The Rules Of Management (Pioneer Panel's Library) (8 page)

Enjoying work is about taking pleasure in a job well done, having an inner smile, finding something to laugh about, and not taking it too seriously. (No, this does not mean you laugh at people or fail to do your job to the very highest standards.)

Enjoying work is about seeing your job, your role, in a much bigger context. You can be hardworking and you can enjoy yourself—you can do both. You can be productive, effective, efficient, industrious, sober, reliable, and responsible—and yet still be having fun. It’s your choice. No one told you that you had to be grave and uptight. All you were hired to do was your job.

The best thing is that if you learn when to be serious and when to let up and find humor in a situation, it will have a magical effect on those around you.

And if you work in a place where serious and uptight is the norm, here is a secret just for you: No one knows what is going on inside your head. No one. Just so long as the exterior is what they want, the inside can be whatever you want.

If it all gets too much, remember it’s just a job. Sure, one we care about and try to do to the very best of our ability. One we worry about and think about when we’re not at work. One we would like to make better and improve and be more effective at.

But it is only a job when all is said and done.

Look around you. You’ll see the ones who think that what they do is central to the Earth’s movement or vital to the well-being of the entire planet. Nothing could be further from the truth. Enjoy it by all means. Take it seriously and give it all you’ve got, but remember it is just a job and it can be replaced, you can be replaced, the world will go on.

If the job is stressful in a way you don’t like, think about something in life that is more important to you. Your kids, your dog, your mother. Your weekend hang-gliding trips. I don’t know what you do when you’re not at work, but find something that really matters, and use it to help you get through those bad times at work. Use it to get some perspective and recognize that there are more important things than your job.

You can even daydream about these important things to get you through the working day—so long as you promise you’ll only do it when you’re not supposed to be concentrating on the job. But meal breaks, walking over to another building, even when you go to the bathroom, are times you can stop for a moment and remind yourself of what matters in life.

And of course you should also spend time thinking about why work is getting you down, and come up with some kind of plan for improving things. Do you need to cut down your hours, resolve the festering feelings between team members, clinch a particular contract, or complete your next budget?

Well, get on with it if that’s the case, and then you can get back to enjoying the job.

Not letting it get to you doesn’t mean not caring or not taking pride and pleasure in what you do. No, it means putting things into context, so you can go home and switch off. Don’t let it eat away at you, make you unhealthly, or stressed out.

So what are you supposed to be doing? It’s very easy to think you know, but do you really? It’s like when your boss says, “I want this done as soon as possible.” Now that’s really easy; isn’t it? Well, actually no. As soon as whose idea of possible? Yours? The boss’s? And does “want” imply a wish or a need? And “done” is open to all sorts of interpretation.

I know I’m being picky and pedantic but I’m illustrating a point here. You know you have a team and you have to manage it. You know you have budgets and figures and targets and they all have to be met. You know you have a forward-looking strategy and you would like to implement that. You know you have a contract and a job description.

But what are you supposed to be doing? What’s your priority? What’s the end point? What’s the goal? Has anything changed recently. (Senior management sometimes have a way of changing their minds and expecting you to know telepathically?)

I once worked for a senior manager who, to all outward appearances, wanted my team to be successful and productive but who seemed to be hampering my every move. Whenever I wanted to make changes that would drastically improve our figures, he hesitated and delayed and wouldn’t make a decision. I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I wanted to run the department for him as well as I could, but he seemed to be putting obstacles in my path.

Eventually I discovered that another department—run by a relative of his—was supposed to be the winning team. I wasn’t allowed to be the golden boy because that was the role for his young nephew. He wanted me to fail so that young Sam could look good. I was supposed to be useless. When I had that info—what I was supposed to be doing—I could work effectively with it. You’ve got to know what you’re supposed to be doing.

So what are you doing? Important but overlooked rule, this one. Go on, answer the question, what are you doing?

To answer this you need to have long- and short-term plans form-ulated. If you haven’t got a plan, you don’t have a map. If you don’t have a map, you’ll never find the treasure. In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, when someone questions his ability to sail his ship with only two men, Johnny Depp needs no other answer than he’s Captain Jack Sparrow. “Savvy?” If you know who you are and where you are going, you are indeed a pirate and clearly so.

So, are you laying the groundwork for a future promotion? Marking time until you decide what to do? Counting down the days until you retire? Collecting information so you can go to a rival and use it profitably? Waiting to be head-hunted? Learning more about the industry so that you can make a lateral move? Enjoying yourself and having a ball? Doing a hatchet job for the management and making one-third of the workforce redundant?
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Trying hard to be noticed by senior management? Working hard just to do a good job and stay ahead of the game? Building a social network to have fun with? Stealing ideas, resources, staff, and machinery to start your own rival business. (Oh, I’ve seen this done, and a very successful job they made of it, too—they knew exactly what they were actually doing.)

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I knew a general manager of a big engineering firm who was brought in to do exactly that—and the workforce knew it. His first mass meeting was greeted with boos and catcalls. He stood his ground and just said, “I am not the enemy here. The enemy is the downturn in business. I am not the enemy so don’t shout at me.” Worked like a charm.

