MI K E P E DL E R J OHN B UR GOY NE T OM B OY DE L L

A MA N A G E R

S GUI DE TO
SELF
DEVELOPMENT
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CREATIVITY SOCIAL SKILLS SELF-AWARENESS
EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE VIRTUAL LEARNING
PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE MENTAL AGILITY
PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS SELF-MOTIVATION
FI FTH EDITI ON
More than 50 practical,
self-contained activities to develop
your management potential
A MANAGERS GUIDE TO SELF DEVELOPMENT
has become the indispensable guide for building
management skills. Now in its fifth edition, with a strong
how toapproach, this practical self-development book
helps new and experienced managers improve their
managerial performance. It provides:
A complete picture of the skills and
competencies required of a manager from
change management to coaching.
A flexible, self-development programme
to do alone, with a colleague, or in a group.
Part One introduces a framework of 11 key managerial
qualities. Diagnostic activities help you to discover
your strengths and weaknesses, and identify your own goals
for self-development.
Part Two features more than 50 practical activities to help
you develop your skills and abilities. These include:
Networking Finding a Mentor Handling Conflict
Managing Upwards Getting to a Yes
Collaborative Working Planning Change
Being A Coach Using Communication Tools
This has become one of the must have books on any managers shelf.
Thought-provoking, insightful and focused on how to build practical management skills,
it is bang up to date for the dilemmas that face managers today.
Chris Bones, Principal, Henley Management College
The message of this book is profound and its framework for
personal learning and development is effective. It can take you as far as you want to go
to control what you can in a turbulent world your own learning.
Simone Jordan, Director of Learning, NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
Mike Pedler is a leading
academic and consultant on
management and leadership
issues. He is Professor of
Management Learning at
Henley Management College
and a visiting professor at the
Universities of York and Lincoln.
John Burgoyne is Professor of
Management Learning at
Lancaster University and Henley
Management College. He
recently completed a
secondment as consultant to the
Council for Excellence in
Management and Leadership.
Tom Boydell is a director of
Inter-Logics, a small multi-
disciplinary practice specialising
in work around critical
communications in complex
organisations, strategic
partnerships and multi-agency
networks.
Fully updated
and revised from
best-selling
fourth edition
www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk
19.99
COVER DESIGN: JAN MARSHALL
SPINE
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A Managers Guide to
Self-development
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A Managers Guide to
Self-development
FIFTH EDITION
Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne, Tom Boydell
London Boston Burr Ridge, IL Dubuque, IA Madison, WI New York St. Louis
San Francisco Bangkok Bogot Caracas KualaLumpur Lisbon Madrid Mexico
Milan Montreal New Delhi Santiago Seoul Singapore Sydney Taipei Toronto
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A Managers Guide to Self-development
Fifth Edition
Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne, Tom Boydell
ISBN-10: 0077114701
ISBN-13: 978 0077114701
Published by McGraw-Hill Professional
Shoppenhangers Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire
SL6 2QL
Telephone: 44 (0) 1628 502 500
Fax: 44 (0) 1628 770 224
Website: www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
The Library of Congress data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Typeset by Gray Publishing, Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Cover design by Jan Marshall
Printed and bound in the UK by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow
Copyright 2007 McGraw-Hill International (UK) Limited
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise without the prior
permission of McGraw-Hill International (UK) Limited.
McGraw-Hill books are available at special quantity discounts.
Please contact the Corporate Sales Executive
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Acknowledgements vii
Part 1 Introduction
Chapter 1 The Philosophy of this Book 3
Chapter 2 How this Book Works 7
Part 2 Planning Your Self-development
Chapter 3 Planning Your Career 11
Chapter 4 The Qualities of Successful Managers and Leaders 21
Chapter 5 Assessing Yourself and Setting Some Goals for
Self-development 27
Chapter 6 How to Select and Use the Activities 41
Part 3 Activities for Management Self-development
Activity 1 Know Your Facts 49
Activity 2 Networking 52
Activity 3 Managing Your Time 55
Activity 4 Keeping Up to Date 64
Activity 5 Find a Mentor 73
Activity 6 Communication Tools 78
Activity 7 Facts and Assumptions 81
Activity 8 Personal Journal 85
Activity 9 Use Your Power 89
Activity 10 Differences and Discrimination 95
Activity 11 Political Awareness 100
Activity 12 Credulous Listening 104
Contents
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Activity 13 The Saturated Life 107
Activity 14 Decision Making 113
Activity 15 Role Set Analysis 119
Activity 16 Planning Change 123
Activity 17 Catastrophic Contingencies 129
Activity 18 Asserting Yourself 131
Activity 19 Handling Conicts 136
Activity 20 Getting the Best Out of Groups 145
Activity 21 What Are You Like? 151
Activity 22 Getting to Know You 155
Activity 23 Getting to Yes 158
Activity 24 Collaborative Working 161
Activity 25 Be a Coach! 166
Activity 26 Difcult Situations 171
Activity 27 Are You Stressed? 174
Activity 28 Treat Yourself Well 177
Activity 29 Relaxation 180
Activity 30 Fitness 183
Activity 31 Manage Your Feelings 184
Activity 32 Stability Zones 188
Activity 33 The Virtual Revolution 192
Activity 34 Be Your Own Personal Trainer 196
Activity 35 Whos the Boss? 203
Activity 36 Practising Change 206
Activity 37 Action Planning 213
Activity 38 Imaging 218
Activity 39 Managing Upwards 222
Activity 40 Beyond Yes But 229
Activity 41 Generating New Ideas 232
Activity 42 Approaches to Creativity 235
Activity 43 Attribute Alternatives 237
Activity 44 Your Multiple Intelligences 239
Activity 45 Coping with Complexity 245
Activity 46 Just a Minute 249
Activity 47 A Helicopter Mind 251
Activity 48 Managing Your Dependency 255
Activity 49 Learning to Learn 258
Activity 50 Study Skills 264
Activity 51 Your Learning Cycle 269
Activity 52 Conversations with Yourself 274
Activity 53 Backwards Review 276
vi Contents
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Our thanks to the many people who have contributed to this book; who
taught us and from whom we have borrowed. Especial thanks to Justine Pedler
who, in 1985, toothcombed the rst edition and took out the sexism, ethno-
centricism and sundry other embarrassments.
Acknowledgements
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Introduction
Part 1
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This book, which is an aid to management self-development rather than a
repository of facts and theories, is based on a simple fundamental premise:
that any effective system for management development must increase the
persons capacity and willingness to take control over, and responsibility for,
events particularly for themselves and their own learning.
Whilst this is not a new concept, it is one that is not always recognized. The
standard approach to training and development has been that of learning to get
the right answer from authority gures teachers, experts, bosses, parents in
other words, to do things properly. In recent years, views have changed
considerably. The emphasis has shifted from training to do things right, to learning
to improve, to push out the frontiers of knowledge and performance in other
words, to do things better.
If asked to think about how we have learned, many of us may think rst of
what we have been taught. Yet less than 20% of signicant learning comes in this
way. Our research shows that if you ask people how they have learned the things
that are really important to them, 80% comes from tackling the challenging
situations in life.
1
Moreover, in solving these problems we dont just deal with the
immediate difculty; we become better at solving problems in general. To a large
extent, problem solving is learning.
Dealing with live problems is the fundamental managerial process, and it
can also be the source of your signicant learning as long as you know how to
learn from your experiences. When it comes to a crunch decision such as
selecting for a key appointment, what really matters is track record whether
the person has dealt successfully with difcult situations before. Completing
formal management development programmes does not usually carry a lot of
weight in these circumstances.
The implications are clear: to learn and to progress, rst recognize the key
management and leadership challenges, get into the action, reect upon and
learn from your experiences and be seen to have done so.
The Philosophy of this Book
1
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4 Introduction
Changing organizations
This new Fifth Edition of A Managers Guide to Self-development sees many
changes from the rst edition of almost 30 years ago. Whilst the title is as
relevant as it was then, our ideas about what makes for good management and
leadership in organizations have evolved and changed.
Leaders and managers today need to be more than ambitious in simple career
terms. Success used to mean climbing higher and higher on the organizational
climbing frame, with the occasional bold leap across to a higher level on an
adjacent structure. But many of these climbing frames have collapsed in recent
years: they have broken up, shrunk and become leaner and atter. The grim
experience for some managers has been of throwing each other off the frame to
make room for the survivors, who get used to sideways moves and increased
responsibilities. In this reality, just having a job becomes more prized, and
sideways moves can offer variety and development opportunities.
There is now a realization that success and satisfaction do not necessarily
come from possessing a large chunk of managerial territory in an invulnerable
blue chip company, but from being part of a well run and effective organization
which knows what it is doing, where it is going and what part each persons
unique contribution can make. This has been the signicance of the Excellence
movement of the 1980s,
2
the Total Quality movement
3
and, more recently, the
Learning Company idea.
4
People want to work in organizations which they
believe are good, which know why they are good and know how they can stay
that way.
Working together to do better things
In good organizations, everyone becomes more self-managing, aligning themselves
with others through working to shared values and missions, rather than being
directed by the external regulation of job descriptions and hierarchical supervision.
Information technology also speeds this trend, distributing knowledge widely to
make self-management more possible. Yet, at the same time, this is also the era of
performance management where, driven by central targets, managers become
local leaders, getting people enthused about learning to do things better to
improve themselves and their performance.
The downside of these performance and modernization efforts stems from
their focus on easily measurable targets. These all too often result in the short
term and the urgent pushing out the important and the long term. Simple targets
can result in unhelpful competitions between individuals, teams and depart-
ments and the 50% of us who are below average get punished rather than
rewarded for our efforts.
5
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Many people now see the world as too complex to manage in these ways.
Simple solutions may create worse problems elsewhere, and solving problems
often means listening to the many and diverse stakeholders who want their
voices to be heard. This requires managers to see the wider picture and
appreciate the views of others who are different from us. Organizational
challenges cannot be tackled in isolation, they demand collaborative working
with other individuals, teams, departments and agencies. Joined-up action is
essential, not only to do things better but to do better things together.
6
What is self-development?
It has yet to be shown that formal leadership and management development
programmes have much impact on organizational performance. Why is this?
One possibility is that they may, unintentionally, encourage people to be less
self-reliant. These programmes teach leadership, nance, strategy and so on,
but the message is in the medium. The messages from formal development
programmes are:
There is an expert for every type of management problem; dont try to solve it
on your own call in the experts.
You dont know how to learn? Dont worry; you dont need to. Were here to
manage that for you. If you need a re-tread, dont try to do it yourself, come
back to us.
Such messages deskill people. This book has a different message; in our view:
Self-development is personal development, with the person taking primary
responsibility for their own learning and for choosing the means to achieve this.
Ultimately, it is about increasing your capacity and willingness to take control
over, and be responsible for, events.
Self-development can mean many things:
developing specic qualities and skills
improving your performance in your existing job
advancing your career or
achieving your full potential as a person.
This book is an invitation to work on these aspects of your own personal and
professional development, and an opportunity to help with the development of
other people around you and thereby make a wider contribution to doing
better things. Good luck.
The Philosophy of this Book 5
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References
1. Boydell TH, Pedler MJ and Burgoyne JG. Management Self-development. Prague:
Czech National Training Fund, 1999.
2. Peters TJ and Waterman RH. In Search of Excellence. New York: Harper & Row,
1982.
3. Deming WE. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
4. Pedler MJ, Burgoyne JG and Boydell TH. The Learning Company: A Strategy for
Sustainable Development. Second Edition. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill, 1996.
5. Kohn A. Punished by Rewards; The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, As,
Praise and Other Bribes. Boston: Houghton Mifin, 1993.
6. Boydell TH. Doing Things Well, Doing Things Better, Doing Better Things. Shefeld:
Inter-Logics, 2003.
6 Introduction
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This book is in three parts. After this introduction, the second part helps you
to diagnose your self-development needs in the context of your career and life,
to set learning goals for yourself and make a personal management self-
development plan to achieve them. Part 3 consists of activities and resources
for you to use in carrying through your plan and achieving your learning goals.
To progress your self-development, you rst need to think about where you
are now and where you want to be in terms of work and career activities. What
skills and qualities do you have now? What capabilities and aspects of yourself
do you need to develop? Then you can work out your learning goals and plan
your personal learning programme.
As you are likely to have limited time periods, this book is designed so that
you can use it a bit at a time, working on the activities between meetings, in
airports or on train journeys, and even in the bath. Whilst some of the
activities need to be done at work, such as observing how meetings work and
trying out different forms of personal intervention, others can be tackled in
informal contacts, over lunch with colleagues, for instance, to test their
perceptions against your own.
Planning for action and learning
Self-development is a continuous process. Review your progress and set new
goals as time proceeds. When your target date arrives, evaluate your progress
against your goals and decide what further action to take, if any. The learning
cycle is shown in Fig. 2.1.
The ideal is to incorporate this way of thinking, diagnosing and goal setting
into your everyday activities, thereby increasing your effectiveness on an
on-going basis. The ideal is to incorporate this way of thinking, diagnosing and
goal setting into your everyday life.
How this Book Works
2
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8 Introduction
In Part 2 of this book:
Chapter 3, Planning your career, helps you to set your self-development plan
in the wider context of how careers are constructed in large and small
enterprises.
In Chapter 4, The qualities of successful managers and leaders, we introduce
our research-based model that provides the basis and structure for this book.
Chapter 5, Assessing yourself and setting some goals for self-development,
contains a questionnaire based on our model to help you to identify your
abilities and needs and to set your priorities and goals for personal self-
development.
As an aid to the achievement of your goals, Chapter 6, How to select and use
the activities, provides a map to help you choose from the activities and other
resources available in Part 3 of the book.
Part 3 consists of 53 activities and resources for self-development. These are
all designed to follow the learning cycle outlined above and can be done as
part of your normal working life. Choose from these to move ahead with your
personal managerial and leadership development.
Diagnosis
Evaluation Goal
setting
Action Action Action
Evaluation Goal
setting
Evaluation Goal
setting
Diagnosis Diagnosis etc.
Figure 2.1 The learning cycle
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Planning Your Self-development
Part 2
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This chapter denes what we mean by a career and how careers are made in
leadership and management. We discuss the career pipelines and patterns in
large and small businesses and the levels of leadership and management
capability needed in all successful organizations. The chapter closes with an
activity to help you reect on your career to date and to plan for your next steps.
This career planning will help you make the best use of the rest of this book.
Introduction
How many hours have you spent thinking about and planning:
your last holiday?
nding the house or apartment that you live in?
choosing the purchase of your last car or laptop, music player, camera, etc.?
your life and career?
Now rank order these: rst in terms of the amount of time you spent on each,
and second in order of their importance.
Are you giving enough attention to your life and
career planning?
As you are reading this book you are probably interested in your career, and in
this chapter we look at career planning in the broad context of life as a whole.
This can help with a wide range of issues, for example:
You may be wondering whether or not you want to become a leader or
manager?
You may be wondering whether you could be a manager, either in terms of
your abilities and talents, or in terms of creating opportunities for this kind
of work?
Planning Your Career
3
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12 Planning Your Self-development
On the other hand, you may have been a leader or manager for some time,
and are now faced with questions such as: What is my next step?
Another possibility is that you have gradually taken on managerial work
without any formal training or brieng, and are wondering is there is more
you ought to know, or things you could do better.
Or perhaps you are becoming aware that something is wrong with the way
you are balancing (or not!) the demands of your work with your family needs?
Or again perhaps you have a feeling that something is missing? OK, youre
getting on reasonably well in your job, but so what? What do you really
want from life? Are you going to achieve it the way things are going?
Finally, perhaps you are faced with a crisis such as redundancy, illness or
separation? How are you handling this? What does it mean, not only in
terms of loss, but also by way of providing a turning point?
The ways in which people become managers or leaders are many and various.
This is partly because of the complexity of career patterns, which seem to get
more complicated every year.
Career or job?
A career can be seen as a journey; are you now in the middle of this, nearer the
beginning or perhaps towards the end? As in any journey, where you have come
from and where you are now affects where you can go next. Yet, the past does
not determine the future. Do you want to carry on in the same direction and in
the same kind of career? Or is it time to go in a different direction?
When we talk about career, we dont necessarily mean those apparently
smooth journeys offered in banking, insurance or the civil service (these
careers for life are less smooth and less common than they were). When we
say career, we mean the pattern or biography of your working life. This includes
the list of jobs on your CV and especially the story you tell people about what
you have done so far, and what you intend to do from now on.
At this point, you may be thinking: I havent got a career, its just a job. OK,
but in the sense of the biography of a working life, everyone has a career, even
where this involves doing the same job, as a doctor, as a plumber or as a
gardener. There is always still plenty to learn in most jobs, especially about
organizing, managing and leading the work.
Of course, your career is only part of the story of your life. Planning your
career is part of this larger project, and it includes managing your work/life
balance. The place of work in our lives changes over time, but work habits,
such as travelling a lot or working long hours, can persist even when they no
longer t. What do you want from work NOW money, esteem, networks,
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Planning Your Career 13
friends, power, to contribute more to society? Motivations in work change at
different points in our lives.
Developing leadership and management ability
In occupations such as law, medicine, teaching, aviation or electrical contracting,
professional learning is mainly carried out before starting the work. This is not the
case in leadership and management, which is mainly learned on the job. About
12% of higher education students are studying management or business studies,
but not all of them go on to this work, and employers do not necessary prefer
them, either to other graduates or to people coming in by other routes.
Most leaders and managers have no formal qualication for doing this work.
One argument is that these are general life skills acquired in the university of
life so that anyone who can run a household dealing with people, money,
material resources and so on can also run a business. In any case, much of
how we learn to lead and manage is learned informally as we go along in our
careers. However, this does not mean that it cant be done better.
Leading, managing and careers
Leading and managing come into peoples careers in different ways. For example:
Most people do not set out to be career managers or leaders. Research suggests
that about two-thirds of managers are doing this as a second (or third or fourth)
career. Look at the backgrounds of senior people and they have usually spent their
early years in a technical or professional function. They have shaded into
leadership from being accountants, buyers, scientists, receptionists, IT specialists
and so on. For example, a designer starts on technical design, then becomes
involved in a design team, and nds themself doing the costings, or organizing the
project timetable or presenting the design and arguing for its adoption; in other
words, taking on many of the things associated with leadership and management.
This makes sense because, in many settings, people need to be seen to know
enough about what they are doing in order to be managers or leaders.
The other third of people have been career leaders and managers from the
start, perhaps by joining a general management training scheme in a large
organization, or by starting low on the ladder of supervision and moving up. A
managerial career can embrace many jobs, from organizing a small project or
group of people to being the senior person in a large business or public sector
enterprise. Many of the processes of organizing people, resources, information and
money stay the same, but the scale and nature of the challenges vary enormously.
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A third important point is that about 50% of managers and leaders work in
small organizations or SMEs. These include all types of small businesses from
building rms to care homes in the private, public or not-for-prot sectors.
Running small concerns can be very different from managing in large
organizations, yet careers can often move between large and small, for example,
when small enterprises are taken over by bigger ones or where people leave larger
organizations to become their own bosses. The outsourcing trend sometimes
means that people from large businesses nd themselves doing the same work in a
smaller concern and perhaps selling the service back to their previous employer.
Career pipelines in large organizations
There are many kinds of leadership and managerial work in big organizations,
and many ways to progress your career. All large concerns are hierarchical to
some degree, and careers tend to be about rising to the appropriate level whilst
performing effectively on the way.
Many big companies and agencies put great effort into managing the careers
of their leadership and managerial cadres. One popular model, The Leadership
Pipeline,
1
has a spectrum of seven levels of managing from managing yourself to
running a global enterprise (see below). Moving from one level to the next
requires the development of new abilities and marks a key transition. From an
organizational point of view, the trick is to have the right numbers of people at
the right points in the pipeline to ensure good quality succession, now and in the
future. Organizations are therefore prepared to put particular efforts into helping
people through these transitions rather than just to relying on the natural
processes of learning from experience.
Do these seven types of management in Fig. 3.1 make sense to you? If so, where
is your career at now? Are you currently working on any of the transitions?
The model suggests that we all start by managing ourselves and our work,
perhaps moving on to managing others in small teams, and then to managing
managers, or groups of teams through their managers. As operational teams
tend to work in functions like production or nance, the functional manager
has to understand the function in order to manage both it and its contribution
to the business as a whole. Beyond this is the business manager, who is part of
the general management team coordinating a business unit, and in very large
organizations business units may be organized into groups, e.g. in oil companies
where upstream groups handle the exploration and extraction of oil,
midstream groups managing shipping and rening and downstream groups
focus on marketing and distribution. Each group may have several large
business units that need coordinating by group managers. Finally, enterprise
management is the strategic direction of the whole concern.
14 Planning Your Self-development
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Planning Your Career 15
This model does not t all organizations, or all career journeys, but it might
help you to think about the different kinds of leadership and management in
your organization and the passages and transitions involved. Is there a
transition that you need to prepare for now?
Careers and small businesses
The Leadership Pipeline does not work for small organizations. In a small
business these activities, from managing self to enterprise management, all run
together. This can make small business management a more interesting
Passage
Six
Passage
Four
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Note: Each passage represents a major change in job
requirements that translates to new skill requirements,
new ti me hori zons and appl i cati ons and new work
values. Based on work done initially by Walter Mahler
and called Critical Career Passages.
Figure 3.1 Critical career passages in large organizations. From Charan, R.,
Drotter, S. and Noel, J. The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered
Company. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2001. Reproduced with kind permission
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16 Planning Your Self-development
challenge. Work on the business not in the business is a reminder to owner-
managers not to be too deeply involved with the day-to-day work of the
enterprise. This is a transition that all successful leaders of small organizations
need to learn their way through.
The small business leader should learn and grow with the business: through
the pioneer stages of setting up and getting started, through the more analytical
stages of introducing management systems to regularize what gets done and then
on to the change management and development of the established concern.
Another distinction about working in small business and enterprise (including
public and not-for-prot sector social enterprise) is between working for the
business, working in the business and working on the business.
You can think of these as the work of workers, managers and leaders:
Working for the business means doing the primary work through which it
earns its livings for fulls its task(s).
Working in the business means doing all the arranging and managing that
needs to be done to get the primary work done and delivered.
Working on the business means standing back from the business and
working out how it can be improved and developed.
Levels of leadership and management capability
All managers and leaders can use Jim Collins (2001)
2
levels of management and
leadership capability (Fig. 3.2). Collins suggests that these qualities sustain
performance over time and move businesses from just being good to being
great. In his model, each succeeding level of ability builds on the one(s) below
and can be applied to any organizational setting, large or small, public or private.
These levels have some similarities with the career stages of the Leadership
Pipeline:
Level 1 suggests the capable individual who does a good job and manages
themselves, but is not responsible for anyone else.
Level 2 people make a good contribution to teamwork, in addition to their
particular task performance.
Level 3 people exercise more direct responsibility for organizing other
people and resources to get things done, either in the team on a larger scale.
Level 4 is seen as leadership and involves galvanizing peoples com-
mitment and energy in pursuit of a shared goal.
Level 5 leadership denotes the intense professional will coupled with deep
personal humility that Collins sees as the key to building the organizational
cultures that sustain success over long period of time.
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Planning Your Career 17
A Career Planning Activity
Here is a Career Planning Activity that combines these ideas of leadership and
managerial careers, which will help you to:
locate where you are now
plot how you have got there
note the transitions in your career so far
consider how you made them
project where you would like to go from here
note the transitions that may be required now and in the future
think about how you will make them.
Level 5: Executive
Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal
humility and professional will.
Catalyses commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and
compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards.
Level 4: Effective Leader
Organizes people and resources towards the effective and efficient
pursuit of predetermined objectives.
Level 3: Competent Manager
Level 2: Contributing Team Member
Contributes individual capabilities to the achievement of group
objectives and work effectively with others in a group setting.
Level 1: Highly Capable Individual
Makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skill
and good work habits.
Figure 3.2 Collins levels of leadership. Adapted from Collins, J. Good to Great.
London: Random House, 2001. Adapted with kind permission
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18 Planning Your Self-development
Follow these steps and plot them on either Fig. 3.3 or Fig. 3.4.
1. Locate where you are now:
Consider where you are now on the grid in Figs. 3.3 or 3.4 (or both) which
point best describes where you are now?
2. Now plot how you have got there:
Think back through your career history and assess your progress. In terms of the
grid, have you progressed mainly through the responsibilities you have taken on
the vertical dimension or though the growth of your own capabilities the
horizontal dimension?
3. Note the transitions you have made:
Can you identify any key transitions in your career like those implied in the
Leadership Pipeline? (transitions are step changes where something quite new is
required).
Manager of:
Enterprise
Group
Business
Function
Manager
Others
Roles
Capabilities
Individual team manager leader executive
Self
Figure 3.3 A Career Planning Activity large organizations
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Planning Your Career 19
3. DEVELOPING STAGE:
Changing and
revising systems and
procedures for
development and growth
Stage of development
Orientation
2. ANALYTICAL STAGE:
Creating systems
and procedures to
regularize performance
1. PIONEER STAGE:
Getting established,
informal, organic
Working for the
Organization
Working in the
Organization
Working on the
Organization
Figure 3.4 A Career Planning Activity small organizations
4. Now consider how you made these transitions:
How did you manage or cope with these transitions? Did you have any formal
help, e.g. courses or programmes? Did you have any informal help such as
coaching, mentoring? Or did you work it out for yourself? And, if so, how?
5. Now, project where you would like to go from here:
Looking at the grid and where you have put yourself, where might you go next
(this includes staying where you are, or going back to an earlier stage)? Now ask
yourself: Is this what I want? Why do I want it? Is what I want feasible?
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6. Note the transitions that may be required now and in the future
and
7. Think about how you will make them:
Consider what kinds of transitions you will need to make in the future, and also
whether you are in one now. What are the nature of these transitions, in terms of
both the role or work you do (vertical dimension) and what you bring to them in
terms of your own abilities (horizontal dimension).
As with all the activities in this book, this Career Planning Activity is designed
to be tackled alone; however, career planning will particularly repay the effort
of discussing it with a trusted friend or colleague, including any training or
development advisers that you may know.
References
1. Charan R, Drotter S and Noel J. The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the
Leadership Powered Company. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2001.
2. Collins J. Good to Great. London: Random House, 2001.
20 Planning Your Self-development
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This book is a programme for self-development based on the qualities of the
effective manager or leader. Before going on to outline these qualities, and explain
why we think they contribute to successful managing, pause here and jot down
your own views. What do you think:
leadership and management is? What are the main features of this job?
are the main qualities required to be a successful manager and leader?
Our framework of The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager is based on a research
project and also from our own experience of managerial and leadership work. The
research project identied the qualities that were found more often in successful
managers than in those judged to be less successful. Successful managers were
those who had risen to senior posts or who were signicantly younger on average
for their level of seniority (fast trackers) or, most importantly, managers of any
age or level who were seen as doing their jobs with above average effectiveness.
1
The research identied 10 attributes which were more often possessed by
the successful managers, to which we have added another. These 11 Qualities
of the Effective Manager form the basis for the self-development programme
provided in this book:
1. command of basic facts
2. relevant professional knowledge
3. continuing sensitivity to events
4. analytical, problem-solving and decision/judgement-making skills
5. social skills and abilities
6. emotional resilience
7. proactivity inclination to respond purposefully to events
8. creativity
9. mental agility
10. balanced learning habits and skills
11. self-knowledge.
The Qualities of Successful
Managers and Leaders
4
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The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager fall into three groups, which are also
three different levels. Qualities 1 and 2 are the foundation level: they represent
two kinds of basic knowledge and information that any leader or manager needs
in making decisions and taking action.
The second level of Qualities 37 consists of the specic skills and attributes
that directly affect behaviour and performance. Quality 3 Continuing
Sensitivity to Events is the means by which people acquire the basic knowledge
and information involved at the foundation level of Qualities 1 and 2.
Qualities 811 form the third or meta level. These are the abilities that
enable people to develop and deploy the second-level skills and capacities of
Qualities 37. They are called meta-qualities because they help people to
develop the situation-specic skills needed in particular contexts (see Fig. 4.1).
Many of these 11 Qualities are interconnected that is, possession of one
contributes to possession of another. Here is a short explanation of each of them.
22 Planning Your Self-development
Self-knowledge
Balanced learning
habits and skills
Mental agility
Creativity
Proactivity inclination
to respond purposefully
to events
Emotional
resilience
Social skills
and abilities
Analytical, problem-solving and
decision/judgement-making skills
Continuing sensitivity
to events
Relevant professional
knowledge
Command of
basic facts Basic knowledge
and information
Skills and
attributes
Meta-qualities
THE
SUCCESSFUL
MANAGER
Figure 4.1 The 11 Qualities of a Successful Manager
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Basic knowledge and information
1. Command of basic facts.
Successful managers and leaders know whats what in their organizations.
They have a command of such basic facts as goals and plans (long- and short-
term), product knowledge, the roles and whos who in the organization, the
relationships between various units, their own job and whats expected of
them. If they dont store all this information, they know where to get it when
they need it.
2. Relevant professional knowledge.
This includes all technical and specialist knowledge, e.g. information
technology, marketing techniques, engineering knowledge, relevant
legislative, nancial or human resourcing expertise and also the essential
background knowledge of management and leadership principles and
theories, e.g. planning, organizing, motivating, team-building, performance
managing and so on.
Skills and attributes
3. Continuing sensitivity to events.
People vary in the degree to which they can sense what is happening in a
particular situation. The successful manager is relatively sensitive to events
and can tune in to whats going on. Leaders need to be perceptive and open
to information hard information, such as facts and gures, and soft
information, such as the feelings of other people. People with this sensitivity
are able to respond in appropriate ways to situations as they arise.
4. Analytical, problem-solving and decision/judgement-making skills.
Managers and leaders are very much concerned with making decisions.
Decisions can sometimes be made logically, using appropriate techniques, but
they often require the ability to weigh the pros and cons in uncertain or
ambiguous situations. This calls for a high level of judgement and even
intuition. Managers and leaders must therefore develop judgement skills,
including the ability to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty; and learn to
strike a balance between objective logic and the necessity at times to be
guided by subjective feelings.
5. Social skills and abilities.
One old denition of managing is getting things done through other people,
and although this is inadequate today, it does point to the key attribute
of interpersonal skills. Any successful leader or manager develops a range
of interpersonal and social skills: communicating, coaching, negotiating,
The Qualities of Successful Managers and Leaders 23
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persuading, selling, networking, resolving conicts and working with
authority and power.
6. Emotional resilience.
All responsible jobs involve emotional stress and strain. This is a natural
consequence of working in demanding situations, meeting targets and
deadlines, dealing with dilemmas, decisions and conicts, within a context
of uncertainty and ambiguity.
Successful people have to resilient to cope. Resilient means not only
that we are able to keep going but also that when feeling stressed we dont
get thick-skinned and insensitive, and cope by maintaining self-control
and by giving or bending to some extent.
7. Proactivity an inclination to respond purposefully to events.
Effective leaders and managers work towards a purpose or goal, and do not
merely respond to demands. At times, everyone has to respond to the
needs of the instant situation, but in making their response the successful
manager considers also the longer term, whereas the less successful
responds to the immediate pressure in a relatively unthinking or uncritical
way. Proactivity also includes seeing the job through, being dedicated and
committed, having a sense of mission and taking responsibility for things
that happen rather than passing the buck to someone else.
Meta qualities
8. Creativity.
By creativity we mean the ability to come up with unique responses to
situations and to have the insight to recognize and adopt useful new
approaches. Creativity is not just about having new ideas oneself, but also
having the ability to recognize and encourage good ideas coming from
other people.
