John Manning's Blog, page 41

Build in Better Daily Focus

Do you ever head into the office feeling like you’re walking into a sort of fog? With so many tasks and responsibilities to tackle, the enormity of it all feels like some heavy, unmanageable, cloudy mass. Perhaps in just going through the motions of the morning or reacting to unforeseen needs of the day, you may regularly struggle to see what really should be done because, in your mind, it all needs to be done. But is that really the case? At MAP, we commonly coach our clients on how to ident...

Trust Your People

If you want to get the most out of your team, you’ve got to communicate that you trust your people. Yet when it comes to trust, it’s not just about what you say but how you demonstrate this value through your actions. For example, make the choice to avoid questioning the everyday minutia of your people’s jobs. This will help prove you believe in your workers. Also, inspire them to take more matters into their own hands. Proactive habits like these empower, while overly controlling ones will d...

Follow Through, Follow Up

In a recent MAP client survey, our clients rated “follow-up” as one of the top loyalty drivers in our relationship with them. Interestingly, our clients rated this attribute higher than “consulting expertise,” demonstrating the power behind that essential need to trust. In particular, people want to know that you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do—and when you say you’re going to do it! Adopting good habits around follow-through and follow-up seems really basic, I know. But still,...

How Great Expectations Lead to Great Results

In MAP’s 2.5-day executive workshop, we encounter many managers who don’t understand their boss’s expectations of them. Although these are clearly capable employees, they’re really frustrated because they have no blueprint for success. Why? They’re clueless about what success looks like—the expectations for it have never been clearly outlined and communicated by their boss. Operating without this information, these managers feel insecure, upset, and powerless about their jobs. They feel that...

It Can Pay to Be Picky

Picky people often get a bad rap. That’s because pervasive pickiness can slow down decision making, thwart progress, and cause tension among the different personalities on the team. But pickiness in and of itself can be a real asset at times and shouldn’t be discounted when you are responsible for delivering the best possible outcome. It can send a message to your team that average isn’t good enough and you are paying attention when it comes to key deliverables. For example, have you ever hir...

Let Your Values Guide Decision-Making

It’s been said that if you want to understand something about people’s values, pay attention to the key decisions they make and the actions they take. Everyone has values—including you. Values tend to be reflected in your behaviors. And as further explained in MAP’s new book, The Disciplined Leader (Release date: June 2015), good things happen when you consistently align your decision-making to personal and company values. This alignment enables you to effectively prioritize and better accomp...

Take “Tough Love” Feedback to Heart

Throughout my career, I’ve received all kinds of feedback about my performance, strengths and weaknesses, and leadership abilities. But sometimes the feedback stung like a bee, particularly if it came from someone I trusted. Like me, you may have experienced this same sting of “tough love,” too. It’s that feeling you get when someone hits you with a hard truth about something you need to fix—a reality that bites because you didn’t want to face it or simply didn’t know you had an issue in the...

Avoid Emotional Decision-Making

The ability to make good decisions can make or break your career over time. Yet, a really bad decision can end your career in an instant. Over the past 55 years, our clients have consistently told us they made some of their worst decisions when they were emotional. While emotions can guide us, they also can trigger reactive feelings that alter our perspectives and prevent us from understanding what’s really going on at a given moment. Making important decisions when emotional can also hinder...

Know When to Ask for Help

Earlier in my management career, I thought I needed to be the person with all the answers. When facing work challenges, I believed people would see me in the best light if I didn’t let them know I was stumped. Problem was, I didn’t have all the answers. Maybe that was because I didn’t have the experience. Or, maybe I just wasn’t smart enough, I thought. It took some time, but I eventually learned that not having all the answers was OK. More importantly, however, I realized knowing when to ask...

Let Go of Perfectionism

We all know it’s impossible to be perfect. As leaders, we realize it’s the fool’s mindset to think we can do everything right, 100% of the time. Yet how many of us spin our wheels every day, striving for perfectionism? Worse, how many of us are our own worst critics when it comes to making mistakes, falling short of a goal, not understanding something that’s easy for others to grasp, being forgetful or being imperfect in countless other ways? Too many of us. Whether we are afraid to fail or s...