Which one am I more likely to thrive in?"
Baby Boo, Your Business Blogger, The Dude
P-51 Mustang, USAF Academy
USAF Snapshot: The USAF is exceptionally well organized and well
run. Their training programs are terrific. All pilots are groomed to
meet high standards for knowledge and professionalism. Their aircraft
are top-notch and extremely well maintained. Their facilities are
excellent. Their enlisted personnel are the brightest and the best
trained. The USAF is homogenous and macro.
No matter where you go, you'll know what to expect