9. Mental agility.
Although related to general intelligence, the concept of mental agility
includes the ability to grasp problems quickly, to think of several things at
once, to switch rapidly from one problem or situation to another, to see
quickly the whole situation (rather than ponderously ploughing through
all its components), and to think on ones feet. Given the hectic and
ever-changing nature of organizational life, mental agility is an essential
quality for success.
10. Balanced learning habits and skills.
The importance of learning skills is one of the more recent discoveries of
research on managerial and leadership work. Data from observing and
interviewing managers show that a signicant proportion of their success
24 Planning Your Self-development
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can be explained by the presence or absence of habits and skills related to
learning:
Good learners use a range of different learning processes from receiving
formal and informal inputs from training courses or coaching, to
reection the personal process of analysing and reorganizing their
experiences and ideas which can lead to discovery learning, or the
generating of personal meaning from ones own experiences.
Successful people are more independent as learners; they take responsi-
bility for the rightness of what is learned, rather than depending pas-
sively and uncritically on authority gures such as teachers or other
experts to dene the truth.
Successful managers are capable of abstract as well as practical thinking;
they can relate and connect concrete ideas to abstract ones (and vice
versa). This ability, sometimes known as a helicopter mind, enables
people to generate their own theories from practice, and to develop
their own practical ideas from theory.
Effective managers and leaders are more likely to have a wider view of
the nature of the skills involved in their work. For example, they are
more likely to recognize the range of abilities as presented in this
model of The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager, than to see their
work as a unitary activity, involving, for example, simply dealing with
staff or making decisions.
11. Self-knowledge.
Whatever each of us does is affected not only by the way we see our job or
role, by also by our goals, values, feelings, strengths, weaknesses, and a host
of other personal factors. To maintain their self-command, any successful
leader or manager must be aware of these self-attributes and the part they
play in inuencing their actions. The successful manager therefore needs
the skills of introspection.
Qualities or competencies?
In recent years, the idea of competencies has become very popular in the
training and development world, and considerable efforts go into identifying
competencies for a range of jobs, including those of managers and leaders.
We prefer the word qualities for the reasons listed below, but, whatever the
term used, although it is useful to have frameworks to give people an idea of
the kinds of knowledge, skills, abilities and so on that may be appropriate in a
given job, it is misleading to use any such framework rigidly. The person doing
the job should be the nal judge of what is useful in performing it effectively.
The Qualities of Successful Managers and Leaders 25
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We offer The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager as a guide not as a right
answer take it or leave it, take some of it, modify it, add to it, its up to you.
No-one is against competence, a wholly admirable thing to give or to receive.
The dangers appear, especially in the sort of discretionary work that most leaders
and managers do, when single, external measures are used to dene competence
and, by implication, incompetence. We hold that all skills and abilities are
personal qualities, learned, exercised and owned by individual people. The
provider and the receiver of a service may dene competence, incompetence or
excellence in a way that does not make sense outside that context.
Finally, although we are keen to help people become more competent, we
are also interested in performance that goes well beyond the meaning of this
word. For people whose standards of work are well beyond the norm, the word
competent is faint praise. Such people and they are found in every eld
are creative artists in what they do, their work a personal expression of inner
aspiration and outer expectation.
Summary: so what?
Everything written in this book is our opinion. To use it as an aid to your self-
development, you must decide how much you share these views, and what
they mean, personally, to you.
Having read this chapter, why not write down your reactions to it. How do
you feel about it? Interested? Bored? Sceptical? Enthusiastic?
Activity 8 (in Part 3) involves keeping a personal journal to keep a note of
your experiences in order to learn from them. If reading these rst chapters has
been a useful experience so far, you will enhance and consolidate your learning
by working through Activity 8 now, before proceeding further.
Reference
1. Burgoyne JG and Stuart R. The nature, use and acquisition of managerial skills
and other attributes, Personal Review 1976, 5(4), 1929.
26 Planning Your Self-development
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In Chapter 4 we introduced The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager. This
model provides the basis and structure for the activities that form the third
part of this book.
One way of approaching the activities is to work through them in their order
of appearance. In our view, a better way is to determine your own priorities and
focus on these. This chapter gives you a way to do this, in three stages:
diagnosing your priorities
setting goals for self-development
evaluating your progress.
Step 1. Diagnosis
The questionnaire below is based on The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager.
There are seven statements for each of the Qualities. Consider each statement
in turn and decide whether it is:
NOT true
PARTLY true
or
VERY true
for you in your job and in your organization at this time.
At the end of each set of seven statements there is a box for you to total
your score for the Quality being considered.
A second summary box invites you to decide whatever the total score
how important this Quality is for you at this time. Is it a HIGH (Score 3),
MEDIUM (Score 2) or LOW (Score 1) priority?
Assessing Yourself and Setting
Some Goals for Self-development
5
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NB. We strongly recommend that you complete the questionnaire in two stages:
rst, go straight through ticking boxes for all 77 statements; and second, then work
back through the sections adding up the totals and thinking about your priorities.
We suggest this for two reasons: box ticking and adding/weighing up are two
different activities and the one may distract from or distort the other; second,
your priorities should be considered in the context of The 11 Qualities of the
Effective Manager as a whole.
28 Planning Your Self-development
An Alternative to the Questionnaire: Conversation with a Partner
Although this questionnaire, like the rest of this book, is designed for you to work
through alone, it is often helpful to work with somebody else. An appropriate
partner a friend, a coach, even your boss can give you support, help you to act
on ideas and provide useful feedback. Any partner must be committed to the role.
An ideal situation might be where you both want to work on your self-development,
so that you can help each other.
If you want to work with a partner, you can enrol a suitable person and
work through all the statements in the questionnaire below. Take each one in
turn and discuss it with your partner. Do you need to get better at this? Do you
want to develop this quality further? Think about these statements, get your
partners views, compare them with your own and, when you have worked right
through, complete the scoring, priority rankings and goals as for the questionnaire
below.
THE 11 QUALITIES OF THE EFFECTIVE MANAGER
QUESTIONNAIRE
For each statement (A1, A2, etc.), tick the box that best describes you in your
job or organization. This statement is
NOT true for me (Score 0)
PARTLY true for me (Score 1)
VERY true for me (Score 2)
For example, if, in response to statement A1, you think that you
actually do know a lot about whats going on around you, you
would tick Box 0 next to that statement, e.g.
0 1 2

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A. Command of basic facts
1. I nd I dont know enough about whats going on
around me.
2. I make plans or decisions only to nd later that they
dont work because of something that I should have
known but didnt
3. I nd that I need more information about the organization
but I dont know how to get it.
4. I dont have a clear understanding of how my organization
works.
5. Many of my colleagues seem to know more about the
organization than I do.
6. I dont really know who the important people are in my
organization.
7. I would like to know more about my organizations policies
and future plans.
TOTAL for A. Command of basic facts
(Add together the values of all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for A. Command of basic facts
[HIGH (3), MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
B. Relevant professional knowledge
1. I nd that I dont know enough about the technical
aspects of my job.
2. Many of the people working with or for me seem to know
more about various aspects of the job than I do.
3. I would like to be more up to date on the professional
aspects of my job.
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
Assessing Yourself and Setting Some Goals for Self-development 29
0 1 2
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4. It would help me in my job if I spent more time reading
specialist journals.
5. I have difculty in keeping up with new techniques and
developments.
6. I would welcome the opportunity to learn more about the
theoretical background to my job.
7. I nd that I dont seem to know enough about external
factors such as market changes, new legislation and the like.
TOTAL for B. Relevant professional knowledge
(Add together the values of all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for B. Relevant professional
knowledge [HIGH (3), MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
C. Continuing sensitivity to events
1. I dont seem able to pick up quickly whats going on.
2. Im not very good at knowing or recognizing what other
people are thinking or feeling.
3. I nd that when something happens Im only aware of
part of whats going on I overlook other aspects of the
situation or problem.
4. Other people seem to notice more than I do about whats
happening around them.
5. I dont really feel tuned-in to whats happening in a
situation.
6. I have difculty in knowing what other people are up to
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
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7. I nd myself surprised at the way other people react to
whats happening.
TOTAL for C. Continuing sensitivity to events
(Add together the values of all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for C. Continuing sensitivity
to events [HIGH (3), MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
D. Analytical, problem-solving and
decision/judgement-making skill
1. I tend to dither when faced with a decision.
2. I nd it difcult to trust my own judgement.
3. I have difculty in analysing a situation into its various
aspects.
4. I get confused when faced with several alternative courses
of action.
5. I tend to jump to instant conclusions acting quickly
without spending much time thinking.
6. I nd it difcult to weigh up the pros and cons of a
solution to a problem.
7. When trying to make a decision I usually nd that Ive
either got too much or too little information
TOTAL for D. Analytical, problem-solving and decision/
judgement-making skill (Add together the values of all
the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for D. Analytical, problem-solving
and decision/judgement-making skill [HIGH (3),
MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
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E. Social skills and abilities
1. I nd that other people dont listen to me properly.
2. I avoid telling people what I really think about them.
3. There are times when I just dont seem to be able to get
other people to see my point of view.
4. I nd that I simply cannot understand why someone else
feels the way he or she does.
5. Anger and conict tend to frighten or upset me.
6. I dont really see it as part of my job to step in between
two people who dont get on with each other, as long as
they do their job satisfactorily.
7. Many of the people in my organization cant be trusted to
get on with their job without constant supervision.
TOTAL for E. Social skills and abilities (Add together
the values of all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for E. Social skills and abilities
[HIGH (3), MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
F. Emotional resilience
1. I dont get emotional in my job I just stick to the facts.
2. Generally, I dont discuss my feelings or worries with other
people.
3. I often have difculty in sleeping at night.
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
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4. I get worried because theres no way of knowing in
advance whether or not I have made the right decision.
5. I worry about problems over and over in my mind.
6. When Im nervous or tired I get moody and irritable and
snap at people.
7. Most days I wake up with a Monday-morning feeling.
TOTAL for F. Emotional resilience (Add together the values
of all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for F. Emotional resilience
[HIGH (3), MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
G. Proactivity an inclination to respond
purposefully to events
1. Im passive rather than active.
2. I prefer to follow someone elses plans or instructions
rather than act on my own initiative.
3. I nd it difcult to stick at it when things arent going
too well.
4. I tend to temper initiative with caution.
5. I nd that after a while theres no point in keeping up a
losing struggle.
6. If forced to choose between two descriptions of myself,
I would say that I am steady and reliable rather than
adventurous and risk-taking.
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
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7. I feel a need to have more get-up-and-go.
TOTAL for G. Proactivity an inclination to respond
purposefully to events (Add together the values of all
the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for G. Proactivity an inclination
to respond purposefully to events [HIGH (3), MEDIUM (2)
OR LOW (1)]
H. Creativity
1. I nd it difcult to come up with new ideas.
2. I am better at implementing well-tried solutions rather
than experimenting.
3. Other people seem better than me at thinking of new ways
of solving problems.
4. I get mental blockages when trying to think of new ways
of doing things.
5. I dont think that people with other specialist interests
can offer me much in my particular job.
6. Compared with other people, my ideas seem to be stuck
in a rut.
7. Im not an imaginative person.
TOTAL for H. Creativity (Add together the values of
all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for H. Creativity [HIGH (3),
MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
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I. Mental agility
1. I have difculty in thinking on my feet in tricky situations.
2. I prefer to work on one thing at a time rather than be
dealing with several things at once.
3. To see the whole situation one must carefully consider
all the parts.
4. Once I get stuck into a task I try to remain with it rather
than switch to something else and then back again.
5. Slow and steady wins the race is a pretty good motto.
6. The trouble with my job is that Im never left alone to get
on with it there are too many interruptions.
7. Im not what youd call a quick thinker.
TOTAL for I. Mental agility (Add together the values of
all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for I. Mental agility [HIGH (3),
MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
J. Balanced learning habits and skills
1. Experience is the only valid teacher.
2. Im not able to convert my own experiences into valid
theories.
3. If I hear of a new theory I nd it difcult to translate it
into practical terms relevant to my job.
4. When I get an idea I like, if possible, to have it checked
out by an expert.
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
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5. I like to have teachers or trainers give me a lot of
information and ideas.
6. Im the sort of person who goes around saying no one can
tell me how to do my job.
7. I dislike abstract thoughts and theoretical ways of talking
about management.
TOTAL for J. Balanced learning habits and skills
(Add together the values of all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for J. Balanced learning habits
and skills [HIGH (3), MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
K. Self-knowledge
1. I nd it difcult to ask other people what they really think
of me.
2. I dont think we should let our values and feelings affect
the way we behave at work.
3. I dont spend much time thinking about myself my
strengths and weaknesses.
4. Its a good job we cant read the thoughts of others.
5. Im basically a logical person, and I dont let my feelings
inuence me.
6. Theres just not enough time in my job to sit around
talking about how we feel about each other.
7. Its dangerous to be introspective.
TOTAL for K. Self-knowledge (Add together the values of
all the ticked boxes)
PRIORITY RANKING for K. Self-knowledge [HIGH (3),
MEDIUM (2) OR LOW (1)]
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
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Step 2. Goal setting
When you have worked through The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager
Questionnaire and completed the totals and priority rankings, transfer your results
into Columns 2 and 3 of Table 5.1.
Assessing Yourself and Setting Some Goals for Self-development 37
Table 5.1 The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager: scores and priority rankings
The 11 Qualities of the 2. TOTAL SCORES 3. PRIORITY RANKINGS 4. GOALS
Effective Manager Min 0; High (3), Medium (2) With dates
Maximum 14 or Low (1) and targets
A. Command of basic facts
B. Relevant professional
knowledge
C. Continuing sensitivity to
events
D. Analytical, problem-solving and
decision/judgement-making skill
E. Social skills and abilities
F. Emotional resilience
G. Proactivity an inclination to
respond purposefully to events
H. Creativity
I. Mental agility
J. Balanced learning
habits and skills
K. Self-knowledge
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Analysis
Total scores
First, look over your total scores. The higher your score for any given Quality,
the more likely you are to have a self-development need in that area. If you
scored between:
0 and 4 you seem well developed in this Quality at this time
5 and 9 this may well be a developmental need for you
10 and 14 this is a denite developmental need for you.
If you have any scores of between 10 and 14, these suggest obvious areas for
development. Scores of between 5 and 9 also indicate a likely need for develop-
ment depending upon your circumstance and priorities. Even if your score is 4
or less for a given Quality, indicating that you are well developed in this respect,
you may still wish to develop further this strength in yourself.
A key point about these scores is that they reect your current situation.
This can change at any time; which is where the priority rankings come in.
Priority rankings
Now consider your priority rankings which of The 11 Qualities of the Effective
Manager matter most to you now and in the future?
If you have one or two very high scores then these might be the obvious
choices. If they are all about the same, then you might choose by selecting areas
that particularly appeal to you or that seem especially prized in your work
environment at this time.
In any case, we suggest that you choose one, two or three areas at most to
concentrate on now. As you progress; you can come back to the others, and it is
well said that those with multiple priorities really have no priorities at all.
Goals
When you have chosen your priority areas, give yourself a specic target for
that area, for example:
By [choose a realistic date] I will have carried out all [or 3 or 50%, or
whatever] the activities in this book which are related to this goal area.
If you really want to test yourself, and create an output measure for your learning,
you could write yourself a second goal, specifying a change in your behaviour in
this area, which you could verify by enrolling a colleague, for example:
By [choose a realistic date] I will be [describe the desired behaviour, e.g. speaking
up more in meetings, or managing my stress levels better, or whatever] as
38 Planning Your Self-development
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independently veried by [put in name of colleague or boss or coach or other
trusted person].
Write your goals into Column 4 of Table 5.1.
Step 3. Evaluation
Review your progress and set new goals as you reach your targets. Have you
achieved your goals in this area? Do you want to move to another? Even if you
have completed the activities for a given goal area once, you might wish to
continue to do them, as many of them are designed to be incorporated into
your everyday way of working.
It helps a great deal at this point to discuss your progress with another person.
If you chose the Conversation with a partner alternative to the Questionnaire
as outlined at the start of this chapter, then this will be very straightforward. If
you have so far worked on your own, nd someone to talk to a friend, a trainer
or perhaps a more senior and trusted person who will help you evaluate your
progress and think about future goals.
Conclusion
This chapter provides a way for you to diagnose your own self-development
needs and set some realistic goals.
In Part 3 of this book, you will nd the activities to help you in achieving
these goals. The next chapter, Chapter 6, is a guide to selecting activities for
developing each of The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager as well as giving
general guidelines on the use of the activities.
Assessing Yourself and Setting Some Goals for Self-development 39
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Having chosen your priorities and set yourself some goals, this chapter helps you
select and use appropriate self-development activities from Part 3 of this book.
Selecting the Activities
Table 6.1 shows The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager across the top and the
53 activities for management self-development down the left-hand side. A bold
cross in any column indicates that this activity is designed to bring about major
learning in that particular quality. A light cross indicates a secondary rather than
a primary application; although the activity is not primarily designed for that
quality, there is likely to be some learning pay-off in this area.
Look down the columns of your priority qualities and choose those activities
relevant to your self-development goals. What is the right order in which to
tackle activities? This is down to you, but here are three possibilities:
1. One strategy is to start with the activities that help you to learn how to
learn. The meta-qualities of self-knowledge, balanced learning habits,
mental agility and creativity are key to leaders and managers because they
promote good self-development habits. These will also help you get the
most out of the activities designed for other of The 11 Qualities of the
Effective Manager.
2. An obvious alternative is to start with your most urgent learning goals,
and choose activities appropriate to your greatest area of need.
3. If neither of these appeal to you, you could just dive in and try one or two
of the activities, and then make up your mind what to do next as you go
along. This suck it and see approach allows you to get a feel for the kind
of activities that suit you best.
How to Select and Use the Activities
6
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42 Introspection
1. Know your facts
2. Networking
3. Managing your time
4. Keeping up to date
5. Find a mentor
6. Communication tools
7. Facts and assumptions
8. Personal journal
9. Use your power
10. Differences and
discrimination
11. Political awareness
12. Credulous listening
13. The saturated life
14. Decision making
15. Role set analysis
16. Planning change
17. Catastrophic contingencies
18. Asserting yourself
19. Handling conicts
20. Getting the best out of groups
21. What are you like?
22. Getting to know you
23. Getting to Yes
24. Collaborative working
25. Be a coach!
26. Difcult situations
(continued)
Learning area activities
Table 6.1 The Qualities/Activities Matrix
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How to Select and Use the Activities 43
Table 6.1 (continued)
27. Are you stressed?
28. Treat yourself well
29. Relaxation
30. Fitness
31. Manage your feelings
32. Stability zones
33. The virtual revolution
34. Be your own personal trainer
35. Whos the boss?
36. Practising change
37. Action planning
38. Imaging
39. Managing upwards
40. Beyond yes but
41. Generating new ideas
42. Approaches to creativity
43. Attribute alternatives
44. Your multiple intelligences
45. Coping with complexity
46. Just a minute
47. A helicopter mind
48. Managing your dependency
49. Learning to learn
50. Study skills
51. Your learning cycle
52. Conversations with yourself
53. Backwards review
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44 Introspection
Using the Activities
There are many paths to self-development. Opportunities commonly found in
organizations include:
mentoring
coaching/counselling
appraisal
internal rotation, attachment and placement
external attachments and placements
reading
joining special projects
committee membership
discussion groups, working parties, meetings of professional bodies and
institutes
learning from ones own job and experience
special activities.
However, many work experiences do not lead to development or learning. Some,
such as committee work or professional gatherings, may be too predictable and
routine; others, such as appraisal sessions, may be used as control rather than
development mechanisms. This need not be so. With effort on your part, most
work experiences can become enriching and rewarding, and we recommend that
you scan all of the self-development opportunities open to you and take advantage
of some of them. This book will help you learn from all these possibilities.
However, the main purpose of this book is to provide you with a starter
pack of activities to use as part of your self-development programme. The
following notes will help you to get the most out of them.
Commitment
The more you put in, the more you get out. Physical tness exercises dont
work if you only pretend to do them, or do them half-heartedly, and its the
same with the activities in this book. There is no point in cheating. Here are
two ways to support your commitment:
Working with a partner. All the activities can be done on your own, but you
might get more benet by working with a partner a colleague or a friend. It
doesnt matter who the partner is but they must be someone you can trust to listen
to you and give you honest feedback. If you decide to work with a partner,
Getting to know you (Activity 22) provides an opportunity to build a useful
helping relationship.
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How to Select and Use the Activities 45
Working with support groups. This involves, say, four or more people, agreeing
to try out the activities in their own time. At regular intervals (once or twice a
month) they then meet to share experiences and help each other via feedback
and discussion. Human Resource, or development managers might help if you
want to set up such a group in your own organization. Alternatively, you could
set up your own support group by inviting some colleagues or friends to join
you. Collaborative working (Activity 24) will help you prepare for this.
Action and learning
Each activity is designed around a three-stage model of learning (Fig. 6.1).
NOW WHAT?
SO WHAT?
WHAT?
Figure 6.1 Doing the activities
What? This is the experience following the action. Each activity suggests some
action for you to do, and then asks you to note your immediate observations of
what happens. Writing down your observations and reactions is the rst stage of
learning from experience.
So what? Now think about what happened, and analyse your reactions and
observations. What are your feelings? ideas? insights? and questions? This phase is
important because it involves reecting on your experiences and making sense
of them.
Now what? This third phase is the most difcult. It involves taking stock of
what you have done and what you have learned from it, and then deciding how
this will change your behaviour. Now what? means making concrete plans for
your future actions based on your learning. It is especially important to write
these down, as they form the basis for evaluating your ongoing self-development.
Make the activities part of your normal life
Doing all the activities in Part 3 may not immediately make you the perfect
manager or leader. However, we can guarantee that doing them will kick-start
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46 Introspection
your self-development based on The 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager and
encourage in you a learning process which will have a major impact over time.
Make these activity processes part of your normal working life and incorporate
good learning habits into your everyday behaviour. You might do this by
repeating certain activities that are particularly useful to you, perhaps with
modications to suit. With repetition you will notice the various skills and
abilities growing as you do so. The Personal journal (Activity 8) can be used to
keep track of your progress in this way.
By repeating activities, modifying them, generating your own and gradually
using all aspects of your everyday experiences as opportunities for experimen-
tation, learning and self-development, you will become what someone once
called a learning manager, and this book will have achieved its purpose.
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Activities for Management
Self-development
Part 3
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All work involves making decisions and putting them into practice. Facts are
inputs to decisions. However good you are at decision making, your decisions
and actions will be wrong if they are based on inaccurate information. We
distinguish here between situational and professional facts. Situational facts
are things like the price of materials, the size of an order book, a customers
delivery deadline. Professional facts are to do with specialist management area
like information management or nancial reporting requirements.
Professional facts are distinct from professional skills and procedures. They
are the professional inputs to managerial rather than professional decisions. The
manager of a plant with a sophisticated technology may have a technical back-
ground sufcient to make managerial decisions, to plan, for instance, the plants
output and stafng, taking account of the need for maintenance. If the plant
breaks down technically, the manager may choose to get involved in the
technical/professional search for a solution, but this is temporary return to a
technical/professional role. Here we are concerned with professional facts as
inputs to managerial decisions, rather than with professional skills in dealing
with professional problems.
Situational and professional facts vary in their permanence, from highly
variable like the price of services and the stock level of nished goods to
relatively permanent ones like the date of annual audit or the preferences of
regular customers.
Know Your Facts
Activity
1
Learning Situational facts: Sensitivity to events
areas
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Reviewing your command of situational and
professional facts
Once you have identied what you need to know in developing your command
of situational and professional facts, it is probably fairly easy to get this
knowledge. The problem is that we usually dont know what we dont know,
and it is the data in the blind spots that we really need.
Consider the situation shown in Fig. A1.1.
What you need to do is to convert Cs into As, Ds into Bs and Bs into As.
The exercise below will help you to clarify what you already have in A and
B, add to it from C, and help you explore D.
50 Activities for Management Self-development
Facts you
know and
can use
Facts you have
but could use more
Facts you
know you
know
A B
C D
Facts
you know
you don't
know
Facts
you know
but don't
know you
know
Facts
you don't
know you
don't know
Areas of ignorance
you need to
discover
Areas of ignorance
you can do some-
thing about
Figure A1.1 Four types of facts
Activity
Step 1
Imagine that someone important wants to check on whether you are really on
the ball on the situational and professional facts concerning your job or role.
Take a piece of paper and write down as many key questions as you can
think of about any facts of your job as it exists now. Imagine that you are
Pedler-02.qxd 21/07/06 11:56 Page 50

compiling the test questions for Mastermind, with your job as the topic. Aim to
get at least 10 or 12. Now write down all the answers to these questions.
Step 2
Now extend the list of questions and answers by any or all of the following:
(a) If you redesigned, developed, or extended your job in any way that you
think desirable, what would this add to the list of questions and answers?
(b) What are the next possible moves in your career? What new facts would
you need to have at your command to perform these future jobs?
(c) What kind of training and education are provided for people coming into
your kind of work? What facts do they have that you havent?
(d) Imagine showing your list to:
(i) your boss
(ii) your staff
(iii) your colleagues
(iv) others in similar jobs to yourself
(v) anyone else with whom you are regularly in contact.
What do you think they might suggest that you add to the list?
(e) Show your list to some of the people mentioned in (d) and ask them.
Exchange lists with someone in a similar job to yourself who has done this
exercise and discuss them both.
NB. Point (e) is particularly important because of the dont-know-what-you-dont-
know factor; so second opinions greatly enhance the benet you can get from this
activity.
Follow-up
You probably know the answers to most of the new questions you have posed,
but make a list of things you need to know about the others.
If any of them strike you as difcult, then other activities in this book
related to the learning areas Sensitivity to events and Balanced learning
habits (Table 6.1) will help.
Know Your Facts 51
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The effective manager knows not only whats what, but also whos who.
The Old Boys Network has often attracted anger partly because it has proved
so effective for old boys wanting to get on. Even more so today, networking
has become an essential task and skill for all managers because so much
depends upon good relationships and upon knowing where to connect with
the distributed knowledge on any issue. To be effective we need a lot of
contacts; we need to know what others do, how they can help us and how we
can help them.
Activity
Step 1
The rst step is to decide whom you are going to get to know. To start with,
choose one person to get to know better and nd out what they do. There are
a number of ways of doing this, for example:
1. Look at an organization chart and choose someone in an area about which
you know very little.
2. Use an internal telephone directory to the same end.
3. Pick a person from the ofces or workplaces around you.
4. Choose someone whom you have seen about the place, without knowing
who they are, or what they do.
5. Choose a person at random, the third person who enters a lift or walks into
the canteen, or stick a pin into the internal telephone book.
Networking
Activity
2
Learning Situational facts: Social skills: Proactivity
areas
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Networking 53
Step 2
Having chosen your rst potential contact, now get to know him or her.
This will be more difcult than it sounds, but less difcult than you imagine.
You can explain frankly that you are trying to get to know more people or, if
you prefer a more covert approach, just try to engage the chosen person in
informal conversation.
Your goal should be to nd answers to the following questions:
(a) What is the persons name?
(b) What is his or her job title?
(c) What does that job involve?
(d) How does this person see the main purpose of the job and its contribution
to the organization? (Do you agree? If not, can you explore this difference?)
(e) What are his or her major goals, concerns, issues, problems?
(f ) In what way can the person be of help to you?
(g) In what way can you be of help to him or her?
(h) Are there any ways in which the persons goals, needs or interests conict
with yours? If so, what can be done to lessen or overcome this conict?
You will need to develop certain skills to get the person talking about these
things. Some hints on how to do this are given in Table A2.1.
Table A2.1 Hints on getting another person to talk freely
1. If you want fairly long, descriptive answers, ask open-ended questions, such as:
What . . .?
How do you . . .?
Could you explain . . .?
Can you give an example of . . .?
How do you feel about . . .?
Why do you . . .?
2. Unless you want very specic, precise, short answers, avoid closed questions, such as:
Do you . . .?
How often . . .?
Is it true that . . .?
How many . . .?
3. Notice non-verbal cues, such as tone of voice, changes in posture, facial expression, eye movement,
gestures, speech hesitancies.
4. Respond to non-verbal cues by using them to suggest further questions, by remarking on them, or by
changing the subject, whichever you think most appropriate.
5. Check out and clarify what you are hearing (i.e. repeat in your own words what you think the other
person has said, what is meant and how he or she feels).
6. If the other person talks mostly about feelings, it might be useful to ask about ideas or facts; on the
other hand, if facts are offered at the time, then try asking about feelings.
7. From time to time, nd out the other persons feelings about you and the process of the discussion.
8. All the time, ask yourself if you are prepared to be as open with the other person as you are asking him
or her to be with you.
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54 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 3
Once you have made your rst contact, repeat the activity, perhaps meeting at
least one new person a week until you feel you have built your network to a
good level.
Follow-up
Using this approach, you gradually build an excellent network of contacts
throughout the organization and beyond. This network will help you stay
tuned in to whats going on and provide you with information, help and support
when needed. In turn, you will be helping others when they need you.
Networking is one of the arts of managing. This has always been the case but
is now even more vital in the age of information, where success so often
depends on making contacts not only within your own immediate sphere of
inuence but across many boundaries for example, with colleagues in other
departments, customers, suppliers, informal contacts in other organizations.
Gael and Stuart Lindenelds Condent Networking for Career Success and
Satisfaction (Piatkus, 2005) is easy to read, as is John Timperleys Network Your
Way to Success: Discover the Secrets of the Worlds Top Connectors (Piatkus, 2002).
Finally, our own book on leadership also contains two chapters on networks and
networking: Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell, A Managers Guide to Leadership
(McGraw-Hill, 2004).
There is lots of material on the web about networking but 95% of it is
about various aspects of IT. On the other hand, www.quintcareers.com/
networking.html gives a number of other sites that are to do with networking
for career management, albeit with a work avour.
www.networking-coach.com is a Dutch networking consultants site with
a version available in English. Much of it is about courses in The Netherlands,
but there is an e-learning course delivered by e-mail which, at the time of
writing, is free. This is well worth a try if you are interested.
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Time is a major scarcity for 21st century people. The opportunities for time
spending become more numerous every year. We consume more and more and
although we have time-saving devices, they also demand time for maintenance.
We have to budget time as we budget money. We calculate the opportunity cost
of spending time even with friends, relatives and loved ones.
Make a quick inventory of your free time for the rest of the week:
Hours
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Managing Your Time
Activity
3
Learning Professional knowledge:
areas Situational facts: Analytical skills
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Note down for each day how much free time you have. What is left after sleeping,
eating, working and travelling? Then try putting down things you could do in
this time, under three headings:
1. Things I MUST do this week.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
2. Things I SHOULD do this week.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
3. Things I would LIKE to do this week (if only I had the time).
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
As this is a private list and for your eyes only, you can afford to be honest with yourself.
For example, have you included time for being with close friends and family?
Time for doing nothing much? Time to recover from doing too much? Time for
passing the time of day with all those other faces and acquaintances in your life?
A main purpose of the activity below is to gain some feeling of control over
how your time is spent. This might involve cutting out unrewarding activities
but it might also include looking for chunks of time in which to do things which
youre not doing at the moment but which you ought or would like to be doing.
For example, a manager in a large retail company looked at the way she used
working time. She discovered that she spent three hours every day overseeing and
checking the work of her staff (and another hour each day taking lunch). On top
of her own busy job, she had staff members who didnt accept responsibility and
56 Activities for Management Self-development
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who did not exercise initiative. She had a weight problem, because she never had
enough time to take exercise. What she could not see was that the way she spent
time was linked to her other problems. How could members of staff exercise
responsibility if she gave them no discretion if their work was continuously
checked? She could have gained another half hour by having a light lunch and a
walk instead of her usual one-hour three-courser in the management dining room.