There are no right and wrong answers. Well, actually a wrong answer would be, “I haven’t a clue.” You have to know what it is you are actually doing. Not what you are supposed to be doing. Not what you want to be doing. Not what the company thinks you are doing. But what you are actually doing. When you know that, you can work miracles because you have secret knowledge. Perhaps everyone else also knows; perhaps no one else knows. But you know and that is the important thing.

Now have a quick look at your team and tell me what every one is actually doing. Good exercise.

I once sat in a meeting, as a very junior manager, in which there was an interminable discussion going on about whether we should buy a particular piece of equipment that some people thought too pricey. I’d said what I had to say on the subject (as indeed had everyone, but some of them were saying it several times) so to pass the time I did a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation of the combined hourly rate of everyone sitting round the table. I pretty much knew everyone’s salaries, so it would have been a fairly close estimate. The interesting thing was that the half hour we spent talking about this piece of equipment was nearly twice as costly as the thing itself.

As a Rules manager, you need to know what your time is worth, and then keep it in the forefront of your mind all the time. The calculation is easy of course—divide your yearly salary into 52 weeks, and then each week into however many hours you’re employed for. The trickier bit—until you’re in the habit—is remembering to check if what you’re doing is a valuable use of your time.

Remember that for many organizations, saleries are the largest single chunk of expenses. Even when it’s not, it’s still a significant figure. And it’s one that you have control over, at least when it comes to you. So you need to ensure that whatever you’re doing is a good investment of that bit of your time. If not, you need to be ruthless cutting it out.

You know those people who waste your time? They’re also wasting your employers” money, which could be used more effectively by you doing something else. So it’s your duty to deal firmly with them (but politely of course).

And you must be just as firm with yourself when you catch yourself procrastinating, filling in time, waiting around, doing pointless stuff, chatting with co-workers, working inefficiently, and so on. Your organization is trusting you to invest their money (that is, your salary) as profitably as possible. Don’t let them down.

This is also a useful exercise to go through when your time is pulled in more than one direction. Should you go to this meeting, or get that report finished? Well, which is going to produce the greater return on investment? That should give you your answer.

I know, I know, it takes you all your time just to get the job done, the paperwork handled and the plants watered without having to think about the future or be a brilliant innovator. But the smart manager—that’s you again—puts aside 30 minutes a week for forward planning. Try asking yourself simple questions: “How can I generate more sales?” “What can I do more expediently?” “How could I cut staff turnover?” “How can I convert more leads to sales?” “How could I streamline the accounting procedure?” “How could I move into another sector?” “How could I get my team to work harder, faster, brighter?” “How could I get them to brainstorm more freely?” “How could I hold meetings that wouldn’t waste so much time?”

There is an old saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” And it’s true. If you aren’t proactive you’ll stagnate. And if you do that the crocodiles will bite your butt. You have to keep paddling, keep moving forward in the water. Sharks have to keep moving forward all their lives to keep water passing through or over their gills. They never stop. Be a shark. Keep moving forward. Because if you don’t there will be plenty of others willing to do so.

And believe me I know what it’s like. You open your mail box and there are loads of emails to deal with. Then there’s the snail mail. Then there’s the staff issues. Then there’s lunch. Then there’s the afternoon work to be done and then there’s a panic to get all the mail ready to go out and then there’s a quick cup of coffee and then it’s about time to pack it all in
and go home and there’s this idiot telling me I’ve got to take 30 minutes out of a jam-packed day to think about the future. Yeah, in your dreams.

But that 30 minutes can be combined with another task. Once a week I have lunch on my own and spend the time being proactive, thinking about the future, thinking of ways to be one jump ahead of the competition. But I do have to go out alone for that lunch, or people come and interrupt my mental planning session.

If you were to wear a smart business suit every day and then suddenly, without warning, turn up in denim and a worn T-shirt, chances are people would look at you askance.
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Try it; it’s fun. If you don’t know what askance is, look it up and then try it.

If you turn in good work and then one day hand in a pile of junk, people are going to think you’ve blown it.

If you treat the staff courteously until one day you blow your top and shout at everyone, they won’t trust you any more.

If you usually get in early and then one day stroll in around noon smelling of beer, they will stop taking you seriously and accuse you of being a drunk.

People need to know what to expect from you. You have to be consistent. You have to treat all staff the same. Do your work the same. You must avoid drawing the spotlight of gossip down on you. You must be blameless, above reproach (that’s probably the same thing), honest, reliable, and dependable. (Again that’s probably the same thing.)

But you don’t have to be gray or dull or boring. You can be exciting, dynamic, stylish, adventurous, innovative, challenging—just make sure that whatever it is you decide to be, you stick at it and be consistent consistently.

We’re not talking budgets here or corporate targets. We’re talking personal goals, personal objectives, personal bottom lines. You have to set them or you won’t be able to determine whether you are a success. There’s no point, by the way, in judging yourself against anyone else. I always wanted to be terribly good at a sport, but I can’t run and failed miserably. It has always led me to believe I am a failure, but I found out the other day that there is a gene for good sporting skills, and it is one I obviously don’t have. Am I a failure? Nope, just genetically challenged, and I can’t beat myself up about that. I am good at other things and I measure my success against