So, managing your time properly may increase others effectiveness and
capacity in addition to your own. It is also one of the keys to the thorny
problem of delegation are you spending your time on the right activities? We
can see youre busy but doing what?
Activity
Managing time is one aspect of leading yourself. One of the characteristics of the
effective manager and leader is proactivity being a self-starter, taking personal
responsibility and getting something done. You can start here in three steps:
1. Recording how your time is spent. (Before you can manage your time, you
need to nd out what youre doing with it.)
2. Analysing on what you spend your time.
3. Making decisions about the most effective use of your discretionary time.
Step 1
Record your activities at work for the next ve days. You can design your own
recording sheet or use the one given in Table A3.1.
Spend ve days, at least, on this the full value of the exercise cannot be
gained from less.
Step 2
When you have at least ve days worth of data, now analyse your data sheets
under four headings:
(a) outcome
(b) type of work
(c) where does the work come from?
(d) delegation.
Managing Your Time 57
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Day:__________ Date:__________
Describe WHAT HAPPENS in detail the subject of meetings, phone calls, letters,
reading, conversations. Note the DURATION of each happening. Note the NAME and
POSITION of OTHER PEOPLE INVOLVED. Include even casual encounters.
Time What happened? Duration People involved Comments
9.00
9.30
9.30
10.00
10.00
10.30
10.30
11.00
11.00
11.30
11.30
12.00
12.00
12.30
12.30
1.00
1.00
1.30
1.30
2.00
2.00
2.30
2.30
3.00
3.00
3.30
3.30
4.00
4.00
4.30
4.30
5.00
5.00
5.30
TIME LOG
Table A3.1 Recording sheet
58 Activities for Management Self-development
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Managing Your Time 59
(a) OUTCOME
How successful were the various activities?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Have you any habitual failures?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
(b) TYPE OF WORK
Divide your work tasks into three categories:
MUST do? (most important duties)
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
SHOULD do? (next most important duties)
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Would LIKE to do? (least important duties)
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Allocate a theoretical percentage of your effort to each of these, e.g. 75%,
20% or 5%?
How much of your time are you spending on each set of activities compared
to the correct theoretical mix?
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NB. We often concentrate on things we are able to do or like doing at the expense
of things which we nd difcult. These difcult tasks may be the most vital ones.
Another way of looking at this is to ask yourself what proportion of my time
goes on:
Leadership and managerial work planning, motivating, team building, etc.?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Professional skills exercising your old specialist professional skills?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
A common trap is the carrying over of professional work into the managers
job. You may need to exercise these skills part of the time, but exactly how
much is appropriate:
10%?
15%?
20%?
And how much are you actually doing?
The leadership and managerial work may be the most difcult and you may be
avoiding it preferring the comfort of working in your old craft or eld.
(c) WHERE DOES THE WORK COME FROM? From the
Boss is he or she delegating enough? Are they using you as a personal
assistant?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Staff are they too dependent upon you?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
60 Activities for Management Self-development
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Self are you setting yourself enough tasks?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Elsewhere where?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
How important are each of these?
(d) DELEGATION
For each task or event ask yourself:
Could this have been delegated?
If YES, to whom?
If NO, why not? (Your answer to this one should be really thoughtful.) Is it
really your job or have you made yourself indispensable?
Step 3
After analysis its time to make some decisions about how to spend your time.
(a) What things are you spending time on that you could either cut out, cut
down, or delegate?
(b) What things are you not doing now that you should be or what things
should you be doing more of ?
You can use your three job areas of MUST do; SHOULD do and Would LIKE
to do for this.
Make sure the MUST DOs are done!
(c) What actions will you commit yourself to here and now?
Managing Your Time 61
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Action
1. Completed by:
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
2. Completed by:
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
3. Completed by:
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
4. Completed by:
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
etc.
Follow-up
Obviously you can repeat your time log any time you like to check out how
youre functioning, when are your best times, and so on.
A few years ago there were numerous self-help books on time management.
Currently these seem to be less in vogue, although typing time management into
a couple of well-known search engines produced 688,000,000 (yes 688 million)
and 543,000,000 hits, respectively, so theres still quite an interest out there!
A good starter might be The Time Management Pocketbook, by Ian Fleming
(Alresford: Management Pocketbooks, 5th edn, 2003). There are many little
62 Activities for Management Self-development
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books in this series (www.pocketbook.co.uk) which provide succinct, readable
summaries perhaps a bit oversimplied but good value for money.
A relatively up-to-date book is Fergus OConnells How to Do a Great Job
and Go Home on Time (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2005). This is not so
much a 101 ways to make every minute count book but takes a more thoughtful
look at the nature of work-life balance and how to set about achieving it. If you
do like the 101 ways approach then youll nd about a fth of that number in a
book that follows the popular fashion of including an allegedly eye-catching
phrase in its title, namely Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and
Get More Done in Less Time, by Brian Tracy (Hodder and Stoughton, 2004). An
altogether deeper and more thoughtful indeed some would say spiritual
approach is described by Angus Jenkinson in his From Stress to Serenity (Sophia
Books, 2003), whilst a proven favourite that has sold well over one million
copies and is often reissued is The Time Trap its current (2002) edition is by
Alec MacKenzie and R. Alec MacKenzie, and is published by MJF Books.
When it comes to online resources, its hard to choose from 688,000,000! If
we discount those that refer to clocking-in machines and other approaches to
what these days are referred to as time and attendance management systems,
theres still a lot to choose from. Many colleges and universities especially in
the USA post useful guides, most of which can readily be adapted to be of
value to managers as well as to the students for whom they are primarily written.
And there is a plethora of time management training courses to choose from.
If you are a dedicated user of Microsoft Outlook, you might like to try Sally
McGhees Take Back Your Life Using Outlook (Microsoft Press, 2004).
Managing Your Time 63
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Activity
2
Successful leaders and managers know what is going on. Good judgements rest
on up-to-date professional knowledge. A good manager or leader needs to
know not only about new developments in their specialist expertise but more
generally about changes in markets, legislation, culture, fashions and so on.
The purpose of this activity is to encourage you to think about your personal
strategy for keeping up to date and to suggest some ways of doing this.
Activity
Step 1
First, here are some questions to answer. Take your time and think about them
before you answer.
(a) How much time do you spend READING in your eld each week?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Keeping Up to Date
Activity
4
Learning Professional knowledge: Balanced learning
areas habits
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Keeping Up to Date 65
(b) How much time do you spend LOOKING AT WEBSITES, USING
ELECTRONIC CONFERENCES, NOTICE BOARDS, etc.?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(c) How would you describe the way you read this material (e.g. scanning,
gleaning, immersing yourself )?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(d) Write down the names of the JOURNALS, NEWSLETTERS, WEBSITES,
ELECTRONIC CONFERENCES, etc., that you use regularly in your eld.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(e) Which relevant JOURNALS, MAGAZINES, NEWSLETTERS, WEB-
SITES, etc., do you not see or read?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(f ) Do you ever make use of TRAINING PACKAGES, that is, manuals,
interactive videos, online learning or web-based learning resources?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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66 Activities for Management Self-development
(g) Do you ever make use of DISTANCE or ON-LINE LEARNING?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(h) Write down the PROFESSIONAL BODIES or ASSOCIATIONS to
which you belong, and any Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
support provided by them that you use.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(i) Write down which COURSES and CONFERENCES you have attended
in the last year.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(j) Have you made any VISITS or STUDY TOURS in the last year?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(k) What other ways of developing your professional knowledge have you
used in the last year?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 2
Now look over your answers to these questions. What sort of a picture do you
get? Is CPD at the bottom of your pile of priorities or are you taking it
seriously? Do you have a strategy for the future?
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Keeping Up to Date 67
Keeping up to date can easily get neglected because it is not a crisis issue. Its
effects are cumulative and insidious over time, the error realized only several
years later. Putting time into your CPD is investing in your business you dont
get a good crop of beans without a generous investment of manure.
Now examine your answers in more detail. Many of them concern the activity
of reading and using material from e-resources. Even now in the digital age this
is an essential part of keeping up to date for most of us. One way to make sure
that we do enough professional reading and gain most benet from it is to read
purposefully.
Step 3
Choose something to read a paper, article, book chapter or web-based text.
Find a time and place when you can sit down and read it.
Now review your reading using the questions in Table A4.1. There are some
sample answers given, but make sure you provide your own.
Table A4.1 Reading review
Reading review questions Some sample answers
1. For how long did I read? e.g. For ve minutes, then I was interrupted
For half an hour, then I became bored
For ten minutes until I became
exasperated with the authors views
2. Did I skim or jump forwards? e.g. No. I plodded through
Yes. I skimmed it rst
Yes, because I couldnt understand that
bit or because I knew that bit
3. Did I go back to re-read bits? e.g. Yes. I re-read when I couldnt understand
No. I just kept going through
Yes, because a later bit reminded me of an
earlier bit so I checked back
4. Did I pause at all? e.g. Yes. I needed to think about an idea I had
while reading
Yes. I needed a break
No. I made myself go on through
5. Did I take notes? e.g. Yes. Just main headings and denitions
No. I dont need to remember any of this
Yes. Its just habit with me
6. What was my purpose e.g. To extract practical ideas
in reading? To check my level of understanding in this
eld
To memorize for an examination
To decide whether to buy or borrow it.
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68 Activities for Management Self-development
Reviewing your reading will give you an insight into how you go about it. For
example:
Why do you read (and why dont you)? (To glean or ransack; to escape; to
meditate on, etc.)
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
When do you read? (Whats the best time and place for you?)
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
What do you do when you get bored, lose the thread or disagree with whats
written? (Give up; take a break; get angry; eat a sandwich, etc.)
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
For how long can you/do you read?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
We all have our own reading patterns and preferences. Understanding your
reading habits means that you will know when to read what sort of material for
what purpose.
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Keeping Up to Date 69
Step 4
Now choose another paper, book chapter or web-based text. Find time and
space to read it. Before you start, note down the following:
Your purpose in reading this.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
How much time you have for reading.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Whether or not you will take notes.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Whether or not you will skim it rst.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Where you will do your reading.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
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What you will do when you get bored/frustrated, etc.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Now read. Now take the time to review again using questions in Step 3. Are
your patterns becoming clearer?
Step 5
The questions in Step 1 (d) and (e) are about paper or electronic JOURNALS,
MAGAZINES and NEWSLETTERS, which are an important source of up-to-
date knowledge. Journal and magazine articles often lead books in opening up
new knowledge by several years.
Take the lists you made in Step 1 (d) and (e) to your librarian or resource
centre or to a knowledgeable friend. (If you havent got access to any of these,
that tells you something about your keeping up-to-date strategy perhaps a
rst step would be to nd one?)
Ask your librarian or friend to check your lists and to add to your question
(d) list if possible. Is there any comment on your choices? Can you be put on a
circulation list for any recommended journals? There are often plenty of
journals, newsletters, etc., around which dont get read by many people
through not being circulated properly.
In this way, you can begin to build up a circulating network, papernet or
e-mailing group where you swap items of mutual interest with professional
colleagues.
Step 6
Step 1, questions (f ) and (g) ask about your use of PACKAGES and ON-LINE
and DISTANCE LEARNING. These are increasingly available for busy
managers and if you are fortunate enough to work in an organization with a
training department, then this is the place to start. Make demands on your
training person, but you can also try the local college or university where there
may be learning resources centres.
Step 7
Question (h) in Step 1 asks about membership of PROFESSIONAL BODIES
and ASSOCIATIONS. Professional bodies not only often have conferences
70 Activities for Management Self-development
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and branch meetings where you can meet other members, but also circulate
newsletters and journals. Many professional bodies encourage or even demand
continuous professional development and provide resources for this. You can
contact them for lists of relevant packages and resources. For example, the BIM
(British Institute of Management) has an excellent education information unit
which will answer queries about all sorts of professional development activities.
Step 8
COURSES, CONFERENCES and VISITS are another way of updating and
learning. Courses, of course, are the commonest way of keeping up to date.
However, they are not designed specically for you, and people often get sent
on them rather than choosing them for themselves. Make sure you choose
yourself, and know why youre going.
Step 9
Have you any other ideas for keeping up to date? As we often stress in this
book, COLLEAGUES are one of the best sources of up-to-date information.
To generate some fresh thoughts, go round your colleagues how do they keep
themselves up to date? And, whats new?
Step 10
A strategy for keeping up to date. After considering all these methods, how are
you going to ensure you stay up to date? It is best to have a strategy which has
two parts:
(a) Choose which methods of keeping up to date you will follow in the next,
say, six months.
(b) Plan when, where, how, you will do these chosen activities. Use a table like
that in Activity 37, Action planning, to help you do this. It is also a good
idea to nd a colleague or condant with whom you can share your plan
and review progress from time to time. This helps a lot.
Follow-up
More detailed advice on these various ways to keep yourself up to date can be
found in Key Business Concepts by Bengt Karloff and F. Lovingsson (Routledge,
2005), which is an alphabetical guide to a large number of modern management
concepts together with explanations of several well-known management models.
Keeping Up to Date 71
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Steven Ten Haves Key Management Models (Financial Times Prentice Hall,
2002) is similar.
Professional institutions usually publish up-to-date summaries on recent
trends, happenings, changes. The Chartered Institute of Management can be
found at www.managers.org.uk and the Institute of Leadership and Management
is at www.i-l-m.com
Internet search engines are useful, but you can be overwhelmed by irrelevance.
There are websites that give guidance on how to use search engines, but these can
be out of date. Search Engine Watch at http://searchenginewatch.com is currently
live and updated daily. It is aimed at people who really are interested in search
engines and you can become a member and sign up for a newsletter, but it also
contains information to help you use the web more efciently.
72 Activities for Management Self-development
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Being mentored for a new job, a different role or a demanding task is one of
the best ways to learn. If you dont have a mentor, why not get yourself one?
Mentoring overlaps with coaching and this confusion is not helped by the fact
that different denitions are used for both. Generally, whereas coaches tend to
focus on specic problems or skills in the shorter term, mentors take a broader
focus on the wider development of the person within a life or career. Table A5.1
below outlines these differences in more detail, contrasting the mentor role with
that of the coach and the more traditional instructor.
It may be that these terms are used differently in your organization, perhaps
reversing the denitions of coaching and mentoring, or using additional descrip-
tions such as business mentoring or life coaching. Modify the table to suit your
needs and to reect the language used in your organization. It will then help you
to understand the options and to ensure that understanding is shared with any
prospective mentor.
Activity
This activity helps you to think through what you want from a mentor and get
you started on a mentoring relationship.
Find a Mentor
Activity
5
Learning Professional knowledge: Balanced
areas learning habits; Proactivity
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74 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 1: Who has helped me to learn?
First write down the names of the people in your life who have helped you to
learn important things go back as far as you can:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
etc.
Now reect on the following questions:
What do these people have in common?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Table A5.1 Instructor, Coach or Mentor?
Three ways of being helped to learn: Instructor, Coach or Mentor
Dimension Instructor Coach Mentor
Focus of help Task Job results Development of person over
career or life
Timespan A day or two A month to a year Career or lifetime
Approach to Show and tell give Explore problem together Act as friend willing to play
helping supervised practice and set up opportunities devils advocate listen and
to try out new skills question to enlarge awareness
Associated Analysing task: clear Jointly identify the problem: Link work with other parts of
activities instruction, practice, give create development life: clarify long-term aims and
feedback on results opportunity and review purpose in life
at once.
Ownership Helper Shared Learner
Attitude to Eliminate Use it as a challenge: Accept as part of life and of
ambiguity as a puzzle to solve the world
Benets to Standard, competent Goal-directed performance Conscious questioning
the business performance oriented to improvement approach to the business
and being creative purpose
Adapted from the original by David Megginson.
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Find a Mentor 75
What did I receive from these people?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What do I look for in such people?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 2: What do I need now?
Step 1 should have given you some clues about what you look for in a mentor.
Perhaps this has been different for you at different times in your life? Many people
look for clear advice and guidance at the start of a career, whilst later on we may
look more for support and challenge of our ideas and proposals. Here are three
more questions to ponder about what you want:
What career/life stage are you at now?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What sort of help for learning do you need now?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Assuming that you have found the right person, how will you describe what you
would like to receive from the relationship?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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76 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 3: Finding a mentor
A mentor may be from within your organization but can be from outside. It is
usually best not to choose someone who has any line management relationship
with you. Beware of any conicts of interest in looking for a mentor, and if you
choose one in your own organization it often better to look for one outside of
your immediate area.
Now write down a list of all the possible people that you might choose.
Dont be inhibited by thoughts about whether they will agree or not, just write
down who you think you would like:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
etc.
If you get stuck on this list, ask a friend, or talk it over with your manager can
they suggest other good people?
Now put your list in order of priority who is at the top?
Step 4: Making contact
Contact your No.1 person. Ask them if they can spare you half an hour to talk
about your career.
Taking your courage to make contact will be the hard step for many people, but
remember that you are only asking for a half hour of their time at this stage.
In your discussion with this person (and the others on your list) make sure
that you cover the following:
What sort of help you are looking for?
When, where, for how often and for how long will you meet?
What might be in this relationship for the other person?
Fix the date of the next meeting.
In discussing these questions with your prospective mentor, it might be helpful
to use Table A5.1 again to help check that they share the same perception of
what is being described.
Good luck.
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Follow-up
This activity complements many others in this book, especially Activity 25, Be a
coach! Most of the resources for mentoring are shared with coaching as with
David Megginson and David Clutterbucks Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring
(Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005). The other follow-up references for
Activity 25, Be a coach!, will also be useful.
A visit to the web will throw up thousands of offerings on mentoring. The
European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), which brings together
practitioners, researchers and institutions and is attempting to regulate this
new profession, is a good place to start: www.emccouncil.org.
Find a Mentor 77
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Do you nd it easy to choose the appropriate media for communications at work?
The number and variety of communication possibilities and media increase
year on year and so do the possibilities for their inappropriate use. There are
infamous examples of intimate e-mails circulating around global corporations or
reaching the worlds press within hours, but more mundane illustrations can be
found in every workplace. People write about tricky issues when they could walk
ten yards and discuss them; we call expensive meetings to transact administrative
matters or hold decision-making sessions without prior agreement on agendas or
circulation of relevant papers.
Do you understand which communications tool to use in what circumstances?
Activity
Step 1
Consider the ten sorts of communications situations below.
Against each one, note the medium or communications method that you
would use for this situation:
Communications situations: Appropriate communications
method(s):
1. Transmission of simple data
2. Transmission of complex data
Communication Tools
Activity
6
Learning Professional knowledge: Social skills:
areas Proactivity
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Communication Tools 79
3. Making arrangements
4. Updating/keeping in touch
5. Sounding out opinions on tricky issues
6. Sorting out personal differences
7. Sorting out group conicts
8. Making complex decisions
9. General networking
10. Communicating praise and support
Step 2
Now compare your answers with the suggestions in Table A6.1.
This matrix lists some of the main communications media across the top
and the types of communication down the left-hand side.
Ticks and crosses show the recommended and non-recommended media for
particular types of communication. Question marks indicate possibilities and
queries.
E-mail or Personal One-to-one Phone or video Group
letter phone call meeting conference meeting
1. Transmission of simple data ?
2. Transmission of complex data ? ?
3. Making arrangements
4. Updating/keeping in touch ? ?
5. Sounding out opinions ? ?
6. Sorting out personal differences ?
7. Sorting out group conicts ?
8. Making decisions ? ?
9. General networking ?
10. Praise and support
Table A6.1 A communications matrix
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Step 3
How did you do? Do you think you have a good sense of what to use in which
circumstances?
Some types of communication situations are fairly straightforward, e.g. 15
in the matrix; others are fraught with danger, e.g. 610 in the matrix. Take
special care with these latter types.
Follow-up
No tool can do full justice to the almost innite variety of human communi-
cations possibilities. For example, this tool does not cover those useful informal
communications settings, such as the corridor meeting or chatting in social
spaces such as dining rooms or bars. These can be the most effective places to
transact sensitive or unstructured business.
The Communications Matrix tool is there to be consulted, not slavishly
followed. It can be used in team meetings to agree the appropriate communi-
cations medium for any action.
Pin this above your desk and consult it whenever you are in any doubt.
80 Activities for Management Self-development
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We often dont bother to separate out facts from assumptions. When I enter my
ofce in the morning, I observe facts and make assumptions. I observe that the
ofce door is shut, but I assume much more: that the room has been cleaned; that
the papers I left on my desk last night are still there; that the furniture is arranged
as I left it; and so on. Assumptions nearly always outweigh observations. When I
go to a meeting, I observe that certain people are present, but I make assumptions:
how certain individuals will behave; how long the meeting will last; whether I
will be interested or bored; and so on.
This ability to assume or predict is a valuable human skill, without which
progress would be painfully slow and limited. However, sometimes when I make
wrong assumptions, I act on this basis and make mistakes. If I think my ideas
might be attacked at a meeting, I might decide attack rst as the best form of
defence. When I am attacked back my assumption is conrmed. Or is it? This
is the self-fullling prophecy when I make an assumption, then act on it and
my action causes the effect which conrms my original but false assumption.
Another problem is that if I have already made assumptions about how
things are then I may not observe certain facts that do not t with those
assumptions. This is selective perception. I see what I want to see; select
those things I am looking for. I go into a room looking for a book and dont
notice a new furniture arrangement, because I am not looking for it.
This activity is designed to help build those mental muscles that distinguish
facts from assumptions.
Facts and Assumptions
Activity
7
Learning Sensitivity to events: Self-knowledge:
areas Social skills
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82 Activities for Management Self-development
Activity
Step 1
Choose a person who is new to your organization, or whom you have only just met.
Step 2
Observe this person and list all those things that you can verify as facts: dress,
appearance, expressions, behaviour and so on.
Philosophically, it is perhaps impossible to justify anything as a fact, but
there are some things about which we can be relatively certain: He is very tall
(of a 63 man), for instance. But how factual is the statement She is very
nice? (Even very tall is subjective and may not be regarded as fact when
talking about basketball players). The safest rule is to ask yourself: What will I
accept as a fact, that is a given or commonly veriable piece of information, in
this particular situation?
Step 3
Now make a second list of assumptions. These may be based upon the facts you
have observed, but they should be assumptions, guesses, or predictions arising
out of those facts on such matters as status, religion, likes or dislikes, personality
problems, marital status, habits, opinions, attitudes and so on.
Some of these assumptions may be relatively safe: it is a fact that she is tall,
therefore it is fair to assume that she nds the ofce desks uncomfortable to sit
at. Or they might be more risky. She is tall, therefore can one assume her
husband is tall also, or she feels embarrassed at being so tall? Be honest with
yourself and list all the assumptions that come to mind.
Step 4
When you have made your list of assumptions, estimate how many will be
correct. If possible, check these out with the person, explaining the object of
the exercise. Whatever happens you will have made a new acquaintance and
possibly a friend!
What proportion of your assumptions were correct?
If you cant pluck up the courage to approach the person in question, you
could ask a friend or colleague to go through the same activity and compare
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Facts and Assumptions 83
lists. What did you observe that your friend did not, and vice versa? What
assumptions did each of you make?
Step 5
Finally, reect on what you have learned from this activity. Write a few notes
for yourself under each of the four questions below:
(a) What did you learn about the nature of facts?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(b) What did you learn about the number of assumptions you habitually make
about people and situations?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(c) Did you discover how selective your perception is?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(d) Can you think of other situations at work where you go through similar
facts assumptions, connections?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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Follow-up
You can repeat this activity with any number of suitable people. An interesting
variation is to study the next meeting or interview you attend. Draw up lists of
facts and assumptions beforehand and observe during the event and check
back on your lists afterwards. If you do this once or twice, you might be surprised
at (i) how observant youre becoming; (ii) how accurate your assumptions are
becoming; (iii) how cautious you are now about making assumptions!
The view that our world is socially constructed has gained ground in recent
years and is particularly relevant to life in organizations. Berger and Luckmans
The Social Construction of Reality (London: Penguin, 1991) has acquired classical
status since rst appearing in 1966. This or Ken Gergens An Introduction to Social
Construction (London: Sage, 1999) will get you into the issues. More recent is
Ian Hackings The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2000).
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin by Larry Beinhart (New York:
Nation Books, 2005), is an intriguing if disturbing move into how facts are
constructed in the world of politics. The Taos Institute, www.taosinstitute.net,
publishes guides on various aspects of social construction, and also runs workshops
and other programmes.
84 Activities for Management Self-development
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The value of reecting upon your own behaviour is one of the underlying
themes of this book. Do this in a purposeful, insightful manner and you will get
better at tuning in to situations and learning from experiences. You will develop
greater self-awareness and the ability to cope with pressure and emotions.
A Personal journal is based on the old idea of keeping some form of diary.
However, this personal journal is structured around a model of human behaviour.
To get the best value from it, you need to keep the journal over at least a few weeks.
In this model there are three aspects of human behaviour:
1. The individuals FEELINGS: how we behave is partly determined by our
feelings in a given situation. We are often only partly aware of our feelings and
the effect they are having. At home and at work we often have to suppress or
deny our feelings the stiff upper lip is still admired but if you are to be in
control, it is essential to be aware of your feelings and their effects.
2. The individuals THOUGHTS and IDEAS: in any situation we have a
number of thoughts and ideas about what is happening and what we might
do about it. These will be inuenced by our assumptions and perceptions
brought from previous experiences, which combine with any fresh thoughts
and ideas triggered off by the new situation.
3. The individuals ACTION-TENDENCIES: we all have predispositions to
certain types of action. Action-tendencies are internal motivations or forces
that push individuals towards certain types of action or inaction. For example,
when in strong disagreement with the views of a leader, we may nonetheless
keep quiet because we fear to challenge authority. This is an action-tendency
to say nothing in these situations. A different action-tendency would be a
Personal Journal
Activity
8
Learning Sensitivity to events: Analytical skills:
areas Self-knowledge: Balanced learning habits
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86 Activities for Management Self-development
strong need to do something rather than to think things out carefully
a tendency which may lead to over-hasty action.
These three elements combine to inuence our behaviour. In the example
above of strong disagreement with the views of a leader: my thoughts/ideas are
that what has been said is wrong; as a result, my feelings are those of concern
and excitement; however, owing to my other feeling of fear of challenging
authority, my action-tendency is to say and do nothing.
My behaviour in this situation will depend on which of the three elements
wins out. These three elements also affect each other, so that my thoughts about
what is being said often depend on my feelings about the person saying it and
vice versa. Figure A8.1 shows the links between thoughts/ideas, feelings, and
action-tendencies.
Feelings
Thoughts
and
ideas
Action-
tendencies
Figure A8.1 Links between thoughts/ideas, feelings and action
Antecedents Situation Behaviour
New
situation
etc.
Feelings
Thoughts
and
ideas
Action-tendencies
Feelings
Thoughts
and
ideas
Action-tendencies
Figure A8.2 The effect situational stimuli have on feelings, thoughts/ideas and action tendencies
Although this model of behaviour is basically simple, the situations in which
it operates are often very complicated. Feelings, thought/ideas and action-
tendencies dont exist in a vacuum but arise in response to situational stimuli
(themselves affected by previous events) and they result in behaviour, which
leads to a new situation, and so on (see Fig. A8.2).
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Personal Journal 87
Activity
Keep the Personal journal going for a minimum of 20 entries, with at least four
entries each week. A single entry might cover one specic incident, or may
deal with a whole days activities.
Some people nd the Personal journal so useful that it becomes part of their
way of life. If you keep it up for a few weeks, you will nd that you are beginning
to develop a mental personal journal as a way of thinking.
Step 1
Take an exercise book and mark left- and right-hand pages as shown in Table
A8.1. If you want more space under any heading, continue overleaf.
Table A8.1 Events and responses
What happened My responses
My feelings
My thoughts and ideas
My action-tendencies
hence
My behaviour
On the left-hand page write a brief description of any event that impacts on
you at work. This should be factual and objective, and include a description of
what led up to the situation.
Write your responses to the situation on the right-hand page. Your feelings
might have changed during the event. Identify and note these. Look for feelings
that were closely followed by different ones, e.g. anger often follows a feeling of
being threatened.
Note the thoughts that you had during the situation; identify facts and
assumptions.
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88 Activities for Management Self-development
Then note your action-tendencies. What other factors inuenced your
action (or non-action)? How did your feelings, thoughts, and action-
tendencies affect each other.
Finally, note the effect of these elements on your behaviour what did you
actually do?
Step 2
After seven or eight entries, you can take the journal further by adding another
heading of Learning to Table A8.1. Record your learning from these events and
from your feelings, thoughts/ideas, action-tendencies, and behaviour.
Looking back over your previous journal entries, do you see any emerging
patterns that tell you anything signicant about yourself and other people?
Step 3
NOW WHAT?
How will you use these new insights and learning? How will you change
your behaviour as a result?
Follow-up
Compile the journal over a period of time and you will become more insightful
about situations and your actions in them, and you will also learn how to learn
from everyday experience.
Should you become keen on journaling, there are a number of software pro-
grams that you might nd of interest: www.lifejournal.com, www.splinterware.
com/products/idailydiary.htm and www.davidrm.com; all provide free trial versions
to test out whether they are for you.
If youd like to step away from relying purely on writing in a journal, you may
nd Karen Dinino and Linda Woods Visual Chronicles: the No-fear Guide to Art
Journals, Creative Manifestos and Altered Books (North Light Books, 2006) opens
up whole new worlds of activity for you.
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If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then efforts to change often
founder on the rocks of the power dynamics of organizations. We complain about
politics and about things happening for political reasons. The implication is
that inuence has been exerted and strings pulled often in private in a way
which defeats the rational or common sense way forward.
Many of us feel wary about power, its uses and abuses. This starts at home and
school and carries on into the world of work. Perhaps we have suffered from
others abusing their power over us and we have all used our own power in an
abusive way at some time or another. Yet very little can be done without power
and indeed it is just as frequently used in a good way, to protect the weak, to
inuence the unwise, to achieve valued ends. Power is inherent in all situations
and in all relationships. In order that it should not corrupt us, we need to
understand it, how it works and how it works in us.
All organizations are political systems and all leaders and managers are political
actors engaged in the art of the possible. All need awareness, understanding and
the ability to act effectively in this political world. This activity will help you think
through the different kinds of power and the various patterns of power relation-
ships around you.
Sources of power in organizations
Power is a loose, hard-to-dene term that includes personal attributes, resources,
inuences and authority. Here are some sources of power, but this list is not
Use Your Power
Activity
9
Learning Sensitivity to events: Social skills:
areas Proactivity
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90 Activities for Management Self-development
exhaustive, so you might like to add some categories of your own:
(i) Positional formal, hierarchical and status-related; position power exists
when one person is higher than another in a structure. Such power may
carry outward signs or trappings such as expensive clothes, high salaries
and designated parking spaces.
(ii) Resources and rewards control of nance and other valued resources, access
to premises and equipment and, especially, to people and information are
often crucial in getting things done.
(iii) Knowledge and expertise possessing technical ability or professional
knowledge, such as that of accountants, maintenance engineers, chemists,
doctors, lawyers and computer engineers, is increasingly vital in this
information age. As with resource power, such power is easily withheld
and is often used by professionals to counter positional power.
(iv) Personal inuence including track record and prior achievements. Personal
inuence is exercised in many ways, through interpersonal skills, persua-
siveness, plausibility, charm, sexual attractiveness, intellectual weight or
the capacity to inspire condence and build trust.
(v) Networks and gossip within internal and external networks. Soft gossipy
information is often vital in terms of goings-on in the organization or the
outside world. Some companies run soft information sessions which link
with developing environmental sensitivity and cultural awareness. The
dark side of gossip is also well understood for example, where knowledge
of someones personal life is used to damage them but the importance of
the light side is less recognized.
(vi) Energy and stamina are two important qualities in getting things done.
Many great leaders have both of these. Staying power through stamina,
adaptability, survival skills, occasional courage, steadfastness, standing by
colleagues, and persistence without becoming obsessive is often under-
estimated, but frequently triumphs in the long run.
Activity
Use the matrix in Table A9.1 to see where the power lies in your organization
and where you stand in relation to the various kinds of power.
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Use Your Power 91
Step 1
Think about the kinds of power outlined above and add any others which you
think we have missed or which carry special importance where you work.
Step 2
Choose a current issue or project that you are thinking about or working on. It
might be your chances of being chosen to lead a particular new scheme, or it might
be the general inuence of your department compared with others. It helps your
analysis of the situation if you think about power in relation to something specic.
Now, score yourself or your department on each type of power, using the
following scale:
5 Very strong. Well placed to deal with challenge/change/competition.
4 Strong. Able to respond to new developments.
3 Adequate. Will get by with a fair wind and stable conditions.
2 Weak. Not well placed to cope with new developments.
1 Very weak. Unable to cope with whats happening.
0 Desperate!
Me My boss My staff Colleagues etc.
Positional
Resources and
rewards
Knowledge and
expertise
Personal
inuence
Networks and
gossip
Energy and
stamina
(Add your own)
People
Sources
of power
Table A9.1 Powerlines matrix
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Now use the same scoring system to assess the power of the other important
people or groups of people in your organization. We have listed your boss, staff,
colleagues, etc., but you can customize this matrix for your own purposes. For
example, if you were thinking about your chances of leading a particular project
then you might include the other candidates; if you were thinking about the
general inuence of your department then you would put in yours and all the
other departments.
Step 3
Total the scores in each vertical column (for the matrix as it stands above,
without any added factors which you may have put in, the maximum possible
total for each vertical column is 6 5 30). Looking at the gures, ask
yourself these questions:
Is it obvious where the power lies?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Are there some big disparities of power between people or groups?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Am I making best use of my strengths?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
How can I build up my weak areas of power?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
92 Activities for Management Self-development
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Use Your Power 93
Now total the scores across the columns for each factor, and compare these with
the possible totals in each direction. Ask yourself the following questions:
Is there a particular source of power in play here?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
How do I stand on that type?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Is there a particularly under-used source of power here that I can bring
into play?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 4
Finally, make yourself an action plan to build up your weak areas of power. You
can use Activity 37 Action planning, for this.
What you can do here depends on the resources you have available. Some sorts
of power, e.g. connection power, may be easier to acquire than others just get
out more! Position power and rewards and punishment are less easy to acquire.
One good idea is to observe and then get to meet other people in your business
that you see as powerful. Why do you see them in this way? Do they see themselves
like this? What is the source of their power? Talk to them about it people are
often happy to talk about their strengths.
Other Activities in this book which will help you with ideas about how to build
your power are 11 (Political awareness), 39 (Managing upwards) and 48 (Managing
your dependency).
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Follow-up
Power has fascinated us for millennia, and continues to do so. Analysing your
situation, as a leader and manager through the activities in this book, is a
simple way of doing this and may help you to use your powers more wisely. This
comes partly through understanding better and also perhaps by seeing one or
two things that you could do to help.
An excellent short account of organizations as political systems can be
found in Chapter 6 of Gareth Morgans classic Images of Organisation (2nd
edition, Sage, 1997). Power is one of the core practices of leadership described
especially in Chapter 5 of our own A Managers Guide to Leadership (McGraw-
Hill, 2004).
If you like no-nonsense practical tips, Jack Grifns How to Say it at Work:
Putting Yourself Across with Power Words, Phrases, Convincing Body Language,
and Communication Secrets (NYIF, 1998) might be for you. If, on the other
hand, this type of approach sticks in your craw, you might prefer Jeffery
Pfeffers Managing with Power: Politics and Inuence in Organizations (Harvard
Business School Press, 1993).
A different stance is taken by Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Blooms
Power of Appreciative Enquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change (Berrett-
Koehler, 2003). Here the power is seen not so much as residing the individual
but in a collaborative approach to getting things done.
94 Activities for Management Self-development
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The six jobs or achievements listed below on the left are those of six people
listed on the right but they have been jumbled up. Can you match them up
correctly?
Job/achievement Person
A. Orchestral musician 1. 15-year-old with cerebral palsy
B. Embroidery designer 2. Woman with serious physical
disability whose height is 311
C. Steeplejack 3. Profoundly deaf person
D. Fighter pilot 4. 55-year-old housewife
E. Front ofce receptionist for 5. Person with two articial legs
catering/tourism training
organization
F. Winner of Whitbread literature 6. Colour-blind man
prize
The right answers are given at the end of this Activity, but the main purpose
here is for you to reect on you reactions to the task: what went through your
mind as you thought about the matching task?
Reections of this kind can yield a lot of insight into how easily we all use
preconceived notions and stereotypes to discriminate amongst and against people.
Discrimination is a measure of good judgement and weighing people up and
their qualities is part of this. However, we can also make mistakes and discrimi-
nate against people on irrelevant and illegitimate grounds such as gender, sexual
orientation, social class, skin colour, age, disability, religion and so on, at personal
cost to them but often also at great loss to organizations. Good organizations
Differences and Discrimination
Activity
10
Learning Sensitivity to events: Professional
areas knowledge: Situational facts
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96 Activities for Management Self-development
have policies to ensure fairness and equal opportunity, but it is easy to get these
things wrong when they are unfamiliar.
We have laws against certain types of discrimination, victimization and
harassment, but many people are unaware that both direct and indirect discrimi-
nation are illegal. Direct discrimination means treating a person or group less
favourably on gender or racial grounds than others would be treated in similar
circumstances; indirect discrimination refers to unjustiable requirements or
conditions which may look equitable, but are not because particular groups cant
comply with them.
Recruitment and selection are an area that worries many managers because
of the costs of getting it wrong. Nothing in the law prevents an employer from
choosing the best person for a job, so long as there is no discrimination because
of sex, marital status or race. The activity below offers a framework to help you
avoid discriminatory or exclusionary practices.
Activity
A person specication (or job specication) is the rst step in a careful approach
to recruitment and selection. This is created a from a job description and describes
the qualities needed to do the job satisfactorily under (a) essential and
(b) desirable; it can also be helpful to list (c) contraindicators: things that
genuinely disqualify someone for the work. A person specication does not
guarantee good selection, but it can greatly reduce errors. One of the best known
formats for the person specication is the Seven-Point Plan (Table A10.1).
Step 1
Specications can become biased in subtle ways, for instance, via fallacies which
may be unconscious, that certain types of work are more suitable for men or
women. With senior jobs, factors of social class and status can become converted
into standards of appearance, education or social interests. To see how a person
specication can be inuenced in this way, try the following exercise:
1. Thinking of most of the managerial and leadership jobs in your organization,
how likely are recruitment and selection to discriminate, openly or indirectly,
against some categories of people by:
gender?
marital status?
age?
skin colour?
social class?
disability?
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Differences and Discrimination 97
Put your views in Table A10.2. Consider whether discrimination in recruitment
and selection is likely to operates at leadership and managerial levels with
regard to gender, then marital status, etc., for each of the factors in the Seven-
Point Plan. If you think discrimination is likely to arise, put an in the box.
Otherwise leave it blank or put in a question mark.
Essential Desirable Contraindicators
1. Physical what does the work demand in terms
of general health, physical strength or stamina,
eyesight, hearing, speech, appearance?
2. Attainments education, training, experience,
achievements
3. General intelligence specic indicators of
reasoning ability and learning capacity
4. Special aptitudes (e.g. mechanical, manipulative,
mathematical, verbal/written expression, creativity)
5. Interests (e.g. intellectual, practical, active, social
interests relevant to work)
6. Disposition requirements in terms of working
alone, getting on with others, using initiative,
accepting responsibility, inuencing, working
under pressure
7. Circumstances (e.g. travel from home,
availability at certain times)
Table A10.1 The Seven-Point Plan person specication
Gender Marital status Age Skin colour Social class Disability
1. Physical appearance
2. Attainments
3. General intelligence
4. Special aptitudes
5. Interests
6. Disposition
7. Circumstances
Table A10.2 Possible discriminatory factors
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Step 2
For each area of discrimination you have identied:
Who is likely to be discriminated against?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
How is it likely to arise?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
How can it be avoided?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 3
In relation to your current sphere of inuence, do you think discrimination
affects any aspect of work? If so, what could be done to eliminate it?
Follow-up
This aspect of relationships at work may lead to difcult personal or
organizational questions. But it is bigger than just about avoiding discrimination
important though that is. Learning organizations wish to make the most of all
the people and their learning and a company that is discriminatory is also likely
to be ineffective in terms of making the most of its resourceful humans.
There are many sources of useful reading and information in this area.
A very readable, short guide to the concept of managing diversity and to the basic
good practices involved is Linbert Spencers The Diversity Pocketbook (Alresford:
Management Pocketbooks, 2004). A more detailed treatment can be found in
Race, Politics and Social Change by Solomos and Back (London: Routledge, 1995)
98 Activities for Management Self-development
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Differences and Discrimination 99
which provides insights into the political and practical problems surrounding the
management of equal opportunities.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) publishes a
number of items on various aspects of diversity. Rajvinder Kandola and Joanna
Fullertons Managing the Mosaic: Diversity in Action (2nd edition, London: CIPD,
1998) is something of a classic. And if you want a set of tools that shows you how
to ensure that diversity the vision and policies gain organization acceptance
and form part of the overall strategic framework that supports long-term business
goals, then 300 for Pearn Kandolas Managing Diversity (2nd edition, London:
CIPD, 2006) might well be a useful investment. The CIPD is also a useful source
of information about equal opportunities policy and practice: 151 The Broadway,
London SW19 1JQ, tel. 020 8612 6200; www.cipd.co.uk.
More specically, Pride Against Prejudice: Transforming Attitudes to Disability by
Jenny Morris (Womens Press, 1991) remains a powerful and useful text, as does
Rohan Colliers Combating Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (Open University
Press, 1995). A more recent publication is Bullying and Sexual Harassment, by
Tina Stephens and Jane Hallas (Chandos Publishing, 2006).
In addition to the CIPD mentioned above, other useful contact include:
(i) Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR), 12 City
Forum, 250 City Road, London EC1V 8AF, tel. 020 7250 3222;
www.radar.org.uk.
(ii) Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), 105 Judd Street, London
WC1H 9NE, tel. 020 7388 1266; www.rnib.org.uk.
(iii) Royal Association for Deaf People (RAD), Walsingham Road,
Colchester, Essex CO2 7BP, tel. 01206 509509; www.royaldeaf.org.uk.
(iii) Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), Arndale House, Arndale
Centre, Manchester M4 3EQ, tel. 0161 838 8312; www.eoc.org.uk.
(iv) The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), St Dunstans House,
201211 Borough High Street, London SE1 1GZ, tel. 020 7939 0000;
www.cre.gov.uk.
(v) Disability Rights Commission, DRC Helpline, FREEPOST MID02164,
Stratford upon Avon CV37 9BR, tel. 08457 622 633; www.drc-gb.org.
Answers to matching task
A 3 (Evelyn Glennie)
B 6*
C 4*
D 5 (Sir Douglas Bader)
E 2*
F 1 (Christy Nolan, Damburst of Dreams)
* Private individuals known to the authors.
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Leaders and managers are increasingly expected to be political sensitive and
aware. We have lots of words to describe this ability we call it nous or being
streetwise, savvy, clued-up, on the ball and recognize it in people who somehow
know who to talk to, who to agree with and who to disagree with. We also
recognize the political innocents among us who seem to have very little idea of
what is going on. However knowledgeable or skilled you are in your own eld,
you cant get things done without knowing how the organization works.
Another problem is how to act with political awareness and with integrity.
Many people enjoy some gameplaying as part of the fun of being in the organ-
ization. But those for whom the game becomes the main issue we might call
clever, but never wise. While innocents can exhibit a kind of wisdom, we would
only use the word wise of someone who (a) knows what is going on and (b) bases
their actions on the longer term perspective based on personal values rather
than short-term political advantage.
This activity does not guarantee wisdom, but it might help you to become a
little more streetwise around your organization.
Activity
Step 1
First, think of a change that you want to make small or large. Even small
changes such as in paperwork systems, furniture layout, meal times and so on
will illustrate the effects of power and politics very nicely. However, make sure
the change is important to you and that you do intend to make it.
Political Awareness
Activity
11
Learning Sensitivity to events: Social skills:
areas Proactivity
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Political Awareness 101
Step 2
(i) Using the Political mapping: Whos who? worksheet in Table A11.1, list in
the left-hand column all the people and groups who are involved in making
the change or who will be affected by it.
(ii) Now list the interests of each of these people or groups in the centre
column. In thinking of interests it is useful to consider:
vested interests salary, resources, career prospects, territory, advan-
tages, perks, etc.
ideological interests political or philosophical commitments
self-interests personal values, sense of personal and professional
identity.
(iii) Third, note in the right-hand column what you see as each person or
groups main sources of power. One classication of power sources is:
1. position
2. resources and rewards
3. knowledge and expertise
4. personal inuence
5. networks and gossip
6. energy and stamina.
(You can nd explanations of these in Activity 9, Use your power.)
People/Group Interests Power sources
Table A11.1 Micro-political mapping: Whos who?
Having listed all those involved, their interests and sources of power, to
which of these do you need to pay special attention?
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102 Activities for Management Self-development
If you have a long list, you may feel that it would be better to let sleeping
dogs lie. A well-known problem with analysis is that it can lead to paralysis.
However, that is not the intention here: the aim is to empower you to act with
political awareness and integrity! The next step should help you to move on.
Step 3
Now consider the orientation of each of your people or groups to the change
you have in mind. The worksheet in Table A11.2 has two dimensions:
(i) Support/resist is the person or group supportive of or resistant to the
change?
(ii) Power does the person or group have high or low power in this situation?
This gives four obvious locations:
Powerful and supportive Powerful and resistant
Weak and supportive Weak and resistant
Now mark your people or groups on the worksheet. You can assign them simply to
one of the quadrants or you can grade them carefully with regard to the vertical
and horizontal scales.
Table A11.2 Micro-political mapping: change orientation
Highly resistant Neutral Highly supportive
P
O
W
E
R
Strong
Weak
Step 4
How does your chart look? Does it show a critical mass of support for your
change or solid ranks of resistance against it?
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Political Awareness 103
In the latter case, should you rethink your ideas or reconsider your plans?
If, as often, the picture is more evenly balanced, what could you do to
increase support for your change? Can you approach individuals or groups to:
Find out why the resisters are resisting? Do they understand fully the
proposed change? What are their objections? Is there anything they would
like which would change their positions?
Ask powerful supporters to approach powerful resisters to try to get them
on board or at least to reduce their resistance?
Help those who are supportive but weak become more powerful? Perhaps
the people in this quadrant could be brought together to reduce isolation
and develop a sense of joint identity? Can they be encouraged to speak up
at meetings? Can their status be raised in any way?
Follow-up
Power is one of the core practices of leadership described especially in Chapter 5
of our own A Managers Guide to Leadership (McGraw-Hill, 2004). Some people
nd it hard to understand why such thinking is useful in preparing to make
changes. Nicolo Machiavelli is often invoked with his ruminations on whether
it is better to be loved than to be feared and his exhortations to be like a lion
and a fox (presumably, to be able to be forthright and honest as well as sly and
devious). Some organizations do bear a passing resemblance to the Medici court,
and if you happen to work in one of these then perhaps The Prince is still as
good a guide as any or if you prefer an updated equivalent try Michael Arthur
Ledeens Machiavelli on Modern Leadership (St Martins Press, 2000).
However, most of the time, organizations employ manners and methods which
have moved on in the last 500 years. Many, especially those which employ many
professional communities of practice, are complicated to lead and to manage
because all changes to the existing order tend to require a process of continuous
negotiation. Micro-political mapping will help you to become that bit more
knowing and it should make your change efforts that bit more successful.
In being political we walk the tightrope between advocating our own position
and yet not increasing resistance against us by our actions thus Peter Block
opens his The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work (Jossey-Bass,
1991), a well respected work.
Micro-political mapping is taken from Mike Pedler and Kath Aspinwalls
Perfect plc?: The Purpose and Practice of Organizational Learning (McGraw-Hill,
1996), which will be helpful to anyone thinking about change in complex
organizations. Finally, Chapter 6 of Gareth Morgans Images of Organisation
(3rd edition, Sage, 2006) is the best short account of organizations as political
systems and is invaluable background reading.
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If you want to know something about a person, ask they just might tell you
George Kelly
George Kelly published his ideas almost 50 years ago, and the implications
are still emerging. Kelly believed that although the world is real and not a
gment of our imaginations, each individual tries for themselves to grasp and
make sense of the world and only ever partly succeeds. We all construct our
own understandings or personal constructs which are each persons unique
ways of understanding his or her world. We have common understandings
with others, but we only if we have a sense of their value systems as well as
our own.
Helen Jones, who works with Kellys ideas, places great importance on
credulous listening, which implies:
(i) believing that what the other person says is true for them; and
(ii) suspending our own ideas and constructs in order to understand the
personal constructs of the other person.
Many of us nd this difcult. In talking with others, we often internally translate
what they are saying so that it matches our own ideas. Sometimes our own
ideas, prejudices and assumptions get in the way so much that we think, Why
is she telling me this? or Here he goes again!, so that we can hardly hear what
they say at all. To deal with this problem it is necessary to become at least for
a time a credulous listener.
Credulous Listening
Activity
12
Learning Sensitivity to events: Social skills:
areas Balanced learning habits
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Credulous Listening 105
Activity
Step 1
Choose a time when you know that you are going to be meeting with someone
whose ideas, values or beliefs you nd difcult.
Decide that you will listen credulously to everything that they are going to
say yes, everything!
This means that you will be accepting that what they say is true for them.
Step 2
Because credulous listening is difcult, set yourself a target, say, to listen
credulously for 20 or 30 minutes. If possible, take a break at this point in order
to jot down their ideas and perhaps to reect them back to the person. Take
the chance to check out whether you have fully understood the meanings and
implications which the words have for the other person.
To listen credulously to another you also have to listen to yourself. When
you hear yourself becoming incredulous, and in order to suspend these views,
say to yourself something like: What this person is saying is true for them,
I dont have to agree or disagree, but just listen and try to understand.
If you do any interviewing or counselling you will have had a taste of this
experience. Here the task is to enable the other person to tell their point of view,
their taste, their perceptions. Yet, even in this formal situation, it can be very
hard not to impose your own construction of events on what is being said, and
reveal this in your tone of voice, raised eyebrows, selective questions and so on.
Step 3
How did you do?
Did you really listen credulously?
Do you understand that persons view of the world better?
If you can answer Yes to these questions, then give yourself a pat on the back. You
have given another person that all too rare experience of being really listened to,
and you might well have learned something new for yourself. Through credulous
listening we escape the limits of our own thoughts and imaginations and gain
access to a wider world.
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106 Activities for Management Self-development
Follow-up
Practising credulous listening is one of the most valuable skills that you are
likely to nd in this book. You can practice this on your own by doing some
credulous reading. This involves the two processes loosening and tightening
that Kelly made central to his idea of people as experimenters continually
testing their understandings of the world. Loosening (exploring and trying out
ideas) and tightening (choosing options and making things happen) are
reciprocal and repeated activities that are core to the learn process.
Next time youre reading a book, think about the way youre reading. Here
are two possible extreme positions:
Being taken over Reading for a purpose,
by the story, being ransacking the text for a
enamoured, getting specic end; instrumental;
lost in it (loosening) judgemental (tightening)
Depending on how you read it, you will take different things from the book.
Its the same as with people.
George Kellys The Psychology of Personal Constructs (London: Routledge,
1991; a reprint of his 1955 volumes) is heavy going, and also out of print. Good
introductions to the ideas are Fay Fransellas The Essential Handbook of Personal
Construct Psychology (Chichester: Wiley, 2005) and Trevor Butts Understanding
People (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
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The issue
There are few people doing management and leadership work who do not feel
busy, stretched and overloaded. We are overloaded not just by tasks and demands
on our time, but by stimuli, information, data messages of all kinds.
Kenneth Gergen coined the phrase the saturated self to label this
phenomenon in which our selves are battered by demands to be and do things.
The information/message overload does not just create work in itself; it makes
demands on our emotions, sense of self and identity.
Messages give us information and make demands on us to respond, to do
something. They communicate other peoples expectations of us including
telling us how to be (as in advertising). Active load consists of messages passed
directly to us: information, knowledge, expectations, response demands; Passive
load, like passive smoking, is advertising, publicity, propaganda and unsolicited
communications of all kinds.
The load problem is to do with how much we can cope with in processing terms.
But more than that, these are demands on our energy, emotions, sense of self, image
and reputation. The active and passive load can exert many conicting demands
that exhaust us, cause us to distort things and become internalized as problems.
The Saturated Life
Activity
13
Learning Emotional resilience: Self-knowledge
areas
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108 Activities for Management Self-development
Activity
Step 1: Getting the feel of your message load
Make some notes on your active and passive message loads now, compared
with some time ago when you were growing up, or starting work. Think of
your active load now: e-mails, phone messages, phone calls, paperwork and
meetings. Think of your passive load news, advertising, hoardings, labels,
noticeboards.
Active load Passive load
Now
Before
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The Saturated Life 109
Step 2: Exploring your message load
Think about the following, and write a few notes on them:
(a) What are the times and where are the places where your message load
comes to you?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(b) Do you stimulate or inhibit the message load that you get? Are you
selective about how you do this?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(c) Some people are stimulus addicts they set themselves up for a
continuous ow of messages to save thinking, addressing priorities, facing
up to problems. Can you detect any signs of this in yourself?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 3: Things to do about it
Consider your answers to the following questions:
(a) What do you do to manage the active message demand on you? Do you
have an approach to inuencing the sources of messages to give you just
what you want, not too much not too little?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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(b) Do you manage the passive message demand on you? Do you limit the
amount of advertising, general news, notices that you allow to take your
attention? How?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(c) Do you create breathing spaces, places and times where you are not
exposed to messages, have time to reect, get back in touch with yourself
and priorities? When?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(d) Or the other side of this coin, do you limit the times and places that messages
can get to you, and control when and where you deal with them? How?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(e) Do you have a way of being selective about the messages that reach you,
and the degree of urgency with which they do so? How?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(f ) Are you proactive in arranging for your messages to be at the right level of
summarization for you, e.g. executive summaries rather than full reports,
headline statistics not masses of data?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
110 Activities for Management Self-development
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(g) Can you be comfortable not knowing about some things trusting
others to deal with them, or tell you if anything exceptional or unusual
comes up?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(h) Can you avoid just being a messenger passing on information that does
not really have to come through you by arranging for it to pass you by
and go directly to where it is needed?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(i) In some workplaces people seem to get into competitive and dysfunctional
games of swamping and drowning each other in messages consciously or
unconsciously. Are you caught up in this? How can you avoid it?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(j) Do you take enough time to collect yourself and your thoughts to work
out what you are doing and what information you actually need, as
opposed to get?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(k) Do you consider the message load on others identifying and under-
standing their problems and situations, and what you do to increase or
decrease it?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
The Saturated Life 111
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(l) There are many positive aspects of living in an information/demand-rich
world are you skilled in using it to nd out what you want, rather than
being swamped by it?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Follow-up
The core idea for this activity is in Kenneth Gergens The Saturated Self:
Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life (Basic Books, HarperCollins, 1991).
112 Activities for Management Self-development
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Making decisions is a critical aspect of the leader or managers job. Robert
Townsend said that perhaps 40% of the decisions he made as Managing
Director of Avis turned out to be wrong in some way. Most important, though,
he made them.
So, rst-class leaders might average 50% or 60% correct decisions. (It takes
a rst-class leader to admit this.) All decisions are hedged with uncertainty
otherwise they would not be decisions yet we humans have a remarkable
facility for rationalizing and justifying our actions, and do this for ourselves
even when not called to account by others. If we did less of this we would
recognize how many of our decisions turned out to be wrong, and therefore be
prepared accordingly. An initial decision on a new project can spawn many
more crisis/decision points as it gets under way.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways of making decisions:
A rational process of planning: specifying alternatives, criteria and payoff
probabilities until the correct solution emerges (Type A).
Following hunches or intuition: taking action without planning because
action creates information and information reduces uncertainty (Type B).
Depending on our training and personality, most of us use one of these modes
more than the other even to the exclusion of the other. This is perhaps
natural, but it limits our capacity for meeting different kinds of decisions.
Complex decisions may demand the use of both modes at different times.
Decision Making
Activity
14
Learning Analytical skills
areas
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Activity
Below are some sample decisions. Although some may be complex, we shall
treat them as simple and say that one mode of decision making is more suitable
than the other.
Step 1
Read each sample decision and decide whether it is Type A (rational) or Type B
(intuitive):
1. Getting yourself from your place of work to a meeting in another specic
location.
2. Being dropped anywhere in the country, without knowing where, with
10, and the task of getting home. Imagine yourself standing in open
country surrounded by a light fog.
3. Choosing the means of communicating some minor redundancies in the
company, given a 48-hour deadline and a partly unionized workforce.
4. Selecting an incentive payment scheme for a work area where workloads are
extremely variable and where payment has previously been on a at rate.
5. Deciding how to approach your boss about a favour you want and knowing
that he or she can be very moody and changeable.
6. Deciding how to run a particular appraisal interview.
You might well say that you would use both decision types as appropriate. We
say that in broad terms the decisions split as shown in Table A14.1.
114 Activities for Management Self-development
Table A14.1 A rational; B intuitive
Decision Type
1 A
2 B
3 A
4 A
5 B
6 B
Step 2
Your choice of decision type has a very marked effect on how you act when
faced with a particular problem. Think about and jot down the steps you
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Decision Making 115
would take on decisions 1 and 2 above. Then answer the following:
(a) Are your notes very similar for decisions 1 and 2, or very different?
(b) Which did you nd easier: 1 or 2?
You probably found decision 1 easier to tackle.
Decision 1 is Type A (rational); the goal is clear and there are relatively well-
structured alternatives. Therefore, a rational decision is possible by sifting the
alternatives against the criteria and choosing appropriately as in Table A14.2.
Table A14.2
Problem-solving stages Decision 1
1. Analysis the problem in terms of: 1. I am at work and I want to get to the meeting
(a) how things are; in London
(b) how I want things to be
2. Specify your objective in terms of the 2. (Already stated in 1 above)
change you want to bring about (i.e. AB)
3. Specify the alternative courses of 3. Go by: car
action open to you to achieve the train
objective taxi
bus
aeroplane
get a lift from a colleague
4. Specify the criteria (i.e. what 4. I need to be there by 10 a.m. and I dont
characteristics must a course of want to stay overnight (before or after)
action have to achieve your It must not cost more than 50
objective) It would be useful to be able to read the papers
for the meeting on the journey
I need to be fresh on arrival
5. Choose the alternative which best 5. The train meets the criteria. The car fails
meets the criteria on criteria three and four; the taxi on criterion two;
the bus is noisy and fails on four; there is no plane
until 10 a.m. and this fails on criterion one;
travelling with a colleague is possible but would
hinder criterion three
6. Implement the alternative 6. Catch the train
7. Check whether you have 7. Did you get to the meeting on time and fresh?
achieved your goal and, if not, return to 1
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Decision 2 does not lend itself to such an analysis. There is a clear goal: you
want to get home, but you have no idea where you are and there is much more
uncertainty in this situation than in decision 1 with no clearly structured
alternative actions open to you.
With this lack of information, the value of planning is limited. In well-
structured situations, planning can usefully precede action; in unstructured
situations, where uncertainty predominates, it is better to get into action quickly
because action generates information. In conditions of uncertainty, action has to
precede planning, because it generates the information required for planning. Or,
to put it another way, the rst objective in uncertain situations is to generate
information. You choose an action to this end and pursue it until further
information is obtained, at which point planning may be appropriate.
In decision 2, an intelligent action is to walk in a xed direction (not in a circle)
because this would give you maximum chance of uncovering information: a
stream, a path, a road, a clearing in the mist, etc. If you nd a path then you clearly
have a much more structured choice whether to follow it and, if so, in which
direction. As paths always lead from one place to another, you will tend to follow it
in the hope of nding out where you are, i.e. to generate more information.
Eventually, you will generate enough information to know what kind of a problem
you have in getting home, and what the alternatives are. You are then back in a
rational decision 1 process.
In decision 5 there are no obvious alternative courses of action because the
boss is unpredictable. A carefully planned strategy could be disastrous because
plans possess momentum that is hard to modify. The best approach might be to
stay neutral until their behaviour provides clues to their mood, then you can
plan on your feet what action to take.
Decision 6 is a similar situation unless you regard it as a one-way process in
which case you can adopt a rational approach without the need to generate
information about the other persons feelings and views. Yet most interpersonal
situations demand the action before planning approach and this is the area of
decision making that creates many problems for managers. Those who are able to
suspend their planning skills to generate sufcient information about alternatives
and criteria according to other people will usually make better decisions. They are
more socially skilled than managers who impose a previously-planned rational
decision upon others.
To summarize: use a rational process for well-structured situations and an
action before planning approach where there is little or no information (you
must rst be able to admit/recognize that there is little or no information). In
uncertain situations, the following advice is useful:
Regard obtaining information as an objective in itself.
Be prepared to get quickly into action of a kind that generates information.
116 Activities for Management Self-development
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Be prepared to go through many cycles of action information
planning action.
This is also a rational decision-making process once you recognize its cyclical
nature; the need to start with information-getting as the objective; the need to
move into action on an experimental basis.
Step 3
As a nal test of your understanding of the difference between the two
approaches to decision making, reect upon a recent or current decision and
ask yourself:
Has information-getting been an objective?
Has there been enough experimental action?
Have I picked up all the information available from experimental action
and from elsewhere?
Have I analysed the available information carefully and did it result in
improved understanding?
Follow-up
There are many books on decision making, as a visit to amazon.co.uk will
conrm. John Adairs Decision Making and Problem Solving (London: CIPD, 1999)
is a relatively recent book by a long-standing practitioner, and another very
practical introduction to techniques of decision making is The Decision-making
Pocketbook, by Neil Russell-Jones (Alresford: Management Pocketbooks, 2000).
You might also want to consider some of software packages. Spreadsheet
programs allow for easy what if or sensitivity projections and forecasts, while
project planning packages enable you to plan your own critical paths. There
are many books on using spreadsheets and databases its hard to make a
specic recommendation as these are constantly being updated and depend
very much on your own preferred style. Mastering Spread-sheets and Forecasts by
Decision Making 117
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Malcolm Secrett (London: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 1999) is a simple,
step-by-step guide to computerized budgeting, and Data Analysis and Business
Modelling with Excel by W. Winston (Redmond: Microsoft Press, 2004) helps to
do what its title suggests.
All of the above tend to the linear and rational. In these days of chaos and
fractals, alternative approaches are appearing. An excellent introduction to
these is Edwin Olson and Glenda Eoyangs Facilitating Organizational Change:
Lessons from Complexity Science (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Wiley, 2001).
118 Activities for Management Self-development
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The concept of role has a central place in organizational theories. Leadership
roles, decision-making roles and supervisory roles are just a few examples of
the frequent use we make of this term.
The term is borrowed from the stage where it is an act or a series of actions.
In performing the life roles of child, wife or husband, parent or neighbour, whilst
we remain ourselves, our behaviour is largely determined by the role we occupy
at a given time. Indeed, if we dont appropriately alter behaviour in these situa-
tions we run into trouble. Errors of this sort as in speaking to your partner as
you might to your young child are a form of role conict.
This conict happens because all roles carry expectations about behaviour.
Attached to each role are the other people who make up a role network. Role
conict occurs when:
Two people make opposing or conicting demands on the role-holder, e.g.
the boss who wants the manager to discipline his staff who, in turn, want
protection from the boss.
We occupy several different roles in quick succession and the demands of
one conict with those of another, e.g. work roles conicts with partner
and parent roles when you need to work late or at the weekend.
Roles carry expectations which conict with personal values, e.g. as a senior
manager I have to overlook certain commercial practices, such as giving
inducements to secure certain contracts, which I disapprove of ethically.
Role conict is a major cause of workplace stress, and to avoid stress, role
relationships have to be managed like any other part of the job. This activity
Role Set Analysis
Activity
15
Learning Analytical skills: Situational facts
areas
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120 Activities for Management Self-development
will help you to think about your role as a leader or manager and:
clarify your position within your organization
establish what demands and expectations are made on you
identify possible and actual areas of role conict which helps to reduce
the stress
lay the foundations for improving your performance at work and at home.
Activity
Step 1
Take a large sheet of paper and draw a circle in the middle to represent the role
you occupy at work. Label this circle, e.g. Ofce Manager (J. Brown). Next,
draw smaller circles around the centre circle to represent all the signicant
others in the role network of the ofce manager. These are all the people who
make demands upon and have expectations about the role. In addition, the
role has reciprocal expectations and makes demands upon them.
You can show the strength of particular links by making these roles nearer or
further from the centre. Those people with whom you have daily contact proba-
bly make more demands and have more expectations of you than those you meet
weekly. The role network for the ofce manager might look like Fig. A15.1.
1. Stella
Accounts
Manager
2. Jim
Works
Manager
3. Brian
Work
Study
Manager
5. Suresh
Production
Manager
9. Jean
Production
Control
Manager
8. Kirsty
Supervisor
Employees
7. Nigel
Supervisor
6. Andy
Personnel
Manager
4. Pat
Sales
Manager
Office Manager
(J. Brown)
Figure A15.1 Role of network ofce manager
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Role Set Analysis 121
Table A15.1 Analysis of expectations
Their demands/ My expectations/ Possible conict
Role expectations of me demands of them areas
Supervisors (2) 1. Fair allocation of work 1. Achieve set work targets Supervisor actions
2. Support for their actions 2. Deal with most grievances especially on
3. Personal support and people problems discipline and
(e.g. to listen and be 3. Keep me informed grievances are not
available) about a variety of things always consistent
4. To provide resources (e.g. current workloads, with company
to allow them to get the supply of materials, personnel policy
work done personnel issues)
5. Set realistic work targets 4. Be proactive set own Supervisors
work targets in dependent on me
consultation with me will not take
responsibility
Employees (16) 1. To treat them fairly 1. To work well and
achieve work targets
2. To arbitrate over matters Cannot satisfy both
of disagreement with employees demands
supervisors on me to arbitrate
and supervisors
demands for support
of their actions
AND SO ON
Step 2
Once you have completed your role network diagram, ask someone else their
views about it.
Have you included all the signicant role relationships?
How different is your role network from others around you?
How does it feel to be the person-in-the-middle making and meeting all
these demands?
Step 3
Once you have included all the vital role relationships for your job, take another
sheet of paper and make a chart like that in Table A15.1. On the left-hand side
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122 Activities for Management Self-development
put all those roles that make demands upon your role and ll in across the three
columns: Their demands/expectations of me; My expectations/demands of
them and Possible conict areas.
Step 4
How can this role chart help?
First, are you aware of all the demands and expectations of you? Are you
sure you have them right?
If you are in any doubt about what is expected of you by some other role holder,
use this question to go and check this out.
Second, does your perception of what they want from you t with theirs? If
you asked them, would they agree with what youd written?
Again, the obvious way to check this out is to ask wherever you are in doubt.
Third, what conicts appear between different expectations, between
you personally and your role demands, etc.?
How can you resolve or cope with these? Sometimes the answer is fairly simple.
For example, on the ofce managers role chart (Table A15.1), the rst conict
area Supervisor actions especially on discipline and grievances are not always
consistent with company personnel policy may point to a training need.
Follow-up
The Wisdom of Teams by Jon Katzenbach and Douglass Smith (Maidenhead:
McGraw-Hill, 1998) is a very useful book for teambuilding with your role set.
Rosemary Stewarts Managing Today and Tomorrow (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 1993) offers ways of thinking about the discretion you have in the
managerial role and how this is affected by your role set. Meredith Belbins
Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail (2nd edition, Oxford: Elsevier
Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004) extends his earlier ideas on roles and their
interaction to show how you can get the best from a team.
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This activity contains the famous planning tool Force Field Analysis and is credited
to Kurt Lewin, whose eld theory described a eld of forces or pressures acting
on any particular event. In this view, all situations can be seen as being in
temporary equilibrium, with the forces acting to change the situation being
balanced by the forces acting to resist the change (Fig. A16.1).
This view of events is a dynamic one, which sees all things, including
especially social situations, as temporary states of balance. It offers the leader the
opportunity to see situations as potentially changeable: if the different forces can
be identied, then it may be possible to change their direction or strength.
Use this activity for a problem that has been worrying you and which seems
intractable. The Force Field Analysis will make the options clearer and bring a
vague problem into focus and be more do-able.
Planning Change
Activity
16
Learning Analytical skills: Proactivity
areas
Pushing forces
Equilibrium
Restraining forces
Figure A16.1 Force Field Analysis
Activity
Apply Force Field Analysis to a particular problem or situation that is currently
facing you and that you would like to change or inuence.
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Step 1
Choose a problem and write it down.
It must be a real one that concerns you right now. The example given in
Figure A16.2 is that of a manager worried by a rise in errors on their section.
Step 2
Dene the problem in specic terms.
Who is involved?
What is the magnitude of the problem?
What other factors bear on the situation?
For example, errors have risen in Section B over the last six months.
Errors were averaging 5% but have now doubled to 10%. Relevant factors
may include a recent inux of new staff and a change in incentives to increase
output.
Step 3
Now state specically how you would like to inuence or change the situation.
Make this as measurable as possible; set a clear target and know when you
are reaching it. For example, I aim to reduce the error rate to 6%.
Step 4
Looking at the problem as a temporary equilibrium held in place (for the moment)
by pushing and restraining forces, list these forces operating on your problem.
124 Activities for Management Self-development
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(a) What are the forces that would move the present situation towards my
goal? (PUSHING FORCES)
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
(b) What are the forces resisting or stopping the situation approaching my
goal? (RESTRAINING FORCES)
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
Planning Change 125
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For example, on the problem of reducing Department Bs error rate:
(a) PUSHING FORCES (to reduce error rate):
(i) managers desire to lower the rate
(ii) companys concern at its image
(iii) staff concern at loss of earnings
(iv) customer complaints
(v) planned training courses for new staff.
(b) RESTRAINING FORCES (tending to increase error rate):
(i) inux of untrained staff
(ii) company pressure for increased output;
(iii) new incentive scheme
(iv) casual attitude of younger staff concerning general behaviour and
discipline
(v) resentment of some older staff at being pushed on output.
Make sure you have listed all the forces operating on the problem. Have you
included especially:
the motivations of individuals and groups involved?
organizational policies and procedures?
outside forces operating in the work environment?
Step 5
When you have all the relevant forces listed, rank their power as being HIGH,
MEDIUM or LOW
Do this for both PUSHING and RESTRAINING FORCES.
Step 6
Now diagram the two sets of forces as in the example in Fig. A16.2, using the
length of the arrows to indicate the magnitude of the force. In the example, the
managers desire to reduce the rate is a HIGH power PUSHING force, whereas
the casual attitude of younger staff is a MEDIUM power RESTRAINING force.
126 Activities for Management Self-development
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Step 7
Now prepare a strategy for changing the situation.
Remember:
(a) That if you increase the PUSHING forces that this often creates greater
resistance in people and in systems.
(b) Change is most easily accepted when it requires a minimum of effort and disruption.
Can you:
1. Maintain PUSHING forces, but reduce any of the RESTRAINING forces?
2. Find new PUSHING forces?
3. If you must PUSH more, choose forces that do not increase resistance?
4. Divert any RESTRAINING forces to new targets or in new directions?
5. Are you sure that it is not one of your PUSHING forces which created the
problem in the rst place? Would a reduction in this PUSH also reduce the
RESTRAINING force?
Planning Change 127
PUSHING
FORCES
HIGH
HIGH
MEDIUM
MEDIUM
Influx
of new
operators
Bonus
scheme
Casual
attitude
of younger
employees
Resent-
ment of
some
older
employees
Attitude
of older
employee
to safety
Company
concern at
its image
Planned
safety
training
Company need
for increased
output
LOW
LOW
PRESENT
SITUATION
(EQUILIBRIUM)
RESTRAINING
FORCES
Union concern
at injuries
and costs
Manager's
desire to
lower rate
Employees'
concern at
injuries and
costs
Figure A16.2 Force eld analysis
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Your strategy should plan some action steps in sequence, with rough timings and
the resources you will need at each stage, particularly those people who can help.
It is very helpful to have sub-goals along the way to check your progress
(a single far-off goal can be daunting). The lessons in Activity 14, Decision making,
about action creating information for further planning will also be useful here.
Follow-up
As an analysis tool, Force Field Analysis can be used to examine any problem
situation. More than just a technique, it is a way of seeing situations as being
only in temporary equilibrium and amenable to change.
For bringing about change for a whole systems approach, see Leading Change:
A Guide to Whole Systems Working by Margaret Attwood, Mike Pedler, Sue
Pritchard and David Wilkinson (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2003). Similarly, The
Change Handbook edited by Peggy Holman and Tom Devane (San Francisco:
Berrett Koehler, 1999) has 18 chapters on how to bring about change in
communities and organizations from a whole systems perspective.
A much shorter book is David Caseys Managing Learning in Organisations
(Maidenhead: Open University Press, 1993), which is a ne distillation of 30
years experience of working with change for individuals, teams and organizations.
Finally, Esther Cameron and Mike Green provide a good summary in Making Sense
of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of
Organizational Change (London: Kogan Page, 2004).
128 Activities for Management Self-development
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Many leaders and managers, faced with complex decisions, nd themselves
blocked in by the fear of what if ? Faced with uncertainty, doubt and the
possibility of a bad, even catastrophic, consequence to our action, we tend
towards stress and the inability to act.
This activity is designed to help you overcome this kind of blockage.
Activity
Step 1
Next time you are faced with a difcult problem, involving uncertainty, risk, or
doubt write down, rst, the various courses of action open to you. Then list
the worst possible things that could happen if everything went wrong.
What are the worst catastrophes that could occur?
Step 2
Take each catastrophe in turn and imagine that it really has happened. How
do you feel in this disastrous situation? Is it so awful, or were your fears
exaggerated? Again, imagining that it has already happened: What are you
going to do now? From this catastrophic situation what are your plans? How
are you going to cope with it? What could you have done to lessen its bad
effects? (Imagine yourself saying things wouldnt be so bad if only I .)
Catastrophic Contingencies
Activity
17
Learning Analytical skills: Creativity: Emotional
areas resilience: Proactivity: Self-knowledge
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130 Activities for Management self-Development
Step 3
When you have answered these questions, you will probably nd that:
(a) Many possible catastrophes are not really as bad as your rst, unconsidered
fears.
(b) You have identied some of the plans and actions that you can implement to
lessen either the probability of the catastrophes occurrence or the severity
of its effects.
(c) You have prepared some contingency plans for coping with the catastrophe
should it occur. These will be helpful in themselves and, by reducing the
ambiguity and helplessness of the situation, you will have lessened your
fear of it.
You should now be able to overcome the blockage and make your decisions.
Follow-up
When drawing up your contingency plans, Activities 16 (Planning change) and
37 (Action planning) will be helpful.
At the corporate level, this is similar to scenario planning, described in Gill
Ringlands Scenario Planning (2nd edition, Chichester: Wiley, 2006). You start by
thinking of alternative economic, social and political changes that might occur
for example, what if the oil price were to rise ten-fold? What if all our assets in a
certain country were nationalized? You then estimate the effect of these changes
on your business, and make contingency plans accordingly.
Again at a corporate level, the Managers Guide to Contingency Planning for
Disasters, by Kenneth Myers (New York: Wiley, 1999) projects an optimistic
view of the ability to make contingency plans for disasters. James Ogilvys
Building Better Futures: Scenario Planning as a Tool for Social Creativity (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002) shows how we can create change in our own
communities and neighbourhoods.
At the team level, you can nd witty and enlightening accounts of team
disasters and how they could have been avoided in Team Traps: Survival Stories
and Lessons from Team Disasters, Near-misses, Mishaps, and Other Near-death
Experiences, by Steven R. Rayner (New York: Wiley, 1996). Steven Schnaars
Megamistakes (New York: The Free Press, 1989) is also entertainingly relevant,
especially for over-condent forecasters!
A simple two-page guide can be found at www.contingency-planning-
disaster-recovery-guide.co.uk/. There are also some more detailed guidelines
and checklists on the UK government site at www.ogc.gov.uk/sdtoolkit/reference/
documentation/p37_contingency.html.
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Assertiveness is a key skill for managers and leaders. Some of us are naturally
assertive; others have to work at it. It is easy to confuse assertiveness with
pushiness or aggression. In fact, assertiveness means pursuing your goals and
the goals of the other people in the situation. It means getting a positive result
in unclear or difcult situations where the temptations are to hold back or let
things go.
Activity
Step 1
In the following questionnaire, you will nd 10 sets of three statements, like
this example:
Im a person who:
(a) has my rights violated
(b) protects my own rights
(c) violates the rights of others.
The scoring is based on the notion that we all behave in each of these ways
from time to time, although the extent to which we have a tendency for (a), (b)
or (c) will vary.
You are therefore asked to allocate points of each of (a), (b) and (c), such
that the total adds up to 10. Thus, if you think that you quite often have your
Asserting Yourself
Activity
18
Learning Social skills: Emotional resilience:
areas Proactivity
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132 Activities for Management Self-development
rights violated, and quite often protect the rights of others, but rarely violate
the rights of others, you might score yourself as a person who:
(a) has my rights violated 4
(b) protects my own rights 4
(c) violates the rights of others 2
10
On the other hand, if you recognize that you protect your own rights at all
costs, even if this quite often involves violating the rights of others, then your
score might be that you are a person who:
(a) has my rights violated 0
(b) protects my own rights 6
(c) violates the rights of others 4
10
Now complete the questionnaire.
Im a person who:
1. (a) has my rights violated
(b) protects my own rights
(c) violates the rights of others
10
2. (a) does not achieve my goals
(b) achieves my goals without hurting other people
(c) achieves my goals at the expense of other people
10
3. (a) feels frustrated and unhappy
(b) feels good about myself
(c) is defensive and/or belligerent
10
4. (a) is inhibited and withdrawn
(b) is socially and emotionally expressive
(c) is explosive, hostile, angry
10
5. (a) feels hurt, anxious
(b) is quietly self-condent
(c) is brashly condent, boastful
10
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Asserting Yourself 133
6. (a) fails to achieve my goals
(b) tries to nd ways so that I can achieve my goals and
others can achieve theirs
(c) is not concerned about others and their goals
10
7. (a) is gullible, easily taken in
(b) is open-minded and questioning
(c) is suspicious, cynical
10
8. (a) feels bad about my weaknesses
(b) is aware of my weaknesses, but dont dislike
myself because of them
(c) is unaware of my weaknesses
10
9. (a) allows others to choose for me
(b) chooses for myself
(c) intrudes on other peoples choices
10
10. (a) is taken advantage of
(b) protects my own rights
(c) takes advantage of others
10
Step 2
This questionnaire is based on a model that suggests that ASSERTION is
the happy medium between two equally undesirable extremes passivity and
aggression.
To see where you are, add up all your (a) scores (passivity), (b) scores
(assertion) and (c) scores (aggression), and enter them in Figure A18.1.
This way of looking at assertion is very important. Although it is easy to
distinguish assertion from passivity, it is often mistaken and confused with
aggression. In fact, however, as the questionnaire statements show, they are very
different.
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Step 3
Make yourself an action plan to build up your assertiveness. You can use
Activity 37, Action planning, for this. The (b) behaviours tell you what to aim
for if you want to become more assertive; these can become the basis of your
intentions for actions.
Learning to be assertive takes practice. You have taken the important rst
step by getting an idea of your passive/assertive/aggressive prole.
Another useful step is to ask other people to ll the questionnaire out on
you what is their picture of where you are?
Then ask them:
In order to become more assertive, what should I
1. do less of?
2. do more of?
3. start doing?
Another tip is to keep a diary of how assertive you are at work and outside. You
can use Activity 8, Personal journal, for this. Record your experiences for two or
three weeks, trying to log at least one situation per day. When you have a set of
data analyse it: Do certain situations or people tend to push you into passivity
or aggression? What is there about these? What can you do about them?
Other Activities in this book that will help you with ideas about how to
build your assertiveness, are those concerned with power, e.g. 9 (Use your
power), 11 (Political awareness), 39 (Managing upwards) and 48 (Managing your
dependency).
134 Activities for Management Self-development
PASSIVITY AGGRESSION
score
score
score
ASSERTION
(b)
(a) (c)
Figure A18.1 Scoring model
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Follow-up
There are lots of books on assertiveness. A popular classic is Assertiveness at
Work: A Practical Guide to Handling Awkward Situations, by Ken Back and Kate
Back (Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill, 2005). A simple approach is presented by
Max A. Eggert in The Assertiveness Pocketbook (Alresford: Management Pocket-
books, 1997), and again by Mary Hartley in The Assertiveness Handbook (London:
Sheldon Press, 2005)
Assertiveness is one of the topics covered in a wider ranging book, Inuencing
Within Organizations, by Andrzej Huczynski (2nd edition, London: Routledge,
2004). Again broader in scope is the pithy The Inuencing Pocketbook, by Richard
Storey (Alresford: Management Pocketbooks, 2000).
A websearch on assertiveness training produces over 2,000,000 entries.
Take your pick!
Asserting Yourself 135
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Activity
2
Handling conict is an important part of leadership and managerial work. You
may need to mediate between conicting people or be in conict yourself with
someone else competing for the same resources as you. You will certainly be
handling crises and unforeseen events.
Conict situations occur where one party frustrates the goals of other parties
and yet they are dependent on each other. The outcomes can vary from outright
battling through negotiations and compromise, to walk-overs or avoidance. In
particular situations, one response might be more appropriate than another, but
no one response is correct every time.
Think about how you respond to conict. How do you react when faced with
frustration and antagonism? The more aware you are of your own personal style,
and the bigger your repetoire of responses, the more exible and successful you
will be in resolving particular conicts.
This activity will help you to look at your usual responses to conict situations
and generate some alternatives for action. It is in three parts: Part 1 contains
three case studies to test your responses to particular conict situations, Part 2
offers a model of conict resolution styles and Part 3 is a questionnaire to help
you determine your preferred approach.
Activity
Part 1: Case studies
For each of the three short cases, write down your rst reaction to the situation.
Think yourself into the situation and feel the anger, frustration or whatever wells up
inside you.
Handling Conicts
Activity
19
Learning Social skills: Emotional resilience:
areas Sensitivity to events
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Handling Conicts 137
Case 1
You have just arrived at the coffee room and are waiting for your coffee. Across
the room you see a colleague with whom you fell out at the last department
meeting. The argument concerned the shortage of skilled staff you believe your
department does not get its fair share but that your colleagues is overstaffed.
This morning one of your staff failed to report for work and on applying for a
pool consultant you were told that the last one had gone to your colleagues
department. At the sight of this person, your anger and sense of injustice ood
back. What do you do? (Write down your rst reaction.)
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Case 2
The road on which you live on has a fringe of lawn between the footpath and the
road. You look after your section and like to see it looking green and well tended.
Most of your neighbours do the same, but on one side of you live some people
you dont know too well and who ignore this common policy. They never look
after the verge and they and their friends frequently park their cars on it.
Recently, they have been parking on your section and, in the recent wet weather,
tyre marks have marred the green surface. You have spoken to them once about
this, when they appeared off-hand and indifferent to your concern. One Sunday
morning you wake at 5 a.m. to an engine noise, and on looking outside see two
deep scars across your lawn. At 9 oclock and still annoyed, you meet your neigh-
bour in the papershop. What do you do? (Write down your rst reaction.)
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
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138 Activities for Management Self-development
Case 3
You are a young manager in the sales section of a large company. Your boss
sends for you one morning and you hear on the grapevine that you will be
asked to take on an unpopular duty that involves coming in every other
Saturday. You dont like it you like to keep your weekends free for the family,
and you feel you are getting a raw deal because you are junior. Youre on your
way to the bosss ofce. What do you do? (Write down your rst reaction.)
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
When youve responded to these three cases, go back over them and see if you
can think of alternative approaches.
Case 1. Alternative approaches
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Case 2. Alternative approaches
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Case 3. Alternative approaches
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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Handling Conicts 139
One effect of conict is that it can lead to stress, rigidity and a hardening of
attitudes, which partly explains why we have habitual ways of reacting to conict
situations. Try these questions:
Looking back over your initial reactions to the three cases, can you spot a
habitual mode of response?
Think of conicts you have had in the past with your spouse, colleagues,
parents, etc. Do these show any pattern of response?
Of the three cases, how many alternatives to each of your initial responses
could you generate? Two? Three? Four? Or more?
The more alternatives you generate, the more chances you have of being
exible in practice.
Part 2: A conict resolution model
Figure A19.1 shows ve conict-handling styles based on two basic dimensions
of conict situations: in any conict between two parties the mode of resolution
depends upon:
(a) how assertive or unassertive each party is in pursuing its own goals
(b) how cooperative or uncooperative each party is in pursuing the goals of the
other.
UNCOOPERATIVE COOPERATIVE
ASSERTIVE
UNASSERTIVE
Compromising
Competing
Avoiding
Collaborating
Accommodating
Figure A19.1 Conict style model
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140 Activities for Management Self-development
Because conict resolution is an interactive and reciprocal activity, the style
you adopt will affect the style of your partner, and vice versa. If both of you are
highly assertive yet uncooperative in terms of each others goals, then they will
adopt a battling, competing style; if you are both unassertive of your own goals
and also uncooperative, you will tend to avoid the conict altogether and try
to pretend it doesnt exist. And so on.
Use the model in Fig. A19.1 to diagnose a conict situation in which you
have been personally involved (a personal relationship perhaps offers most
scope). Can you classify the modes adopted of the two parties and arrive at a
description of the joint style of resolution on the chart?
Do this with as many conict situations as you can think of. By diagnosing
your habitual responses in certain situations and observing the responses of
others, you can obtain a clearer picture of your own behaviour. Can you answer
these questions:
When do you avoid conict?
When do you compete with others?
Do you ever collaborate in conict situations?
How do you feel when you accommodate to others?
How often do you secure compromises?
The more you can identify your own style(s) and the responses generated by
others, and the more alternatives you can see in any particular situation, the
more likely you are to behave appropriately the next time conict arises.
Part 3: Conict management questionnaire
This paired-comparison questionnaire will help you to identify your preferred
style of conict handling.
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Handling Conicts 141
Choose one of the statements from each of the 30 pairs below. Choose the
one which is most like the way you handle differences between yourself and others:
1. 1. I am usually rm in pursuing my goals.
2. I attempt to get all concerns and issues immediately out in the open.
2. 1. I put my cards on the table and invite the other person to do likewise.
2. When conicts arise I try to win my case.
3. 1. Once I adopt a position I defend it strongly.
2. I prefer not to argue but to look for the best solution possible.
4. 1. I sometimes sacrice my own wishes for the wishes of the other person.
2. I feel that differences are not always worth worrying about.
5. 1. I accept the views of the other, rather than rock the boat.
2. I avoid people with strong views.
6. 1. I like to cooperate with others and follow their ideas.
2. I feel that most things are not worth arguing about. I stick to my own
views.
7. 1. I try to nd some compromise situation.
2. I am usually rm in pursuing my goals.
8. 1. When conicts arise I try to win my case.
2. I propose a middle ground.
9. 1. I like to meet the other person half-way.
2. Once I adopt a position I defend it strongly.
10. 1. I feel that differences are not always worth worrying about.
2. I try to nd a compromise solution.
11. 1. I propose a middle ground.
2. I avoid people with strong views.
12. 1. I feel that most things are not worth arguing about. I stick to my own
views.
2. I like to meet the other person half-way.
13. 1. I am usually rm in pursuing my goals.
2. I sometimes sacrice my own wishes for the wishes of the other person.
14. 1. I accept the views of the other, rather than rock the boat.
2. When conicts arise I try to win my case.
15. 1. Once I adopt a position I defend it strongly.
2. I like to cooperate with others and follow their ideas.
16. 1. I try to nd a compromise solution.
2. I sometimes sacrice my own wishes for the wishes of the other person.
17. 1. I accept the views of the other, rather than rock the boat.
2. I propose a middle ground.
18. 1. I like to meet the other person half-way.
2. I like to cooperate with others and follow their ideas.
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142 Activities for Management Self-development
19. 1. I feel that differences are not always worth worrying about.
2. I am usually rm in pursuing my goals.
20. 1. When conicts arise I try to win my case.
2. I avoid people with strong views.
21. 1. I feel that most things are not worth arguing about. I stick to my own
views.
2. Once I adopt a position I defend it strongly.
22. 1. I attempt to get all concerns and issues immediately out in the open.
2. I feel that differences are not always worth worrying about.
23. 1. I avoid people with strong views.
2. I put my cards on the table and invite the other person to do likewise.
24. 1. I prefer not to argue but to look for the best solution possible.
2. I feel that most things are not worth arguing about. I stick to my own
views.
25. 1. I attempt to get all concerns and issues immediately out in the open.
2. I try to nd a compromise solution.
26. 1. I put my cards on the table and invite the other person to do likewise.
2. I propose a middle ground.
27. 1. I prefer not to argue but to look for the best solution possible.
2. I like to meet the other person half-way.
28. 1. I sometimes sacrice my own wishes for the wishes of the other person.
2. I attempt to get all concerns and issues immediately out in the open.
29. 1. I put my cards on the table and invite the other person to do likewise.
2. I accept the views of the other, rather than rock the boat.
30. 1. I like to cooperate with others and follow their ideas.
2. I prefer not to argue but to look for the best solution possible.
Scoring
The key below shows you how to score your questionnaire (Table A19.1).
A, B, C, D and E represent the ve conict handling styles as follows:
A Avoiding
B Accommodating
C Compromising
D Competing
E Collaborating.
So, for example, if you chose the second statement of the rst pair then you
would score 1 for E. If you chose the rst statement of the second pair you
would score another 1 for E, and so on (see Table A19.1).
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Handling Conicts 143
The maximum score for any mode is 12 and the total aggregate score is 30.
A score of more than 6 on any mode would indicate a preference for that
mode, while a score of less than 6 would indicate relative neglect.
Table A19.1 Conict management questionnaire
Statement Pair Conict-resolution mode
A B C D E
1 1 2
2 2 1
3 1 2
4 2 1
5 2 1
6 2 1
7 1 2
8 2 1
9 1 2
10 1 2
11 2 1
12 1 2
13 2 1
14 1 2
15 2 1
16 2 1
17 1 2
18 2 1
19 1 2
20 2 1
21 1 2
22 2 1
23 1 2
24 2 1
25 2 1
26 2 1
27 2 1
28 1 2
29 2 1
30 1 2
Total
What do these results mean to you?
Do you have some dominant ways of approaching conicts?
Are there styles that you do not make use of?
What would you like to change?
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144 Activities for Management Self-development
The questionnaire is a one-point-in-time measure of your reaction to conict
situations. It has validity in so far it corroborates with your own perception of your
preferred style and the results you got from the cases earlier in this exercise If
these point in the same direction, then a conclusion is comparatively simple. More
uneven results will require puzzling out. Other peoples opinions will be especially
useful here particularly those with whom you have had your differences!
Follow-up
You need practice and application to develop further your skills in resolving
conicts. Activity 18 Asserting yourself, is very relevant here because the ideas
have a direct bearing on how you orient yourself to conict situations. Activity
8, Personal journal, could be used to help you learn from your own conict
experiences.
One of the best and most straightforward books on negotiating and managing
conict is Fisher, Ury and Pattons Getting to Yes (revised edition, New York:
Random House, 2003). The ubiquitous Management Pocketbooks have a good
little guide The Resolving Conict Pocketbook by Max Eggert (2003). A deeper
treatment but still lled with practical insights is Friedrich Glasls Confronting
Conict: A First-aid Kit for handling Conict (Stroud: Hawthorn Press, 1999).
More interpersonal approaches can be found in Managing Conict Through Com-
munication, by Dudley Cahn and Roxane Lulofs (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
2006) and Myra Isenhart and Michael Spangles Collaborative Approaches to
Resolving Conict (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000).
Conict is another popular topic on the world-wide web with over
37,000,000 references on Google.
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How much of your time at work is spent in groups? Partnerships, project teams,
committees, consortia and other meetings may account for over half of your time
at work. The trend towards partnerships and shared leadership adds to this load.
Groups are used for many vital functions, especially in information sharing and
making sense, reaching consensus and making decisions. All of these processes
can be difcult and energy-consuming. Every leader and manager needs to learn
about how to get the best out of groups and how to make teams as effective as
they can be.
The aim of this activity is to improve your understanding and skill in handling
behaviour in groups. It does this by offering a process for observing behaviours in
groups and also by inviting you to experiment with your own group behaviours.
Activity
Part 1: Measuring the contribution rate
A rst exercise in group observation and analysis is to take a contribution
count. At your next meeting, choose a 10- or 15-minute period, when you can
concentrate on observing rather than contributing.
Write the name or identifying mark for each member of the group on a sheet
of paper. Over 10 or 15 minutes, note each contribution made by each group
member by putting a mark beside their names. See Fig. A20.1, where the ve-
barred gate method is used.
A contribution is any spoken comment to the group (not an aside to
another member) although it may be directed at one person in particular.
Getting the Best Out of Groups
Activity
20
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areas Analytical skills: Proactivity
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It may be short or long, although you could put two marks for a contribution of
more than, say, 30 seconds.
Figure A20.1 shows clear differences between the group members in terms
of the number of contributions made:
Gillian 22
Anil 9
HIGH contributors
Mike 8
Annabel 6
MEDIUM contributors
Rachel 3
Tom 2
Darren 2
LOW contributors
Lee 0
Now, why did Gillian and Anil contribute most? Because they have the most
to say, or because they are the more senior? In either case, does their dominance
help or hinder the group in its task? If they knew most about the subject under
discussion, or because they were the two principal speakers for and against an
idea, then this might well help the group achieve its goals.
What about Rachel, Tom, Darren, and Lee? Did they just have nothing to
contribute, or were they shut out, asleep, junior or unlistened-to members?
Share your contribution count with the other members of your group
although you will need a good relationship or, better still, a contract with them to
do this. If the group takes notice of the observation, it can provoke useful changes.
A contribution count can tell you a lot about a group, especially over a
number of meetings. Behaviour patterns form quickly and we tend to conform
146 Activities to Management Self-Development
Rachel
III
Annabel
I
Tom
II
Darren
II
Mike
IIII
Gillian
Anil
IIII
Lee
III
IIII
IIII
IIII
IIII
IIII IIII
II
Figure A20.1 Contribution roles in a group
}
}
}
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to these although this is done at a subconscious level of which we are not fully
aware unless it is brought to our attention. Equally, a contribution count measures
only a fraction of what goes on in a group situation, and it should not be taken
for more than it is. It takes no account of the quality of the contribution; of non-
verbal behaviour, of the requirements of the particular situation or of how people
are feeling.
However, it has the great advantage of being easy to do. For a more advanced
version of the contribution count, in your next meeting, observe as before but
now log in addition:
Who talks to whom. Who do they direct their remarks at and look at when
they speak?
Who interrupts whom?
Who nally makes the decision one person, two persons, the whole group?
These are the more difcult to measure, but will give you useful data for your own
reection and, if you can introduce it, for the greater effectiveness of the group.
Part 2: Categorizing behaviour in groups
The effectiveness of groups depends largely upon right behaviour at the right
time. The group behaviour categories shown in Table A20.1 were developed
and pioneered by Neil Rackham and have been used to improve group
effectiveness at British Airways and many other organizations.
Here are just eight categories for you to practise with. Again, chose a 1015-
minute session to observe. Use an observation sheet with categories down the
left-hand side and group members names along the top as in Table A20.2.
Practise on two or four behaviours and two or four people until you get the
hang of it. Try logging Gillian and Anil on proposing, giving information
seeking information and supporting/building. High contributors often do a
lot of proposing and giving information but less information seeking.
Some groups do a lot of giving information and making proposals, but do
very little seeking information or understanding. Building and summarizing
tend to be a rare behaviours. Defending/attacking creates similar responses in
others, and a sort of escalation or spiral occurs.
From your observations over a number of meetings and 15-minute periods
you should be able to answer some of the following:
Do people fall into habitual roles? Are there habitual low contributors or
chronic proposers or consenters who do no disagreeing?
Is there a balance of behaviour in the group? People may fall into
particular roles, but if these complement each other then the group may
Getting the Best Out of Groups 147
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function well. But unless somebody is doing the summarizing, testing
understanding, supporting, etc., several vital functions will be missing.
How could this group work better? For example, does everybody feel OK
about their roles, levels of contribution and rewards from this group? Does
the group make good decisions without undue wasting of time?
148 Activities to Management Self-Development
Table A20.1 Categories of group behaviour
Category Denition
Proposing a behaviour which puts forward a new concept, suggestion or
course of action: I suggest we call a meeting of all Department
employees
Giving information a behaviour which offers facts, opinions or clarication to others:
There is a full denition of this in the handbook
Seeking information a behaviour which seeks facts, opinions or clarication from others:
What do the rest of you think?
Supporting/building a behaviour which declares support or agreement with another
person or attempts to extend or develop a proposal made by another
person: I agree with Lee and moreover we should start now
Disagreeing a behaviour which involves a direct criticism, difference of opinion
or disagreement with another persons idea: No my boss would
never accept a reduction in his budget
Defending/attacking a behaviour which attacks another person or defends an
individuals own position. More emotional than disagreeing: That is a
stupid idea or My idea is better than that
Blocking/difculty stating a behaviour which blocks another proposal without offering
alternatives and without reasons: It wont work or We cant have
that
Testing understanding a behaviour which checks and seeks to establish whether an earlier
contribution has been understood: Can I just ask you, Anil, did you
imply that you were supporting or not supporting Mikes proposal?
Summarizing a behaviour which summarizes, or restates concisely, the content
of a previous proposal or discussion: Well, so far, ladies and
gentlemen, we have heard two proposals: Toms to call a meeting
immediately; and Anils to delay action until next week
Table A20.2 Observation sheet for of group behaviour
Observation sheet Date Time
Names Anil Gillian Mike Tom Annabel Lee Rachel Darren Total
Proposing II llll I llll I I I 16
Giving information I IIII llll III I II II I I 20
Seeking information III I llll I III
. . . and so on . . .
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Good groups will welcome your observations, but many groups are unused to
self-scrutiny and may be defensive. Caution is recommended.
Part 3
You can dispense with the caution and be as experimental as you like with your
own behaviour. After your observations you will have some ideas about the
way you behave in groups. Spend some time now summarizing these.
Step 1: What characteristics have you noticed in yourself?
Are you a medium, low, or high contributor?
Are you a proposer, a builder, or what?
How much seeking behaviour do you practise?
What happened the last time you were in a defending/attacking position?
How often do you test your understanding of other peoples ideas?
Step 2: Now do some experimenting. Choose some of the behaviours that you
would like to do more of, and some youd like to cut back on and follow the
steps below:
2.1. At the next meeting you attend, experiment by using one new behaviour. If
youre trying to lessen a behaviour, try cutting it out altogether.
What is this behaviour?
2.2. Carefully observe what effect youre having. You may be able to get
feedback how people react to you in the meeting or by conversations
afterwards.
2.3. If youre stuck for behaviours to try, remember that seeking information,
building, summarizing, and testing understanding are often low in groups.
Getting the Best Out of Groups 149
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Here are some suggested actions. At the next meeting try one of the following:
Do nothing but ask questions.
Never ask a question.
Do not agree or disagree with anything.
Each time youre not absolutely sure what another person means, ask for
clarication.
If youre normally a high contributor say nothing; if youre normally low
aim to say more than anyone else.
Follow-up
This type of analysis was rst undertaken by Robert Bales and his colleagues
more than 50 years ago. David Buchanan and Andrej Huczynskis massive
(nearly 1000 pages) Organisational Behaviour: An Introductory Text (5th edition,
London: Financial Times Prentice-Hall, 2004) devotes a major part to behaviour
in groups.
Many people nd the neuro-liguistic programming approach to inter-
personal behaviour useful; one text here is Sue Knights NLP at Work: The
Difference that Makes a Difference in Business (London: Nicholas Brealey, 2002).
Finally, Mike Pedler and Tom Boydells Managing Yourself (3rd edition, London:
Lemos and Crane, 1999) has a chapter focused on working with other people.
150 Activities to Management Self-Development
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Your success and failure in achieving things with and through people depend a
lot on how you see and make judgements about other people and you see your-
self in relation to them.
Any action you take to inuence another person is based on a complex set
of assumptions about how they will interpret your action and the way in which
they will respond to it.
Part 1 of this activity is designed to help you become aware of the ways in
which you see other people and yourself. Part 2 suggests that you check this
out to see how your perceptions coincide with those of others.
Activity
Part 1
Step 1
In Column 1 of Fig. A21.1, write the names of ve people with whom you
interact frequently at work.
Columns 2 and 3 of Fig. A21.1 each have ten boxes, joined in pairs by horizontal
lines. The lines represent dimensions of difference between people; for example:
kind aloof; aggressive meek, clever stupid; honest devious, and so on.
Take each dimension in turn and look at the names of the people in the two
boxes joined to it by the lines between Columns 1 and 2. Think of a way in
which these two people seem different to you in some way, and a pair of words
What Are You Like?
Activity
21
Learning Social skills: Self-knowledge:
areas Analytical skills
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152 Activities for Management Self-development
C
o
l
u
m
n

1
C
o
l
u
m
n

2
C
o
l
u
m
n

3
F
i
g
u
r
e

A
2
1
.
1
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What Are You Like? 153
Think of each scale as running from extreme to extreme, e.g. very reliable to
very unreliable, even if the people from whom you derived this dimension in
the rst place are not at the extremes.
Now think about yourself and your close working colleagues. How do you
see yourself in relation to them?
The dimensions that you have chosen are ways in which you distinguish
between people therefore, they are likely to be important qualities or
characteristics in your eyes.
Does this give you a sense of how you make judgements about people and on
what grounds?
Part 2
If Part 1 gave you useful food for thought about yourself in relation to your
colleagues, you can take this activity further with some of the following
possibilities:
(a) Decide what you would like to be like by ticking the dimensions where you
would like to be.
(b) Try being different. If you can do so, is it what you really want?
Reliable Unreliable
JG
Figure A21.2
such as the ones exampled above which describes the difference you perceive
between them.
Put one word in the box at each end of the dimension (it doesnt matter which
word goes at which end). Do this for each of the ten dimensions, using a
different dimension (and therefore pair of words) each time. As this is a short
activity, dont worry that you havent covered all the differences between people;
the idea is to get a sense of the ways in which you classify people.
Step 2
Now, treating each of the ten dimensions as a scale, put a cross to show where
you think you are as a person, and mark it with your initials (see Fig. A21.2).
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(c) Choose one of your ve colleagues; mark where you think they are on
each dimension and then show it to him or her. How do they see
themselves compared with yourself?
(d) Repeat (c) with other colleagues.
The key to understanding how you see yourself and others is to develop the
habit of checking your perceptions with the other people with whom you work.
Follow-up
This activity is based on George Kellys Personal Construct Psychology and his
notion of the Repertory Grid. See Activity 12, Credulous listening, for some
follow-up references.
154 Activities for Management Self-development
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To know someone well, we need to get beyond the trivial. Getting to know
someone involves learning more about them, their ideas, hopes, fears and
ambitions. For the other person to reveal these things about themselves, it is
likely that at we will have to reveal signicant aspects of ourselves and of our
lives in turn. This mutual exchange of personal information can lead to a
better understanding and acceptance of each other.
However, our natural reticence and everyday social norms usually stop us
talking so openly even with fairly close acquaintances. This activity can be used
in any situation where you want to get to know somebody else reasonably well,
reasonably quickly. At the same time, youll nd that sharing this personal
information will increase your own self-understanding.
Activity
Before you undertake this activity with anyone, make sure that each of you
wants to get to know the other better. You cant do this unless you are both up
for it.
Find a place where you wont be disturbed and set aside at least an hour.
Instructions
Read these instructions carefully before looking at Table A22.1.
Getting to Know You
Activity
22
Learning Social skills: Self-knowledge
areas
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156 Activities for Management Self-development
Table A22.1 The statements
1. My name is
2. My job is
3. My age is
4. I live
5. I was born in
6. My previous jobs included
7. Things I like best about this job are
8. Things I like least about this job are
9. To me, being a woman/man
10. My marital status is
11. Children
12. My parents
13. My friends
14. My hobbies/spare-time activities
15. When I get to work
16. When I leave work
17. At this very minute, I feel
18. Ideally, this time next year
19. In the long term, my ambition
20. The trouble with this organization is
21. My idea of an ideal holiday would be
22. Things that I nd very difcult
23. If the worst comes to the worst in 12 months time
24. The sort of things I worry about
25. What this country needs
26. My religious beliefs
27. To me, being black/white
28. My secret fears
29. My feelings about you
30. My feelings about myself are
Table A22.1 consist of a set of incomplete statement. Start with the rst
one, and take it in turn to complete the statement, telling the other person as
much or as little as you want. NB. It is entirely up to each person to decide how
much or how little to say. Your partner can respond to what you say in any way
they like. Then the other person completes the statement as above. When you
have both said enough, move on to statement 2, and so on.
Dont look ahead at the other statements concentrate only on the one
being discussed.
Stop this activity whenever either of you wishes to do so.
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Follow-up
When you have nished this activity:
What did you learn about yourself and the other person?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Do you think that it has improved your relationship?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Getting To Know You 157
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Activity
2
Getting to Yes [by Fisher and Ury] is by far the best thing Ive ever read
about negotiation
J. K. Galbraith
Step 1
Consider the following statements and decide which list A or B best
describes how you are likely to behave in a negotiation:
A B
Yield to pressure Pile on pressure
Make offers Make threats
Trust others Distrust others
Search for the single answer, the Hold out for the single answer, the one
one they will accept you will accept
Which is most like you A or B?
Activity 18, Asserting yourself, looks at how we behave with others passively,
aggressively or assertively. Simply put, passive behaviour allows others to walk
over us, aggressive behaviour means we walk over others (and their rights),
whereas assertive behaviour allows each of us to walk forward.
Applying this to negotiation, the soft negotiator wants to avoid conict, and
so readily makes concessions to reach agreement. However, as in a personal
relationship, they may end up feeling exploited. The hard negotiator sees the
situation as a contest of wills, in which those who shout loudest and hold out
Getting to Yes
Activity
23
Learning Social skills: Emotional resilience:
areas Sensitivity to events
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Getting to Yes 159
longest fare best. Such archetypal aggressive behaviour may yield short-term gains,
but over time is likely to damage relationships, and eventually isolate the aggressor.
A third way is both hard and soft, and assumes that you can obtain what you
are entitled to and still behave decently. Here negotiation is approached and
seen as a making process, where the parties build and make an agreement
with which all can live.
Step 2
The principled negotiation approach was developed at the Harvard Negotiation
Project and is designed to produce agreements which are both fair and fully
implementable. There are four principles:
1. Separate the people from the problem
Go easy on the people but hard on the problem
2. Focus on interests, not positions
Explore mutual interests, rather than make offers or issue threats.
3. Invent options for mutual gain
Designing good solutions under pressure is difcult. Adversarial situations
tend to narrow vision and imagination. One way round this is to set aside
an agreed period of time in which to develop a wide range of possible
solutions that advance shared interests.
4. Insist on objective criteria
An aggressive negotiator may try to get their way through intransigence.
The assertive negotiator can insist that fair standards, e.g. market value,
independent expert advice, health and safety regulations, is used.
Step 3
Think of a current or forthcoming negotiation. This might be at work: over-
scarce resources, a joint project, etc.; or at home: over holidays, childcare and
so on. Choose a situation where the parties have roughly equal power (because
dealings between people with very unequal power has a different avour).
Thinking of your negotiation, use the four principles to analyse it as in Table
A23.1. Jot down ideas for applying principled negotiation to your situation.
A supportive friend will be helpful here.
Step 4
Preparation is always vital in negotiation. Make the time to develop your ideas
before you meet the other party. If you are part of a team, set aside time to
brainstorm the options for mutual gain.
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160 Activities for Management Self-development
This is good preparation in more than one sense, for it will often develop a
sense of unity in a team. However, remember that you are inventing possibilities
and options prior to working with the other party and not trying to reach rm
decisions and make your mind up yet stay loose.
Follow-up
This activity is based on one of the best and most straightforward books on
negotiating and managing conict Fisher, Ury and Pattons Getting to Yes
(revised edition, New York: Random House, 2003). Roger Fisher has written
many other books in this eld, including, with co-author Daniel Shapiro,
Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate (New York: Random House,
2006). He also provides the foreword in the broader Difcult Conversations:
How to Discuss What Matters Most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila
Heen (New York: Penguin, 2000). Management Pocketbooks have a short
guide The Negotiators Pocketbook by Patrick Forsyth (2000).
Table A23.1 Four principles of negotiation
1 2 3 4
Separate the Focus on Invent options Insist on
people from interests not for mutual objective
the problem positions gain criteria
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Task forces, teams and partnerships have assumed greater importance with the
increase in strategic alliances, joint ventures, collaborative projects and inter-
agency working. All these joint efforts involve pooling resources, concentrating
expertise and bringing together energy and effort across departmental and
organizational boundaries. However, all projects have their difculties, and, as
much of the effort always seems to go into the technical side, they often crop up
on the social, interpersonal and political side.
Projects put a premium on collaborative work. Working with people with
whom we have no formal responsibility or authority often leads to conicts of
loyalty where departments and project teams pull in different directions. Lack
of clarity as to what to expect of each other can cause tension and frustration.
Resentments, lack of cooperation and incomplete development of the project
may appear if the practical issues of working together are not discussed and
resolved. For collaborations to be effective, good rules of engagement need to
be established.
The following activity will help you prepare for collaborative working. Work
through it by relating it to a specic project in which you are about to be
involved.
Collaborative Working
Activity
24
Learning Social Skills: Emotional resilience:
areas Creativity
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162 Activities for Management Self-development
Activity
Step 1
List all the things that you would be prepared to share in a collaborative
working relationship. Here is the start a possible list to which you can add:
1. ofce space
2. administrative back-up
3. access to your equipment
4. your client les
5. your best ideas
6. your mobile phone
7. your favourite lunch venue
8. other resources
9. ? etc.
You could add certain provisos will share ofce space as long as its left tidy.
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Collaborative Working 163
Now make a list of the things your would not be willing to share you might
want to swap things from this list to your share list, and again to add items not
mentioned:
1. your professional networks and contacts
2. your books
3. your departmental budget
4. your time outside work
5. ? etc.
Step 2
When you have made your lists, ask yourself: What are my worries about this
project?
Note these carefully, e.g. consequences of failure?, extra workload?, con-
cerns about particular team members?, worries about disclosing know-how or
information?, etc.
Step 3
Any collaborative project is a powerful learning opportunity. What learning
goals could you accomplish via this project? Here are a few possible examples
to start you off:
to widen my knowledge outside my professional eld
to increase my visibility with senior people
to gain experience of other parts of the company/industry
to put myself into a high-risk situation
to improve my group working and management skills and so on.
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164 Activities for Management Self-development
Now think about what you could offer to your partners: what knowledge, skills or
personal qualities are you prepared to offer to other people on this project, what:
knowledge?
skills?
personal qualities?
Step 4
Next think about the qualities you would like in project colleagues. Complete
the following sentences:
What I want are people who know___________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What I want are people who can____________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What I want are people who will____________________________________
______________________________________________________________
You could include standards of behaviour in this list. How should this
person behave towards your staff, your boss, yourself? What actions will
provoke resentment (e.g. borrowing things without asking, not listening to
suggestions, using offensive language)?
While you are at it, is there any way you might need to moderate or change
you own behaviour?
Step 5
Next, draft some ground rules in plain terms covering how you and the others
can work together. These can cover any of the issues you have covered above,
e.g.
Sample ground rules
Work from a basic assumption of equality in terms of ideas, rights, etc.
Make time to listen to each others ideas.
Willingness to share resources in terms of administration, les, work
space, etc.
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No smoking in work areas.
Build in time for after action reviews for learning purposes.
Agree to refer disputes to an external facilitator/arbitrator.
Etc.
Step 6
Finally, agree a joint set of Ground Rules at an early meeting with the whole
project team. Keep this agreed list perhaps pinned to the wall as a guide to
good behaviour. From time to time you can review the Ground Rules together
do they need revising? Do we need to add anything?
Follow-up
There are many books on partnership working. The Partnering Imperative, by Anne
Deering and Anne Murphy (Chichester: Wiley, 2003), is based on research into
partnerships and John Carlisle and Robert Parkers Beyond Negotiation
(Chichester: Wiley, 1989) is also good. Other useful books include John Child
and David Faulkners Strategies of Co-operation: Managing Alliances, Networks and
Joint Ventures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), The Strategic Partnering
Handbook, by Tony Lendrum (Roseville, NSW: McGraw-Hill, 2000) and Business
Partnering for Continuous Improvement: How to Forge Enduring Alliances Among
Employees, Suppliers and Customers, by Charles Poirier and William Hoser (San
Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1994).
The not-for-prot Partnering Initiative, http://thepartneringinitiative.org/
mainpages/about/intro/, produces a number of very useful tools and other
resources, most of which are free of charge.
Collaborative Working 165
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Activity
2
It is said that every good manager and leader is a coach. Think of the best
manager you have ever had: did they make time to coach you?
In addition to helping other people, being a coach is also one of the best ways
of learning for yourself: See one, do one, teach one, as the old surgeons motto
has it.
Questioning is at the heart of good coaching. This Activity is based on the
GROW model, which is perhaps the most widespread model used in this work. It
is a framework and a checklist of the sorts of questions that a coach can use in
coaching both individuals and teams. You can be a coach. You should be a coach
for others and for yourself.
Activity
The questions offered in this Activity can be used to start the coaching
session, during the session to draw out the learning, clarify expectations and
set goals, or after to summarize and review the learning.
Step 1
Find a friend or colleague who is prepared to be coached by you. This can be
someone new to the organization or someone who is facing a tricky situation
that they would like to think through.
Be a Coach!
Activity
25
Learning Social skills: Professional
areas knowledge: Balanced learning habits
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Be a Coach! 167
Be open with this person about your own coaching skills. If this is new for
you, then explain that you want to develop your skills in this area and learn
about the coaching process. Explain how you are intending to go about it.
Agree in advance that you will have a joint review session where you can get
feedback from your partner on how helpful they found the process and how
you could improve.
Step 2
Once you have a partner to be coached, agree a contract for three coaching
sessions at regular intervals weekly or monthly, for example.
Set times for these sessions and put them in your diaries. Allow an hour for
each session.
Step 3
The coaching process is one of guided questioning to help the person move
forward with their issue or situation. In your rst session, follow the sequence of
the GROW Model (Fig. A25.1) in seeking to guide your partner through an
exploration of the goal that they are trying to achieve, an evaluation of the
options for action and a testing of their commitment to achieve the goal:
G GOAL Setting goals for the task in general, or for this session.
R REALITY Testing and raising awareness of the current situation.
O OPTIONS Finding alternative strategies, solutions, answers and ways forward.
W WILL Testing commitment to goals, & making concrete, realistic plans and
steps to reach them.
Complete the rst coaching session in 50 minutes and keep the last 10 minutes
for reviewing the effectiveness of the session with your partner.
Step 4
How did you do? What did you learn from the rst coaching session?
If you ran out of questions or ideas, some further questions to help with each
of the stages of the GROW model, are given in Fig. A25.2.
These questions are offered as a guide nothing more. Use any that t your
natural style and language and do not slavishly follow the GROW
sequence if it is not working.
If it seems to you that there is a better question arising from the situation or
if it seems better to start with rst steps and work backwards, try that out
whatever works for you and the other person.
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168 Activities for Management Self-development
The GROW Model: Goal, Reality, Options, Will
GOAL
REALITY
OPTIONS
WILL
What is it you want to achieve?
When you get there, what will it look like, sound like, and feel like?
When you achieve this, what else will it help you to do?
What is happening at the moment?
What are you dissatisfied about?
What else is happening at the moment?
Who is involved in the situation and what are they doing?
What do you want to take forward from what is happening
at present?
What options for action do you have?
What else have you though of (and rejected)?
Have you thought of?
Do you have the resources to make the change?
Who could help you in this?
Which option do you most favour?
How committed are you to taking this action (on a scale of 110)?
What do you need to do to increase your will to do this?
What support do you need?
What is the first step you will take?
When?
Figure A25.1 GROW model
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Be a Coach! 169
OPTIONS
What else could you do? (Repeat this question until you both
get fed up with it)
What would you do if time and resources were not an issue?
How could you change yourself so that is would not be
a problem?
What would happen if you did nothing?
Whom do you admire or respect who does this really well?
What might this person do in your situation?
WILL
How does this goal fit in with your other personal priorities?
Which option(s) will you choose?
How will that help you?
What could possibly go wrong?
(How will you overcome them?)
Who else should know about your plan?
(How will you inform them?)
How committed are you really to this?
If your commitment is low, might it be better to find
something that you really want to do?
What is Plan B?
GOAL
What exactly do you want to achieve short and long term?
How will you know if you reach your goal?
Is any part of it measurable?
Why is the goal desirable, challenging and achievable for you?
How would you rate your achievements so far, in this respect?
How can you break down the goal into more manageable
sub-goals?
REALITY
Why haven't you reached this goal already?
What have you done so far?
What have you learnt from that?
Who will there be the winners and losers if you get
what you want?
What is really stopping you?
What constraints inside and outside yourself are
holding you back?
How might you overcome these?
How might you sabotage your own efforts?
Figure A25.2 Further GROW questions
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Most of all coaching is a relationship and if the other person wants sympathy
or clear direction, information or feedback, then go with that as long as you
feel it is appropriate.
Follow-up
Coaching has always been one of the most useful approaches to one-to-one
management development and there are many books and websites available,
many of them utilizing the GROW model or something similar.
One of the best-known books in this eld is John Whitmores Coaching for
Performance: Growing People, Performance and Purpose (London: Nicholas
Brealey, 2002). Also try David Clutterbuck and David Megginsons Techniques
for Coaching and Mentoring (Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005).
These last authors are involved in the European Mentoring and Coaching
Council (EMCC), which brings together practitioners, researchers and institutions
and is attempting to regulate this new profession: www.emccouncil.org.
Finally, a book with a broader and somewhat different focus but which may
also be helpful is Roger Schwartzs The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource
for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers and Coaches (New York: Jossey
Bass Wiley, 2003). This is almost all it claims to be.
170 Activities for Management Self-development
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We all face difcult situations from time to time, both in our work and in our
personal lives. We dene a difcult situation as one in which (i) something
very important is at stake or (ii) things are not going right or there seems to be
no obvious way forward: situations in which you feel in a corner, between a
rock and a hard place, or on a burning platform.
For example, it may be a target that you can see no way of meeting, but one
that you will be punished for if you fail. Or, you may nd yourself falling out
with someone you want to get on well with, or nd that an esteemed colleague
that you do not want to offend is doing something of which you deeply
disapprove. And so on; there are lots of difcult situations.
How do you cope in situations like this?
It may or may not be a comfort to remember that in seemly impossible situations
that nothing stays the same for ever, that there is a future, that something else will
happen. The thing to worry about is how to cope and how to shape this new
situation. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, that which does not kill me makes me
strong emotional resilience is built by learning to cope with adversity.
Five options for difcult situations
There are ve ways out of a difcult situation: love it, leave it, live with it,
change it or change yourself.
Love it this means asking yourself why you are so concerned about the
difcult situation what makes you stick in there and try to deal with it if
we really think about it we may nd some core of ourselves that nds it
Difcult Situations
Activity
26
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worthwhile to struggle with this one the struggle is the measure of our
caring. It may also be possible (probably sometimes not always) to reframe
the situation into a more positive light the breaking down of something
may give the opportunity to re-build it in a more positive way.
Leave it on the other hand, do you want to stick in there with it? Why
not just walk away? Does it have to be your problem? What exactly are the
costs of getting out of it? Might they be less than the costs of staying in
with it? Are there some benets to walking away from it? A more
constructive use of your energies?
Live with it which is what we are doing while we work out what to do. Can
you just go on like this? What actually happens if you do nothing? What is
the worst that can happen? Are there any defensive moves you can make to
lessen the pain while leaving it alone? Things and situations do change if
you do nothing, it is possible that things will right themselves of their own
accord, even if it seems difcult to imagine how they might do so now.
Sometimes anything you might do has a greater chance of making things
worse rather than better, so why not leave it alone?
Change it lets look at it one more time what would it actually take to
deal with the situation? If you had a magic wand, what would you do? Is it
that other people do not see that there is a problem, or see it the same way
we do? What would it take to tell them and ask them to help us change it?
Do you need to be more assertive in this situation? Are you being creative
enough in your search for solutions? What would the most effective and
successful person you know do with this situation?
Change yourself Is the situation difcult because you are hanging on to
some idea of yourself as competent, respected, popular or something
else? These things may be very special for us and non-negotiable, but
maybe not. Can you make the difculty reduce or go away by changing our
idea of who you are or who you want to be?
Activity
Use this framework to think about difcult situations in you life past, present
and future. This activity is simply a thought experiment applying these ideas
to difcult situations that you have, and might face in the future.
Past
Think of the most difcult situation that you have faced in the past:
Which of the ve avenues did you take or try?
What worked?
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What did not work for you?
Which did you try rst and which did you try later?
How did you resolve it in the end?
Present
What is the most difcult situation facing you now? Think about what each of
the options looks like for this.
Which do you rule out and why?
Which is the best or least bad of them?
What can you do to make it more acceptable?
Future
Is there a particular difcult situation coming your way?
If not, what general kinds of difculty do you think might come up for you in
the future? Can you think of ways of setting things up so that at least one of
the ve options will work for you?
Conclusion
Looking back over this Activity do you have a general habit or pattern in
how you deal with difcult situations?
For example, are you always trying to change other people when it may not
be realistic? Or, are you always trying to escape from difculties? Does this get
you into trouble? Should you try to broaden your repertoire of coping
approaches?
Follow-up
A little philosophy may help in such difcult situations. Try the master in a
well-translated version: Friedrich Nietzsches Why I am So Wise is translated by
R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 2004).
Difcult Situations 173
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Stress-related diseases are a major killer of leaders, managers and professional
workers. More than a century ago we learned that the inhalation of dust and
fumes led to lung disease and silicosis. We are now learning what causes
coronary heart disease, cancer and strokes, and it is increasingly obvious that
these diseases are related to the way we live and work. This includes what we
eat, how much we exercise, how much tension and pressure we experience and
how we handle them.
Looking after ourselves is not just about avoiding an early grave, because
the killers (heart disease and cancer) head an unpleasant list of usually non-
fatal ailments, including arthritis, asthma, chronic anxiety, colitis, diabetes,
eczema, hypertension, mental illness, neurosis, migraines and many other
symptoms of physical, emotional and mental distress.
How are you feeling so far? This is not a pretty picture and its not surprising
that many of us close our eyes to it. This activity starts with a short questionnaire
on how you behave at work.
Activity
Step 1: Work habits questionnaire
How are you at work? Relaxed, tolerant and easy-going? Or are you tense, easily
frustrated and irritable?
Circle the number on each scale in Table A27.1 that best characterizes your
usual response or behaviour at work, i.e. 1 or 5 if you are very like the behaviour
Are You Stressed?
Activity
27
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Are You Stressed? 175
Step 2
This questionnaire is based on the work of two cardiologists, Friedman and
Rosenman (1974), who have suggested that certain types of behaviour are much
more likely to lead to coronary heart disease. A composite of these gives us the
Type A person, who is:
very competitive
continually striving for achievement
forever in a hurry
liable to explosive outbursts of free oating aggression
tense, pressurized, urgent, hyped up.
By contrast, the Type B person is:
relaxed
able to play without guilt
able to become absorbed in books, entertainments, conversations and other
non-work interests
Table A27.1 Work habits questionnaire
uncompetitive, avoid conict 1 2 3 4 5 highly competitive, I like battles
do things at an easy pace 1 2 3 4 5 do things quickly, (walk, eat, drive, etc.)
feel as though theres always plenty 1 2 3 4 5 feel as though theres never enough time
of time
have many hobbies and interests 1 2 3 4 5 am only interested in work, I talk a lot
about work
always do one thing at a time 1 2 3 4 5 usually keep several balls in the air at once
never hurry 1 2 3 4 5 am always rushing about, always in a hurry
take time off to relax and to think 1 2 3 4 5 feel guilty about taking time off to relax
things over
am casual about timekeeping 1 2 3 4 5 am never late
TOTAL SCORE __________ (sum of all the ringed numbers)
described at that end; 2 or 4 if you lean towards that end; and 3 if you genuinely
feel in the middle.
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not easily irritated, frustrated or angered
in little need of displaying achievements.
Step 3: Scoring
If you scored between:
8 and 15 then youre a denite Type B person
16 and 23 then you lean towards the Type B person
exactly 24 then youre well balanced between the two
25 and 32 then you lean towards Type A
33 and 40 they youre denitely Type A.
An absolute Type B person would be so laid back that leading and managing
activities would either be impossible or not worth the trouble! The important
point is that much of this sort of work reinforces any natural tendencies we
have and actually requires Type A behaviours. We are rewarded for displaying
them. This is the main way in which such work forms us or rather, deforms us.
Follow-up
To start treating yourself better, see the next Activity, Treat yourself well.
There are many books around on managing stress. To start with you might
go to the ubiquitous Management Pocketbook series with Mary Richards The
Stress Pocketbook (Alresford: Management Pocketbooks, 1999). A current best-
seller is The Worry Cure: Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Robert Leahy (London:
Piatkus, 2006).
The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook by Martha Davis, Elizabeth
Robbins and Matthew Mckay (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications,
2000) is more wide-ranging. A very different approach deeper and more
thoughtful about many issues that underlie feelings of stress, is Angus
Jenkinsons From Stress to Serenity (Forest Row, Sussex: Sophia Books, 2003).
Finally, Managing Workplace Stress: A Best Practice Blueprint, by Stephen
Williams and Lesley Cooper (Chichester: Wiley, 2002) focuses not on your own
personal stress management but on the organizational strategies and
managerial actions required for reducing stress.
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Leaders get attacked, dismissed, silenced and sometimes assassinated because
they come to represent loss
Ronald Heifetz
Leadership work can be dangerous and stressful. There are those times when
you are the person, the woman or man in charge and you have to take the
brunt of the blame or criticism or general ak often on behalf of others or
for the organization as a whole. This is part of the territory.
As we saw in Activity 27, this can lead to a highly stressed lifestyle, which
can kill or disable you if you do not take care of yourself.
Activity
Some of the best ways of avoiding the worst effects of leadership and managerial
work are to do with building up your inner strength with healthy habits.
Step 1: Healthy habits
Tick any of these that you do habitually and add any of your own to the end.
1. I build up resistance by regular sleep, a healthy diet and plenty of exercise.
2. I talk problems through with my partner.
Treat Yourself Well
Activity
28
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3. I talk problems through with my boss or colleagues.
4. I practise meditation or relaxation.
5. I withdraw physically from stressful situations when I can.
6. I block out one day or half a day per month in my diary just to spend exactly
as I want.
7. I allow myself a good read every day with a novel that takes all my attention.
8. I give myself breaks and treats when I need them.
9. I practise being quiet and avoiding the centre of attention.
10.
11.
Etc.
Score one point for each of 19 that you ticked. Score two points for each of 10
onwards.
If you scored more than seven points than you may get stressed up on
occasions, but at least you do have some ways of giving yourself a break now
and then.
If you scored less than seven points, dont you think you should be doing
something about this?
Step 2: Treats
Treats are the rewards and gifts you give yourself. Ill just have a little
something now you say, and quite right too. Many busy managers and leaders
come to over-rely on particular sources of treats especially alcoholic drinks
after work and being able to treat yourself properly is about taking care of
yourself in all sorts of ways. This includes an ability to reward and pamper
yourself at appropriate times at the end of a hard day, in the middle of a
knotty problem, when all seems gloomy and hopeless. Treats are usually little
things that give great pleasure taking a break, a walk in the park, phoning a
friend and so on.
The secret of managing stress successfully is by being able to pleasure yourself
without guilt in many different ways. Does that sound a bit self-indulgent? Even
indecent? Well, that is a problem. The Victorian work ethic encouraged people
to split off their enjoyment and pleasures in life and keep them apart from the
stern rectitude and seless duty required at work. Some of us seem to have
inherited this guilt about enjoying ourselves at work.
If you want to work hard and continue to enjoy rather than to destroy
yourself, you need to take your pleasures seriously: there is no incompatibility
between enjoyment and productivity!
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Write down at least ve ways in which you take care of yourself at work and
treat yourself well:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Were you able to manage that?
If not, why not? Women managers and leaders may often be juggling work,
career development and family commitments and may not have the time or
energy to treat themselves. Some men are bad at treating themselves and rely
on women to be the emotional specialists and so on.
Whats your pattern?
It might be good fun to do some research among your friends or colleagues.
If you can enquire in the right spirit, it may throw up a surprising catch there
are all sorts of possibilities for treating yourself.
Follow-up
The resources for the previous Activity will also be of relevance here, and the
next two Activities will also help you with this quest. Take care.
Treat Yourself Well 179
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When humans rst evolved, we were constantly faced with threats in the form of
dangerous animals, warring bands and so on. The reaction to these threats was
to get rid of them by ght or ight. To help with these reactions, the human
body (like that of animals) prepared itself in various ways. These include an
increased rate of breathing, a raised blood pressure, faster heart beat, greater
ow of blood to muscles and other physiological responses.
Todays managers and leaders, nding themselves in threatening situations,
will also resort to ght and ight and, although these stressful situations are
very different from those of our ancestors, the bodys response is similar. In
these situations we experience marked increases in pulse rate, blood pressure,
breathing, etc.
Unfortunately, these body responses, although excellent for dealing with
wild beasts, dont help us much in coping with organizational problems. As we
usually dont actually ght or run, all the physiological changes are channelled
into other effects, causing irritable behaviour and stress. In the longer term,
the bodys responses to stressful and threatening situations gradually build up,
with serious and lasting consequences.
To cope with the physical symptoms, many people in stressful jobs resort to
chemical aids such tranquillizers. However, these can hardly be recommended as
a long-term solution; what is needed is an internal method of coping with stress
reactions. There are many, ancient and modern, approaches to managing your
own stress, often associated with specic philosophies or religions, for example,
the many forms of yoga and meditation.
The activity here is not associated with any particular belief system, but is a
synthesis of the common elements of a number of approaches to relaxation.
Relaxation
Activity
29
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Relaxation 181
More than with most of the activities in this book, you need to repeat this
activity over a longish period of time for it to work at its best.
Activity
Step 1
Find a quiet place where you can sit down comfortably in your own space. It is
important to be fairly straight and upright. Although some people like to sit
cross-legged on the oor, this is not essential and you may be more comfortable
in a chair. In this case, sit with both feet on the ground, back straight, head up.
Dont be too comfortable dont fall asleep.
Step 2
When you are comfortable, close your eyes and consciously relax all your muscles,
starting at the top of your head and moving down through your body to the tips
of your toes. Do this gradually, trying to sense each part of the body and muscle
groups.
If you have difculty in doing this, tell yourself that you becoming more and
more relaxed, that you are going deeper and deeper and deeper. It is
often helpful to imagine yourself going down, in a lift, on an escalator; in warm
water, to the bottom of the sea.
Step 3
Breathe through your nose, and listen to your own breathing. As you become
more relaxed, you will notice your breathing become slower, shallower and
more restful. Notice that at the bottom of each breath (i.e. after breathing out)
there is a pause before you begin to breathe in again.
Step 4
When you have noticed these pauses, start counting backwards from ten to
one. Count thus: breathe out: TEN: breathe in: breathe out: NINE: breathe
in: breathe out: EIGHT; etc. Count in this way from ten down to one, then
back up from one to ten, down from ten to one, and so on.
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Step 5
Stray thoughts may come into your head while you are breathing/counting.
Dont worry about this; just let the thought come, dont dwell on it, let it go.
Then go back to TEN and start counting again. Dont worry if you never reach
ONE, especially in the early days.
Step 6
Continue breathing/counting in this way for 1520 minutes (although 10
minutes may be easier to start with) at least once a day; twice is better. Keep a
watch or clock handy, and check if you wish (otherwise keep your eyes closed).
When you nish, remain sitting quietly for a few minutes, then stand up slowly.
Follow-up
This activity is one that should be incorporated into your lifestyle to be of
maximum benet.
You might like to carry the simple technique given in this activity a stage
further. There are numerous books, tapes, aromatic oil kits and all sorts of won-
derful things that aim to help you to relax. Herbert Bensons The Relaxation
Response (New York: Avon Books, 2000) was a groundbreaking book and is still
deservedly a best seller.
Another favourite, with over one million copies sold, is Lawrence LeShans
How to Meditate, again published over 20 years ago but still going strong
(London: Little Brown, 1999). More recent, and complemented by two CDs,
study cards and a beginners instruction book, is Joseph Goldstein and Sharon
Salzbergs Insight Meditation Kit: A Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate
(Louisville, CO: Sounds True Audio, 2002).
Finally, one which caught our eye Belly Dancing: For Health and Relaxation
by Tina Hobin and Kristyna Kashvili (London: Duckworth, 1994) the very
thought of introducing this to clients works wonders.
182 Activities for Management Self-development
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There is a steadily growing recognition of the essential link between physical
tness, on the one hand, and mental alertness, high morale, motivation and
general effectiveness, on the other. To be the manager or leader that you really
can be, you need to keep yourself t.
In this activity, we simply stress the importance of this aspect of self-
development, and make some suggestions about the sources of further guidance.
Fashions in tness come and go, and new books reect these ideas appear
regularly. Find a regime of regular exercise which suits you your personality,
lifestyle, age, present level of tness and so on and build it into your work
and life. This will not only make you feel physically better, it will have a payoff
in all areas of your work particularly where you are in stressful, demanding
situations. Put it this way: can you afford not to be t?
There are many simple ways to improve your tness one US study showed
that executives who climbed just 50 steps each day reduced their risk of heart
disease by almost half. Giving up using lifts, walking two miles each day, going
for a swim twice a week, will all make a difference. Just start doing something.
Follow-up
Many organizations now have keep-t facilities; most local authorities offer
tness activities; some colleges put on programmes designed specically for
certain age groups or lifestyles and you will nd always nd plentiful books and
workout videos in your local bookshop.
Activity 34, Be your own personal trainer, will give you lots more ideas for
getting tter.
Fitness
Activity
30
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Activity
2
Being aware of ones own feelings helps us to become more emotional resilient.
Awareness is a rst requirement for control, yet bottling up natural feelings
keeping a stiff upper lip is not always a good thing.
Open expression of feelings can be benecial to the individual and can lead
to more open interpersonal relationships. This must be qualied. If you are just
dumping anger or distress on others or if there are strong organizational norms
that make such expression taboo, this is unlikely to have good outcomes. We
express feelings by what we say, but also signicant is the way we say it, and the
non-verbals of facial expression, gesture and posture.
This activity will give you practice at becoming aware of, and expressing, your
feelings and also at identifying the feelings as expressed by others. The aim is to
have choice in how you handle your feelings. Do you bottle up or freely express?
These alternatives may be appropriate to particular situations; but bottle your
feelings up, and youll have to express them somehow, somewhere. It is best by
far if you are in charge of this expression.
Activity
Do Steps 1 and 2 with a partner a colleague spouse or friend, or even a small
group of four or ve persons.
Step 1
This focuses on the expression of feelings through the way we speak, as opposed
to what we say.
Manage Your Feelings
Activity
31
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Manage Your Feelings 185
Copy this list of feelings on to small cards or pieces of paper one feeling per
piece.
Excited Patronizing Angry
Depressed Sarcastic Bored
Happy Tired Affectionate
Enthusiastic Disliking Frightened
Threatened Curious Superior
Preoccupied Cautious Interested
Now shufe the cards and select one at random. Imagine that your partner has
just said or done something that evokes the feeling on the card in you. Get into
that feeling and then demonstrate it in how you say the following:
Well, now, there are lots of implications in this.
Your partner now guesses what feeling you are trying to convey. If they get it
wrong, try again.
Take it in turns to express and guess feelings. Do this for at least ve rounds.
Now discuss this experience. Were some feelings particularly easy or difcult
to express? Why do you think this is? How accurate were you and your partner
ability in interpreting feelings? What are the implications of your answers?
Step 2
Now try the same activity, this time with the non-verbal expression of feelings,
such as by facial expression, gesture, body posture, etc.
Follow the same procedure as for Step 1, except that instead of expressing
feelings through the sentence, Well, now, there are lots of implications in this,
do so in any way you wish but without words.
As before, take turns and then discuss.
Step 3
Use Table A31.1 to keep a feelings log from your everyday activities. Examine
the feelings you experience from events at work and identify how you think you
expressed them, then check this out with the other people who were present.
Think of some events meetings, discussions, episodes from the last few
weeks. Write down your feelings on each particular occasion in Column 1,
then think about why you felt that way, and note that briey in Column 2.
In Column 3, answer yes or no to the question Did you express your feelings?
Explain your decision to express your feelings or not in Column 4. Finally, use
Column 5 to check out with the other people involved in the situation whether
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186 Activities for Management Self-development
they correctly perceived your feelings or not. Ask them what they thought you
were feeling, and why. Compare this with your own perception of your feelings,
and the way in which you did or did not express them.
When you have made a number of entries in the feelings log, look for
patterns or repeating themes. Ask yourself these questions:
Do certain types of events lead to certain feelings?
What different causes lead to a particular feeling?
Which feelings do I express, and which do I not?
Why?
When do I express feelings? When dont I?
To whom do I express them? To whom dont I?
Do people sense some of my feelings, but not others?
Are some people more accurate in their perception of my feelings than others?
Follow-up
A great deal of attention has been given to the idea of emotional intelligence
in recent years and this has emerged as a key area of capability for managers
and leaders.
Table A31.1 The feelings log
1 2 3 4 5
Your feelings What caused Did you express If not, why not? Check with others.
at a particular these feelings? your feelings? If so, how did you How did they think
time express them? you were feeling? Why?
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Daniel Goleman has made this his own domain, and his Emotional Intelligence
(New York: Bantam Books, 2005) is the basic primer. Together with Richard
Boyatsis and Anne McKee, Goleman has also produced the more focused The
New Leaders: From the Art of Leadership to the Science of Results (New York: Little,
Brown, 2002).
Gael Lindeneld presents a seven-step emotional healing strategy in
Emotional Condence: Simple Steps to Manage Your Feelings (London: Harper
Collins/Thorsons, 2000; an audio cassette version is also available). The same
author has written a number of related books, including one specically on
Managing Anger (London: Harper Collins/Thorsons, 2000) and the more general
Gael Lindenelds Self-esteem Bible (London: Element Books/Thorsons, 2004).
Lorraine Bells Managing Intense Emotions and Overcoming Self-destructive
Habits (Hove: Brunner-Routledge, 2003) is a self-help manual with a number
of sessions for people for whom these present signicant challenges. And
specically for men is Nothings Wrong: A Mans Guide to Managing His Feelings,
by David Kundtz (York Beach, ME: Conari Press, 2004).
As you might predict, there are also many websites. To test your EIQ
(Emotional Intelligence Quotient), try www.myskillsprole.com, and the Emo-
tional Intelligence Consortium www.eiconsortium.org specializes in information
and research related to emotional intelligence in the workplace.
Manage Your Feelings 187
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The limits of emotional resilience are experienced as loss of control or ability to
cope. According to Alvin Tofer, we can all cope with huge amounts of change,
pressure, complexity and confusion, as long as we have some stability zones.
These are oases of stability in our lives that serve as anchors or retreats to allow
us to cope with the chaos and instability of other areas.
Stability zones can be Ideas, Places, People, Things or Organizations.
Working out where your stability zones are (or could be), and then cultivating
them, will develop your emotional resilience and capacity to cope with
pressure.
Ideas may be deeply felt religious beliefs, or a strong commitment to a
particular philosophy, political ideology, or cause.
Places as stability zones can be large scale (like your country) or small
scale (like your street or room). These are your personal spaces where you
feel at home, perhaps where you grew up or spent happy times.
Particular People provide a main source of stability for many of us. These
are valued and enduring relationships with family members, long-standing
friends or trusted colleagues.
Things as stability zones are favourite, familiar and comforting possessions.
These can be clothes that old shirt or pair of shoes family heirlooms,
items from childhood, treasured gifts or mementoes. Things can also be
houses or books or cars. Lots of things.
Organizations which provide stability include the work organization itself,
professional bodies membership institutes, clubs, communities of practice
any form of organizational belonging with which we identify.
Stability Zones
Activity
32
Learning Emotional resilience
areas
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Stability Zones 189
Many stability zones overlap categories: home, for example, combines place,
people, things and organizations. Given one good stability zone, we can cope
with many sources of change and instability.
Activity
Work through the following questions, making notes of your answers.
Step 1: What are YOUR stability zones?
Think through each of the ve areas of ideas, places, things, people, and
organizations. Note specic anchors where you nd stability under:
Ideas?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Places?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
People?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Things?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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190 Activities for Management Self-development
Organizations?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 2: How stable are your stability zones?
Look through your stability zones from Step 1. Are they sound and secure?
Can you count on them staying the same? Will they last?
Ideas?
Places?
People?
Things?
Organizations?
Step 3: How satised are you with your stability zones?
Work through the following and make a few notes:
Are the ideas, places, things, people and organizations that you depend on
enough for you?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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Stability Zones 191
Are there any changes you want to make in your stability zones?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Do you need to nd some new ones?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
How could you work to develop your ideas, look after your possessions,
care better for the people that are important to you?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Follow-up
The idea of personal stability zones for coping with tomorrow is in Alvin
Tofers Future Shock (London: Pan, 1973).
Career Anchors by Ed Schein (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 1993) is
helpful for sorting out the important elements and values in your career. Since the
book itself was published, a number of complementary works have appeared,
including Career Anchors: Self-assessment and Career Anchors: Participant Workbook
(both San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2006).
Bruce Eimer and Moshe Torem suggest Ten Simple Solutions for Coping with
Uncertainty (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2005) to help readers
feel safe and stay calm when life changes or uncertain times make them feel
vulnerable or anxieties start to hamper their daily activities.
On a broader front, Mike Pedler and Tom Boydells Managing Yourself (London:
Lemos and Crane, 1999) suggests, via lots of activities and illustrations, that the
healthy life is founded on knowing and valuing yourself. In a similar vein is Kees
Locher and Jos van der Brugs Workways: Seven Stars to Steer By (Stroud:
Hawthorne Press, 1997). Angus Jenkinsons From Stress to Serenity (Forest Row,
Sussex: Sophia Books, 2003) provides a deep and somewhat spiritual approach to
handling stress.
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We now live in world dominated by e-mail, websites and personal computers, and
apparently more time on the Internet than watching TV. The virtual revolution is
said to be the most signicant since the 18th century industrial revolution in
terms of how it affects society, the economy and how our own lives are structured.
We are now in the midst of a revolution which is transforming how we work
and live. There are three aspects to the virtualization of business, organization
and work:
Virtual workplaces the extent of work now done through e-mail,
websites, the Internet and intranets, teleworking, dispersed teams, remote
relationships and so on.
Virtual organizational dynamics many organizational processes now work
virtually access to organizational members, information, resources; the
monitoring of work relationships and personal performance; the functioning
of value chains and networks, procurement and delivery of goods and
services, including the management of intellectual and knowledge products,
is done through IT-mediated relationships and systems in a virtually
transparent world.
Virtually located organizations these are increasingly present in the
world through websites, portals, and search engines. Organizations are
increasingly electronically connected to suppliers, customers, clients and
owners/sponsors.
Those who survive and thrive in this era will be those who understand it best
and have the personal strategies to deal with it. Here are some ideas to help
you into this position.
The Virtual Revolution
Activity
33
Learning Emotional resilience: Sensitivity to events:
areas Social skills: Analytical skills
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The Virtual Revolution 193
Step 1: Reviewing your virtual work style
Leaders and managers have been to some extent ofce workers, but the ofce
is changing dramatically. Here is a progression of ofce types how are you
situated now?
1. Private or shared ofce.
2. Open plan xed work space in a large room, with or without partitions
and bookable private meeting rooms.
3. Hot desking no xed personal location, but temporary work spaces at
particular locations often with a personal mobile set of drawers and
laptop docking stations.
4. Caf society-style workplaces, with an emphasis on informal meeting spaces
perhaps combined with hot desking.
5. Telecottaging home-based workstation connected to the organizational
intranets, etc.
6. Hypermobile workstyle mobile working from wherever trains, planes,
cars, hotel foyers, other peoples ofces, cybercafes, etc.
The rationales for different ofce arrangements are inuenced by fashion and
status, as well as efciency. Many senior managers still have more traditional
ofces (although sometimes combined with other types).
Consider these questions:
1. What has been the history or pattern of ofce arrangements over your
career?
2. What changes would you like to make to your current arrangements?
3. Do you have a working understanding of all the ofce arrangements listed
above? Do you have the appropriate skills to work with all of them?
You need to be versatile in the kinds of arrangements that you are comfortable
with, and can work effectively in.
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194 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 2: Reviewing your virtual work relationships
How adapted are you to the virtual processes and interactions within your
organizations, including your relationship to other people and your access to
resources?
Here are some questions to help review this:
1. Who and what do you work with in your organizational setting?
2. What is the mix of face-to-face and virtual interaction?
3. What virtual organizational processes are you hooked into? (virtual meetings,
overseeing IT-controlled business processes, working on virtual projects, etc.).
4. How are these changing? (what is the trend to increasing virtualization in
your organization?).
5. Where does this leave you? (are you being marginalized, or are trends
making you more central to key organizational processes?).
6. What organizational knowledge/information resources do you use,
maintain, contribute to?
7. What is happening in terms of the virtualization of your organizations
location? Is this expanding or obliterating your personal job/work/role?
Organizations are now known in virtual space through websites and other virtual
communication processes. Organizational location is increasingly virtualized and
some organisations, such as e-retailers, exist almost entirely in virtual space,
selling, delivering and being supplied through electronic management.
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The Virtual Revolution 195
Step 3: Positioning yourself
To prepare for the virtual world, look at the following To Do list. Tick any
items that apply to you:
Learn more about whats going on in terms of the further virtualization of
my work and my organization.
Acquire new skills including language/terminology, uency with packages,
on-line and web conferences, databases, etc.
Get access to more resources including kit, maintenance help and
backups, advice, education and learning opportunities.
Get better and more connections to websites, intranets, special resources,
etc.
Up my virtual presence get better represented on intranets, websites,
etc., so others can nd me.
Make sure that Im not in danger of being disintermediated, i.e. replaced
as a go-between by search engines and websites, etc.
If you have ticked one or more items off this list, then print it off and carry it
around with you until you have completed these tasks.
Follow-up
Much has been written about virtual teams and organizations over the past few
years. Recommended works include Virtual and Networked Organizations, by
Philippa Collins (Oxford: Capstone/Wiley, 2002); Virtual Teams: People Working
Across Boundaries with Technology, by Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps (New
York: Wiley, 2000); and Deborah Duarte and Tennant Snyders Mastering Virtual
Teams: Strategies, Tools and Techniques that Succeed (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
2001), which also contains a number of practical checklists and a CD-ROM.
Virtual Teams that Work: Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness,
edited by Cristina Gibson and Susan Cohen (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
2003), is broad-ranging with authors from a variety of disciplines including
psychology, sociology, engineering, information technology, political science
and economics.
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Are you stressed out, overworked, feeling tired and out of control?
Then you could benet from personal tness training. More than two
million people in the UK have engaged in some form of tness training, and a
growing number have their own personal tness trainer. With busy, busy lives,
many of us are too stressed, getting too little sleep, eating too much junk food
and not doing enough exercise. Youve heard it all before.
The good news is that growing numbers of people are deciding to act and do
something for themselves. Lifestyle management starts by looking at how you
live your life and deciding what you want to change. Making these changes is not
easy, but the paybacks are considerable. Learning new habits of managing your
personal tness not only improves your physical appearance and well-being but
also gives more energy, mental sharpness and general self-condence.
Murrays story
With a big family reunion coming up in the summer, Murray wanted to get
tter and lose weight. With a demanding job and a growing family, Murrays
life was full and he had no time to exercise. At 48, and not tall, he was 200 lb
and he felt terrible. His parents had been overweight and his father had had
diabetes. It was time to do something. But what? He had already tried dozens
of different diets.
After talking with his GP, Murray contacted a personal tness trainer and
began to learn things about himself that he had not appreciated before. His
trainer asked him to record his activities and consumption over seven days.
Be Your Own Personal Trainer
Activity
34
Learning Emotional resilience: Proactivity:
areas Self-knowledge
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Be Your Own Personal Trainer 197
This made grim reading. Although Murray thought of himself as eating a
healthy diet, his trainer pointed out the lack of fruit and vegetables and the
quantities of saturated fat and rened sugar. There were other surprises in this
initial diagnosis. Murray knew liquids were important of but did not know that
tea, coffee and even Coke were diuretics. Most of us are dehydrated for a lot
of the time, his trainer said, you dont drink enough water.
After various tests and analyses of Murrays current habits, the trainer helped
him set some simple goals for the next ten weeks. They agreed on clear targets
including a weight loss of 1lb per week. Murray protested this at rst because he
wanted to lose more and faster. Its a trap to be too ambitious insisted the trainer,
be realistic and you will be able to sustain the effort and the improvement. The
trainer gave Murray diet sheets to follow and prescribed ve exercise sessions per
week of 30 minutes each.
After ten weeks, with twice-weekly sessions with his trainer, Murray had lost
11lb and inches from his waist. His pulse rate was down, his metabolism was up
and he generally felt better. From being only able to run a few steps, he could
now run on a treadmill for 15 or even 20 minutes. There was some way to go to
meet all his targets and he had developed some new ones on the way but he
had made a good start.
Activity
This activity will help you diagnose and act on your personal tness.
Step 1: Observation
Complete a seven-day log to get a picture of your lifestyle. It is important to
collect data before deciding what to do. You can look at anything you want but
some of the usual categories are suggested in the chart in Fig. A34.1.
Step 2: Analysis
Looking at your seven-day log, what does it tell you about your lifestyle?
Compare it with the following general health advice.
Diet
A woman with a sedentary job needs 15002000 calories per day, a man
20002500 (although these vary and depend on many factors, such as your
metabolic rate).
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198 Activities for Management Self-development
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day it wakes up your
metabolism and powers your brain and body.
Water drink lots of it 2.5 litres per day at least we are mainly composed
of water and many common ailments stem from dehydration.
Fruit and vegetables. Try to eat at least ve and up to ten 3-oz units of fruit
and vegetables per day cooked or raw, with as wide a range of colours as
possible.
Calorie
intake
Breakfast
Lunch
Evening
Portions
fruit/veg.
Caffeine
intake
Units of
alcohol
Cigarettes
Stress
level
Exercise
taken
Mon Tues Wed
Thurs
Fri Sat Sun
Figure A34.1 Lifestyle log
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Be Your Own Personal Trainer 199
Saturated fats. Reduce these cholesterol-raising fats (mainly animal
products meat, cheese, full-fat milk) and increase polyunsaturated fats,
which can lower blood cholesterol (mainly fruit and vegetables and oily
sh mackerel, salmon, etc.).
Dietary bre. Soluble bre as found in oats, peas, beans, fruit, etc., can also
lower cholesterol in addition to scrubbing out your system.
Variety is an important word in diet try writing down all the types of food
you eat in a week. How many can you list? 10? 20? 30?
Around 3050 types of food is a good target to give you all the vitamins and
minerals you need. If you are below this, think about building in more variety,
especially from fruit and vegetables where there is now a huge variety available.
Caffeine
One person who complained of dizziness and other symptoms logged her coffee
intake and found it was over 20 cups per day. She worked in an ofce with a
free vending machine. Try to limit your tea and coffee intake to 23 cups per
day drink water instead or decaffeinated coffee.
Alcohol
Government guidelines suggest a maximum of 23 units per day for women
and 34 for men. A unit is a half pint of ordinary beer or a small glass of wine
or spirits. Try to have at least two alcohol-free days a week.
Cigarettes
You know the advice on this. Retirement annuities are much higher for smokers.
Stress
This is more difcult to diagnose on your own because it has many possible
symptoms raised pulse levels, tiredness, irritability, inability to sleep and so
on. If you have noted any signs like these on your chart then you should plan
to reduce your stress levels. Common methods for this are exercise, yoga or
meditation but any way that you can relax and slow down by reading,
listening to music or doing the Activities in this book will help.
Exercise
The recommendation is for 30 minutes of moderate exercise ve times per
week. Moderate exercise is that which gets you slightly out of breath, slightly
sweaty and warm. There are two basic types of exercise resistance training
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and cardiovascular work. Resistance training involves building muscular tone,
strength and endurance by exercising against some sort of resistance, for
example using weights (e.g. hand-held weights, weights machines or your own
body weight). Cardiovascular work or aerobic training (improving the ef-
ciency of oxygen intake to your body) involves fast walking, jogging, running,
biking or swimming to raise the pulse and get your body working harder than
normal.
The best form of exercise is the exercise that you enjoy taking.
NB. If you have known health problems, or are seriously overweight, talk
with your GP before undertaking any radical changes of diet or exercise.
Radical lifestyle changes are not recommended in any case slow and easy is
the best way but it might be a good idea to have a check-up anyway. Get
clearance and encouragement to go ahead, and then you can go back to your
doctor and show them later how well you have done.
Step 3: Setting goals and creating an action plan
Setting goals for health and lifestyle improvement is where personal trainers
can be most helpful. The key thing is not to be too ambitious and avoid quick-
x diets and crash programmes of exercise.
To make your plan work, it has to t with your current lifestyle. If you attend
a lot of business dinners, whats your strategy for handling this aspect of your
life? If you have small children or work long hours, how will you t in ve
30-minute slots of exercise?
Set some sensible longer term targets and then put some goals for the next
week (see Fig. A34.2). Look for positive changes and set simple goals. If you
had three glasses of wine last night, then have a night off tonight and buy
yourself some delicious sparkling water!
Step 4: Reviewing progress
A weekly planner is good because it gives you a manageable target period for
diet and exercise. At the end of each week, note any divergences from that
weeks plan and, before making your plan for the next week, decide if there are
any modications you need to make in order to hit your targets.
It nearly always helps if you have someone to discuss this with. Perhaps you
can recruit your partner or someone at work to join you in this lifestyle
management change?
Celebrate success when you hit your targets. Give yourself a treat that does
not ruin your plan.
200 Activities for Management Self-development
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Follow-up
There are many sources of useful advice and help on personal tness. Locally,
you can talk to your GP which you should certainly do if you have health
problems or are very overweight. Other local professionals who can help
include registered personal trainers and the staff at your local gymnasium or
sports centre. Here are some other places to start, including a free offer from
the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
Be Your Own Personal Trainer 201
Calorie
intake
Breakfast
Lunch
Evening
Portions
fruit/veg.
Caffeine
intake
Units of
alcohol
Cigarettes
Stress
level
Exercise
taken
Mon Tues Wed
Thurs
Fri Sat Sun
Figure A34.2 Action plan
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Books
So You Want to Lose Weight for Good is a booklet compiled by experienced
nutritionists and is available free from the BHF (address given below). The
BHF also publish another free booklet Physical Activity for Weight Loss. All
Round Fitness, by Oliver Barteck (London: Konemann, 1999) is an excellent
book translated from the original German which features exercises and
activities for warming up, strength, mobility and endurance as well as for losing
weight. It has lots of pictures and illustrations to show you how to do the
exercises and the effects they have.
Other books include Bernis Shrosbrees Inspired: Its Like Having Your
Own Personal Trainer (Hayden Publishing, 2004); John Shepherds Ultrat:
Your Personal Trainer (A & C Black, 2004); and the all-encompassing The Real
Womans Personal Trainer: A Goal-by-Goal Programme to Lose Fat, Tome Muscle,
Perfect Posture and Boost Energy for Life, by Sam Murphy (London: Kyle Kathie,
2005).
If you prefer a DVD then there is Joanna Halls 28 Day Total Body Plan (2004).
Useful addresses
1. The British Heart Foundation
14 Fitzhardinge Street, London W1H 4DH, tel. 020 7935 0185;
www.bhf.org.uk/.
2. Association of Personal Trainers
Suite 2, 8 Bedford Court, London WC2E 9LE, tel. 020 7836 1102.
3. National Register of Premier Trainers and Therapists
Parade House, 70 Fore Street, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BA14 8HQ, tel.
01225 253555.
Acknowledgement
This Activity was created with the help of Sophie Barraclough, a Personal
Fitness Trainer, working from Hudderseld.
202 Activities for Management Self-development
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In complex, interdependent social systems, decisions are very rarely ours to
take alone. Decisions about changes, decisions on problems, decisions about
where to go and what to do are all made and often negotiated with those who
are most concerned.
But who is really the boss on the important decisions that affect your life?
It should be you; and you should be able to choose the team to help you make
good decisions and not hold you back. Some people will both give to and take
from you; others will only take; their impact is largely destructive. The former
cause you to grow and strengthen from your interaction with them; the latter
weaken you.
This activity offers you an opportunity to select the team, and to be the boss,
and even to remove those people whose inuence is not helpful.
Activity
Step 1: The decision
Choose a decision you have to make in the near future. Dont choose a
decision you have already made because the issue needs to be live. The
decision chosen should not be a simple choice between clear alternatives (e.g.
choosing a new car), but a complex matter involving others and their feelings
and relationships, and affecting a number of areas of your life (e.g. making a
decision affecting your children, changing your job or some other aspect of
your life).
Whos the Boss?
Activity
35
Learning Proactivity: Analytical skills: Social skills
areas
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Step 3: The advice
Next to each of the directors jot down notes on the advice that you think he
or she would give on this decision.
Step 4: Weighing the advice
Take a good look at this advice. Of each director in turn, ask yourself:
Whose interest do they have at heart in making points, theirs or mine?
Is she or he interested in getting a good decision or not?
Step 5: Conrming the team
As the boss, you take the decisions. You can also revise the management team,
although you cant remove people just because you dont like them. You need
204 Activities for Management Self-development
BOSS
You
Figure A35.1 The boardroom
Step 2: The board
Use the boardroom diagram in Fig. A35.1 to think about this decision. Write
in the name of the directors who have a say in the making of this decision.
Choose the people in your life who you trust or value to be your directors. Six
to twelve is a good number. Put their initials on the chairs round the table.
Pedler-02.qxd 21/07/06 11:56 Page 204

to distinguish between liking a person and concern for a good decision. They
have a right to be there even if you dont like their advice.
Take a look at your management team:
(a) Are you really the boss?
(b) Are there any directors who shouldnt be there?
(c) Have you got enough advice of the right kind? Could you use a new
director? Perhaps to replace one of your less useful ones?
Follow-up
This activity is putting you in charge of the important decisions in your life. If
you and your boss sometimes seem to have difculty in appreciating each
other, try Activity 39, Managing upwards, which makes a good follow-up.
The Managing Upwards Pocketbook, by Patrick Forsyth (Alresford: Management
Pocketbooks, 2002) and Patti Hathaway and Susan Schuberts Managing Your
Boss (London: Kogan Page, 1993) offer strategies and techniques for improving
things. Managing Your Boss, by Christie Kennard (Aldershot: Gower, 1996) is an
alternative, and if you are in a hurry you could turn to Sandi Manns Managing
Your Boss in a Week (London: Hodder Arnold, 2002).
If you are interested in literally being your own boss, Be Your Own Boss, by
John Whiteley (London: How To Books, 2000) may help. For other aspects of
running your own business, try The Which Guide to Starting Your Own Business:
How to Make a Success of Going it Alone (London: Which? Books, 2003) and
Michael Beckets The Daily Telegraph Small Business Guide to Starting Your Own
Business (London: Pan, 2003).
The last word or picture on bosses is provided by Dilbert in Scott Adams
The Boss: Nameless, Blameless and Shameless (Boxtree, 1998). This appears to be
out of print but the very title of the same authors Dilbert and the Way of the
Weasel: A Guide to Outwitting Your Boss, Your Coworkers, and the Other Pants-
Wearing Ferrets in Your Life (New York: Harper Collins, 2003; an audiobook
version is also available) perhaps speaks for itself!
Whos the Boss? 205
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There is a lot of blather talked about change. On the one hand, in some
organizations change has become an unquestioned necessity, an argument to
inuence people, even a fetish. It has become a treadmill which leads to the
demand for yet more of it. And there are many questions about change: does it
always lead to better products or services? Are the changes made around here
for the benet of customers and users? Have previous changes been successful?
On the other hand, the complexities of life put a premium on personal and
organizational exibility. To get the best out of people, jobs, teams and organ-
izations, we all need to become familiar with change processes and their effects.
Leaders and managers do not just implement changes (whatever their bosses
may like to think); on many occasions they actively resist changes or seek to
minimize their effects. To implement or resist, we need rst to understand.
This activity offers some experiments for learning about change and its
effects. The aim is to practise change on yourself. What you learn as a result of
the risks you take and the changes you experience will prepare you for changes
imposed on you and over which you have no control. It will also prepare you
for planning change with other people how it feels, what reactions to expect
and how to cope with them.
Practising Change
Activity
36
Learning Proactivity: Sensitivity to events:
areas Emotional resilience
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Practising Change 207
Activities
Experiment 1: Eating a new food
The next time you go to a restaurant, or even the staff restaurant if the menu
is varied enough, eat a new dish which you havent tried before.
Before eating note down
What are your expectations about the experience you are about to have?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
It is going to be pleasant or unpleasant, exciting or stressful?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What are your feelings as you approach the food?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
While eating
Concentrate solely on eating, especially the rst mouthful. Chew slowly,
dont talk, and dont be distracted from the food.
After eating note down
How does this compare with your normal approach to food?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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208 Activities for Management Self-development
How much of a risk did you take?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What did you gain as a result of your investment?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What did you learn about changing to the unfamiliar?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Experiment 2: Changing your surroundings
Choose a room where you spend considerable time. If you have an ofce then this
might be best, but any familiar room will do. This experiment involves rearranging
the furniture, including taking down pictures, removing decorations or putting
some new ones up.
Before rearranging note down
Where else could the major pieces of furniture go?
What other layout is possible?
What alterations could be made to the decorations?
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Practising Change 209
Rearranging
Note carefully where you are putting things in your new arrangement.
After rearranging note down
How comfortable do you feel now? (Allow at least a few hours before
changing again.)
What effect does the new layout have on you and your actions? What are
you doing differently?
How do other people react to your new layout? (Try and arrange for as
many as possible to view and comment on the change.)
What have you learned about the effects of physical surroundings?
What have you learned about change and its effects on behaviour?
If you learned something useful from this experiment, why not try another
variation? How long is it since you looked at the xtures and ttings of your
managerial or leadership practice and considered a spring-clean or rearrangement?
Experiment 3: Changing your image
Image management is personal public relations. Try a few changes of image
and watch for the results. For this experiment, take three aspects of yourself
that have an obvious impact on the outside world, namely your styles of:
dress
writing
greeting.
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210 Activities for Management Self-development
Dress
Choose a simple change of dress. Leave your tie off or wear a hat. Put on a
formal suit if you dont usually wear one; or try casual dress if you usually wear a
suit. Embellish your appearance with accessories such as scarves, handkerchiefs,
brooches.
As with all these experiments take careful notes before, during and after of:
how you feel beforehand
how you feel during the introduction and implementation of the change
how other people react to you
what you learn about yourself and the effects of change.
Writing
Change your writing style somehow. Are you a brief or lengthy writer? Are
you conciliatory or aggressive in style? Serious or jokey?
Whatever you are or whatever your usual practice, try a change, e.g. write
some humour into committee minutes.
Ask yourself the same questions as for Dress.
Greeting
This is a surprisingly powerful communicator. First, you must recognize your usual
routine. Do you greet everyone from cleaner to CEO with the same effusiveness
or brevity? Do you sneak into work avoiding everyones eyes?
Select a new approach and try it out. Give your friends a brief and businesslike
greeting and chat at length with the cleaners. Buttonhole the CEO in the lift
and pass the time of day.
Ask yourself the same before, during and after questions.
For all these experiments, give yourself a few minutes of peace and reection
to extract the most from the experience.
Experiment 4: An unpleasant situation
This is the most difcult of the experiments and it is therefore recommended to
graduates of the earlier ones.
Choose a situation that you know from experience you will probably not
enjoy and would normally avoid.
This might be as simple as digging the garden or cleaning the lounge, or it
might be more complex, like spending the whole evening on your own in a bar,
or deliberately spending some time with a colleague whom you dislike.
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Practising Change 211
Work through the following steps:
1. List some situations that you nd unpleasant and try to avoid.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
2. Pick one and deliberately put yourself into it.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
3. Record your feelings on paper:
Before:
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
During:
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Afterwards:
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
4. Write a short story changing the outcome of the experience.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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212 Activities for Management Self-development
5. Identify how much personal responsibility you feel for what happened or
did not happen?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Follow-up
If you enjoyed these experiments and learned something about risk taking and
the effects of change, generate some ideas for yourself about things youd like
to change about yourself, about other people.
An early writer on such change was Albert Ellis, who said that there are four
ways of handling an intolerable situation, namely change the situation, change
your response to it, change yourself or leave the situation (see Activity 26,
Difcult situations). His A Guide to Rational Living (Wilshire Publications, 1975) is
still going strong after 25 years, or you might prefer a more recent title such as
Rational Emotive Therapy: It Works for Me It Can work for You (Amherst:
Prometheus Books, 2004).
Different approaches can be found in Cynthia Scott and Denis Jaffes Managing
Personal Change (Crisp Publications, 1989) and David Noers Breaking Free:
A Prescription for Personal and Organizational Change (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 1996).
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Action planning is a key part of doing and learning. With small tasks it is semi-
automatic next time this happens, Ill do it this often without verbalizing or
making it conscious. With bigger problems, automatic systems are rarely adequate.
Sometimes, we jump into action before we have done sufcient thinking, and miss
something important (although, as Activity 14, Decision making, points out,
sometimes action comes before planning).
An action plan involves setting targets for accomplishing an action. Part of this
is establishing quality standards and also time deadlines. Once agreed or written
down, your action plan becomes a commitment. Your action plan commits you to
a course of action which you will achieve to a certain standard or by a certain
date. It is this commitment that is one of the most important aspects of an action
plan. Planning without commitment is waste.
Activity
This activity follows an action planning sequence with a worked example. Choose
your own issue to plan for and work it through in parallel. There are ve stages:
1. setting goals
2. establishing sub-goals
3. target dates
4. resources/methods
5. standards.
Or, if you prefer, you can use a short version, stages 13.
Action Planning
Activity
37
Learning Proactivity: Analytical skills
areas
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214 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 2
Choose a task or an issue that you want to act on or change. It does not have
to be a big one. Choose something you are working on now or, perhaps, are
about to start on.
If you are the sort of person who makes lists, you should have little difculty
in choosing a task you will have a mental task list already. If you dont usually
make lists, try doing one now.
For example, suppose you are asked to clear your desk in preparation for a
top priority job coming in a months time:
1. List all the things you would have to do in order to get your desk clear by then.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Goals Sub-goals Target dates Resources/ Standards
methods
Table A37.1 Action Plan Chart
Step 1
Draw up a chart upon which to detail your action plan. It should have ve
vertical columns (three if you are using the short method) and look something
like Table A37.1.
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Action Planning 215
2. Now choose the most difcult task on that list.
Write your task in the left-hand column of the Action Plan Chart.
Step 3
Large tasks tend to look impossible; which gives us every opportunity to avoid
them. Setting sub-goals breaks up the main task into manageable proportions.
Questions that might throw up sub-goals are:
What are the ways in which I could attain my goal?
What is involved in this task?
The example worked through here is Appraising the Work Team:
Major goal: Annual appraisals of the work team members
Sub-goals:
(a) Memo reminding all concerned of annual appraisal.
(b) Interviews with: Rose Smith; Maria Correlli; George Evans; Helga
Martin; David Salmon.
(c) Complete paperwork and circulate for agreement.
(d) Make returns to human resources.
(e) Make individual action plans for any development needs arising.
Work your chosen goal into sub-goals and put them in the second column of
the Action Plan Chart.
Step 4
Setting target dates for your sub-goals rst and then estimate the likely date for
your overall goal. You may have a nal deadline already, in which case you will
have to work backwards to plan your sub-goal deadlines.
Fill in target completion dates on your Action Plan Chart. Remember these
are your deadlines failure to achieve them requires explanation to yourself
or to others.
If youre using the short Action Plan, you are now complete. Read the next
two steps to see what isnt in your plan.
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216 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 5
The resources and methods column contains the answers the questions:
How am I going to tackle this problem?
What alternative courses of action are open to me?
What assistance do I need and what can I get?
In our example, resources include:
(a) Appropriate documentation from HR.
(b) HR notes on appraisal interviewing.
(c) Any other useful resources, e.g. training lms, checklists, tips, etc.?
(d) Heather (source of advice)
Methods include:
(a) Circulating via intranet where appropriate and possible.
(b) Personal interviews.
In completing the resources and methods column, you may discover that you
need to acquire more help before proceeding. If so, this becomes a sub-goal
preceding the others.
Step 6
Now add some standards in the last column. These can be quantitative clear
measures that will demonstrate achievement of the goal or sub-goal; often
they are qualitative measures which give you an idea or picture of when a task
is completed satisfactorily.
By now you should have an Action Plan Chart, as in Table A37.2.
Step 7
Subject your Action Plan Chart to a critical appraisal. Perhaps you can ask
someone who knows about you and the task to help. Examples of searching
questions are:
Is this goal really important for your department?
Will these sub-goals lead to achievement of the main goal?
Can that time target be shortened?
Will those performance standards tell you how well youre doing?
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Action Planning 217
Follow-up
An Action Plan Chart can give you a clear picture of what is involved in the
completion of any complex task and help with the discipline and commitment
necessary for its completion.
For interesting views on the limits of rationality, you could browse through
Gareth Morgans Images of Organisations (3rd edition, London: Sage, 2006), which
shows that linear thinking belongs in the organizations as machines view of the
world and that there are many other ways of understanding how things happen.
However, for those of you who never want to see an Action Plan ever again,
you might like to try Action Learning Reg Revans proposal for helping people
work with difcult issues in the company of like-minded colleagues (ABC of
Action Learning, London: Lemos and Crane, 1999). In action learning you dont
just plan, you do; and then reect on what youve done in order to learn.
Table A37.2 Completed action plan chart
1. Goals 2. Sub-goals 3. Target 4. Resources/ 5. Standards
completion methods
dates
1. Appraising 31 January Sub-goal 2:
the work 1. Develop personal, private
section Resources: and condential climate
1. Memo to all 4 January 1. Documentation
concerned (personnel) 2. End each interview only
2. Interviews: 2. Appraisal notes after:
Rose Smith 18 January (last course) (a) got all information
Maria Correlli 19 January 3. Anything else in (b) I feel Ive improved
George Evans 20 January personnel, relationship
Helga Martin 21 January lms, etc. (c) each interviewee has
David Salmon 22 January 4. Jack Williamson said all; been satised
3. Complete 22 January or agreed a course of
documentation action
and circulate Methods:
4. Make returns 29 January Internal post Sub-goal 3:
to personnel Personal interviews Seek commitment rather
5. Make individual Say, by 1 March (1
1
2hrs each) than mere compliance
action plans on
any identied Sub-goal 4:
training needs Ensure correctness to avoid
return of documents
Sub-goal 5:
Action plans to conform to
specication
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When we image something we intend it to happen; that is the difference between
imaging and imagining. A colleague used to think up a parking space whenever he
travelled to the head ofce building in town. On a particular day that I travelled
with him, sure enough there was a vacant space when we got to the appointed
spot. Coincidence? Its never failed yet, he said, matter of factly.
The idea of bringing about reality through thought has been around a long
time. Prayer is perhaps the commonest form of this. The power of positive
thinking is used by high-performing people in many elds of endeavour to
visualize the results they want. In work organizations it is normal to talk about
leaders or managers with (or without) vision. This is a recognition that for things
happen we must rst create a picture of what we want to happen. What will it
look like? comes even before Whats in it for me.
Imaging is the everyday activity of creating a vivid picture of what we want
to bring about at work, in relationships and in ourselves.
Activity
Step 1
Choose a situation, a relationship or an aspect of yourself that you would like
to change or inuence. You could choose something which came up in the
career planning activity (Chapter 3).
Imaging
Activity
38
Learning Proactivity: Creativity: Sensitivity to events
areas
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Imaging 219
Step 2
Think about this aspect of work, relationship or yourself. Try to build up a
picture of how you would like it to look:
What would be the best picture you could imagine?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Now what do you want it to look like?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Visualize the results you want in this situation.
You might nd this difcult to visualize. Some people can picture things
easily, but others dont. If you are having difculty, try writing or drawing to
help with you imaging:
1. Write down a list of what youd like to see in that situation, e.g.
I want my relationship with Alice to be more friendly; less careful .
I want to see us nish the Anshan project on time. I see the team
celebrating our success in the Victoria.
I see myself volunteering to lead the same team a new project.
Etc.
Re-visit this list at least once a day for a week adding to it and
embellishing it.
2. Draw a picture (or, for non-drawers, make a collage from by cutting and
pasting pictures and images from magazines) of the image of what you want.
When you have a picture, re-visit it at least once a day for a week adding
to it and embellishing it.
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220 Activities for Management Self-development
For example, if I want to change my room, I can cut out from this magazine just
the sort of desk I want; I can photograph or draw what I want to keep from my
existing things. I can try out all sorts of decors, furniture, plants, equipment, on
paper. I can experiment with layout and even ask other people what they think
before taking the plunge.
Step 3
When you have a good picture of what you want to bring about, keep thinking
about this, bringing it back to mind or taking it out to focus on it from time to time.
Over time, and without planning in detail, your image of what you want will
begin to appear through the working of your intuition in the multitude of
everyday decisions.
Step 4
For those who lack condence or who perhaps are put off by the idea of tempting
fate, it is really just a creative alternative to the managerial stock in trade of
planning, i.e. attempting to inuence future events. Imaging is perhaps a necessary
precursor to planning; it can add some magic to the managerial culture, with all
its graphs, printouts and ow charts.
Maintaining an image requires strength and stamina. All too often the vision
fades and the magic is lost. One way to sustain yourself is by daily afrmation.
This is simply saying (or writing down) to yourself a positive statement about
yourself and your image. For example, if I were determined to become less
irritable and I had an image of myself as smiling and relaxed, I might say, I, Mike,
am becoming more relaxed and smiling every day. If you were imaging a more
creative, productive team, you could say, Every day, in every way, this team is
getting more creative and more productive.
Try a suitable positive afrmation, naming yourself or the people or the
situation and say it to yourself every day, perhaps out loud, preferably several
times, say six. Alternatively, or additionally, you can write down your afrmation.
Do this 20 times each day.
If you feel a bit silly afrming yourself, think about this: perhaps being able to
be silly at times is an important aspect of creativity and of having fun: I didnt
get where I am today without !.
Follow-up
Having fun is one aspect of imaging, but the power in this is not to be taken
lightly. Use imaging for good ends, not to denigrate people and constantly
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question your denition of good in this situation. If you want more information
on this idea, Vaune Ainsworth-Lands Imaging and creativity; an integrative
perspective in Creative Management (London: Sage, 2001), edited by Jane Henry,
gives an introduction. Gareth Morgans view that we co-produce our worlds in a
partnership of our own inner ideas and more outer realities is given full rein in
Imaginisation (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage and San Francisco: Berret-Koehler,
1993).
Peter Senge et al.s The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building
a Learning Organisation (London: Nicholas Brealey, 1994) has a section on
collective visualization. Finally, the bookshop self-development shelves are
worth a look for texts on different approaches to visualization and achieving the
things you want try, for example, Shakti Gawains Creative Visualization
(Novato, CA: New World Library, 2002).
Imaging 221
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Is your working life being ruined by your relationship with your boss?
One of the most persistent complaints of young managers in organizations is
about the quality of their bosses. A recent group of senior professionals in a
large utility came up with the following grumbles: My boss
is always too busy
thinks that things manage themselves
doesnt listen to me
never gives me feedback
only criticizes, never praises
gives me ridiculous deadlines
has very obvious favourites
picks on me and nds fault with my work
is anxious for me not to rock the boat
wants to pass off any good ideas as their own
spends most of their time looking upwards and trying to please their boss
fails to get a fair share of resources for our department
and most of all
is not interested in my learning and development.
For professionals and knowledge workers, the preferred boss is a senior colleague
rather than a supervisor, a mentor rather than an overseer, more of an adviser and
consultant than a work allocator and quality controller.
If your boss hasnt got these messages yet how can you help him or her to
work more in this way? And help yourself in the process?
Managing Upwards
Activity
39
Learning Proactivity: Social skills
areas
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Managing Upwards 223
Rosies tale (Part 1)
Rosie was a graduate engineer just two years out of university and working on
what should have been an exciting marine propulsion technology project. But
her boss cast a cloud over her working life, and indeed her life in general.
Even now, three years on, it makes my blood run cold to think about him,
she says, work could have been so different, if he had been a better manager.
Tony (her current boss) is such a contrast he sees his job as enabling his staff
to get on with their work and helping them sort out the tasks. He handles all
the politics for the department and generally tries to make life easier for staff.
It was unfortunate for me that Derrick was my rst experience of having a
manager if it happened to me now I would know what to do but then I just
put up with it.
Derrick did not see himself as a manager at all, he saw himself as a technical
specialist. He would say things like, Im very lucky because you all get on with
what you have to do and I dont have to manage you, but at the same time he
would say, I cant understand why all my staff leave so quickly. The answer to
that was because his staff got so fed up with his complete inability to plan or
prioritize work, or to give notice of critical jobs. He would suddenly drop jobs on
you that had been on his desk for days and tell you that it was needed tomorrow.
Then he wouldnt give you any feedback and you would never really know
whether the customer usually another department was pleased with the
work or not. Naturally people used to leave as soon as they had the opportunity.
Tonys staff leave too but that is because he encourages to move on to bigger
things and really makes sure that we get developed whilst were here its just
totally different.
Another thing about Derrick was that he was really naive about politics. He
was intransigent and would refuse to compromise. It got us the department
a bad name in the company. The rest of the organization tends to write you off
if you dont deliver, and this is disastrous for our careers as well as for the
department.
Rosie was infuriated, but she also felt sorry for Derrick; as a manager, he was
a duck out of water and his home life didnt sound too good either. Something
had to be done.
Activity
If you spend time grumbling about your boss, or you feel that their actions are
affecting your effectiveness, perhaps it is time for you to do something about it?
This activity will help you to come up with some ideas for action to manage
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224 Activities for Management Self-development
your boss better. You can then go on to read Part 2 of Rosies Tale to see what
she did next.
Step 1: Analysis
Take a close look at your relationship with your boss.
1. First, make a list of all those things that you consider to be good about it, and
those that are bad. Consider such things as:
work allocation
time for consultations and discussions
listening
willingness to share knowledge
feedback on work done
information about the organization
help with tasks
access to knowledge
variety of work and access to special projects
attention paid to personal development and learning
career development.
Are there any other important aspects to your relationship that you can think of?
2. Second, make a list of those things which you would like your boss to
Stop doing
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Start doing
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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Managing Upwards 225
Continue to do
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
These three lists are critical and should give you the basis for a conversation with
your boss. However, until now this exercise has been risk-free; Step 2 is more
testing.
Step 2: Make an appointment
Ask your boss for a private one-hour meeting to discuss your work. It will be
helpful to let them have some idea of what you have in mind.
If you have a good relationship with your boss, you could just suggest that
they also prepare for the meeting by competing the three lists above about you.
You can then work from the lists at the meeting.
If your relationship is less secure, you could say something like:
I have been thinking about my job performance and have come up with some
ideas to improve my effectiveness. As you could help me with some of these
things, Id like the opportunity of talking with you at some length about these.
Step 3 : Negotiation meeting
Whichever way you do it, this is essentially a negotiation. So you should
prepare for the meeting as you would for any negotiation:
1. What are your key goals? What do you want to achieve?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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2. What do you have to offer the other person? Whats in it for them?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
3. What is your bottom line for an agreement? What is your fall back the
least you will settle for?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Always have a fall-back goal in mind in case the meeting does not go as
planned. This might even be just to get agreement to a further meeting after
you have both had chance to reect.
Step 4: Agreement and review
All good negotiations end with an agreement and it is usually worth putting it in
writing. Tell your boss you will write up the agreed points and send them a copy.
Also, agree a review date to discuss progress after a month or two and put
this in your diaries.
If you can manage this, you will become more condent in dealings with
your boss. Condence begets condence and Step 2, xing that appointment,
may be the critical point in a journey to a better working life for both of you.
So, what did Rosie do next?
Rosies tale (Part 2)
Rosie got a clue to the way forward one day when she lost her temper. She was
handling some requests on expenditure targets but when she took them in to
226 Activities for Management Self-development
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Derrick, he was busy and said, Stuff them, Im not doing that. Rosie knew
that Finances cooperation was essential to the progress of several of their key
projects, and she got mad and put her foot down, insisting that they put the
gures in. She did most of the work and made sure they were sent them off.
Rosie told this story to her four immediate professional colleagues and they
decided to act together improve the things they were grumbling about.
The rst thing was the team meetings. They werent proper meetings, but
rambling sessions with Derrick from time to time. The team called the next
meeting and set an agenda of critical items demanding action which they divided
up and prepared in advance. It was immediately obvious that by talking tasks
through, people began to understand what each of them was doing and working
on. Derrick didnt seem to mind at all he hated meetings anyway Youve said
more useful things at this meeting than Ive heard in the last year he said.
As the meetings continued with team members taking the chair in turn, the
benets of understanding the whole work of the department began to pay off
with a much better sense of joint priorities and targets. Derricks job was to
present each meeting with any new tasks well in advance of their deadlines.
After six months of this collective effort, the external perceptions of the
department also improved greatly. It was suddenly obvious how much was
getting done and how limited the departmental inuence had been before.
Derrick was no different but at least one thing in his life had improved.
Follow-up
There is a rich vein of books on this theme, many of which take the view that
your boss is basically the problem. The classic Managing Your Boss (Harvard
Business Review, January/February 1980, pp. 92100), by John Gabarro and
John Kotter, is still worth a visit.
Robert Bramsoms Coping with Difcult Bosses (London: Nicholas Brealey,
1994) is another example or, if you want to broaden your target, try the more
recent Coping with Toxic Managers Subordinates, and Other Difcult People, by
Roy Lubit (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2004). If you really feel
you are suffering, then I Hate my Boss!: How to Survive and Get Ahead When Your
Boss is a Tyrant, Control Freak or Just Plain Nuts, by Bob Weinstein (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1998) might appeal.
However, this one-sided approach to the problem can be misleading and veer
towards the manipulative in terms of the various strategies suggested for dealing
with people. A more empathic approach is found in Mike Leiblings How People
Tick: A Guide to Difcult People and How to Handle Them (London: Kogan Page,
Managing Upwards 227
Pedler-02.qxd 21/07/06 11:56 Page 227

2005). If you feel up to try taking a collaborative approach to the relationship
between you and your manager. In this context, Mike Pedler and Tom Boydells
Managing Yourself (London: Lemos and Crane, 1999) will help, but a more
specic text is Jerry Wisinskis Building a Partnership with Your Boss (New York:
AMACOM, 1999).
Finally, more information about how to do Role Negotiation and why it can
be so helpful can be found as Chapter 4 of The Collected Papers of Roger
Harrison (Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill, 1994, pp. 4254).
228 Activities for Management Self-development
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Are you familiar with that bad feeling of putting forward a new idea to the
boss or to other authorities only to nd them blocked or rejected without a
fair hearing?
How often is the boot on the other foot? How often do you say, Yes but
and reject ideas without a fair hearing? It probably happens more than you think,
because accepting other peoples ideas is difcult.
Activity
Look out for occasions on which you may reject other peoples ideas: at
meetings, in projects, as part of your day-to-day work with others, .
Step 1
When you recognize such an occasion, get a pad and pen and write down as
many possible reasons as you can think of as to why you reject an idea.
Write them down without qualication, evaluation or discussion. Be open and
honest. Such a list could include:
The idea is impractical.
Its too expensive.
Its administratively inconvenient.
Beyond Yes But
Activity
40
Learning Creativity: Analytical skills:
areas Self-knowledge
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230 Activities for Management Self-development
It challenges my basic beliefs.
It will cause a lot of political headaches.
It involves risks that I am not prepared to take.
It makes me feel unnecessary, redundant.
It devalues my ideas or role.
I just dont like/respect the person putting forward the idea.
I nd it hard to accept that other people in general, or this person in
particular, can have better ideas than you.
It will cause me to lose face, to backtrack on previously stated ideas or beliefs.
I dont want this other person to take the credit.
Step 2
Look over the reasons you have given. Challenge them. Cross-examine yourself.
Imagine you are a barrister challenging a witness (yourself). For example:
How do you know its impracticable? Have you tried it? What happened?
Why? Why not?
What do you mean, too expensive? What are the detailed costs and benets?
How could it be done cheaper? Its your job to be able to do this, isnt it?
Are you sure you are not rejecting this idea because of the person who
made it? What would you say if I pointed out that you nearly always reject
ideas put forward by this person? Why is this?
And so on.
This technique of self cross-examination is very powerful (it is a particular
version of Activity 52, Conversations with yourself ).
Step 3
What you do next depends on your verdict following self-examination.
Having identied some of the real reasons why you are blocking/rejecting an
idea, you will need to explore these further with yourself and with the other
people concerned.
Draw up a list of changes that you will make in response to an idea (I will
try, with the others concerned, to make the thing practicable, to cut its costs, to
overcome administrative/political difculties).
Step 4: Active listening
Whatever else you do from now on, practise active listening whenever someone
is presenting an idea.
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Passive listening is paying just enough attention to note matters of interest;
active listening is making a conscious attempt to work out what the other
person is trying to say, expressing your attention and interest, verbally and
non-verbally, and generally encouraging the other in getting their ideas across.
Follow-up
A good coverage of active listening can be found in Michael Reddys The
Managers Guide to Counselling at Work (Leicester: British Psychological Society
with London: Methuen, 1987; new imprint, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
Beyond Yes But 231
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Nothing blocks creative problem solving like premature judgements. New
solutions and ideas are by denition unusual, so we reject them as nonsensical,
impracticable, expensive, unrealistic the Yes But syndrome.
Stereotyping or narrow vision is another common blocker. Used to doing
things in certain ways, we close our minds to alternatives, so that after a time
they just never occur to us.
Here is a technique designed to generate new ideas and to overcome the
blocks to creative thinking. It can be done individually or in a group.
Activity
To get a sense of the idea generating process, here is a simple example.
Step 1
Write down the answer to the following question:
What are paper clips used for?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Generating New Ideas
Activity
41
Learning Creativity: Analytical skills
areas
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Generating New Ideas 233
Step 2
Unless you are a relatively uent and innovative thinker, you may only have
generated one or two uses for paper clips. For example, you may have said
something about holding two or more pieces of paper together.
Step 3
Now write down, in ve minutes, as many other possible uses of paper clips as
you can think of.
Dont worry how unusual, peculiar, or odd some of these might be. Write
them down and keep thinking of more until the ve minutes is up.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 4
Individual lists will be very different. Groups can usually generate far more ideas
per ve minutes. You may have come up with between 10 and 30 possible uses;.
here is a partial list made grouped by some of the attributes of paper clips you
will be able to add to this:
hooks: paperhooks; use for unlocking doors
links: chains
pins: cocktail sticks, notice pins
connectors: fuse, contact maker
bindings: wire, staple
centres: axles, spindles, spigots
magnets: picking up light ferrous objects from narrow or bent holes
piercing tool: punching small holes, stitches, belt holes
weapon: use as defensively to stab.
The more attributes you see and make use of, the more you overcome the
stereotyping problem.
Making the list quickly and forcing the pace helps to overcome the premature
evaluation blockage. There just isnt the time for the Yes Buts .
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Step 5
Now think of a real problem facing you.
Again, without pausing for evaluation, force yourself to list as many possible
solutions as you can.
Dont at this stage allow yourself to consider all the implications, pros and
cons of each solution. Just get a good list the longer the better.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Groups are often very effective in generating new ideas. State the problem
and have members compete in shouting out possible solutions, which are
written up on a ip chart. During this process, it is vital that no evaluation
takes place. It is only when ideas are exhausted, and a very full list has been
prepared, that careful, considered evaluation should be attempted.
Step 6
Now is the time to evaluate these possible solutions.
Take each in turn, try to remain open-minded about them, consider all the
strengths, weaknesses, consequences, requirements and implications.
Follow-up
You will nd Activities 16, Planning change, and 37, Action planning, useful in
generating good new ideas. Or you could start with John Townsends The
Creative Managers Pocketbook (Alresford: Management Pocketbooks, 1999).
Brian Clegg and Paul Birchs Instant Creativity (London: Kogan Page, 1999)
is a good source of many creativity techniques and Tudor Rickards Creativity
and Problem-solving at Work (Gower, 1997) is another useful book full of ideas.
Eric Maisels Creativity Book (New York: Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam, 2000) makes
a link between creativity as an artist and as an executive. In a similar vein, if you
believe that management and leadership really are artistic endeavours then you
might enjoy Twyla Tharps The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 2006).
234 Activities for Management Self-development
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There are many techniques and approaches to creative problem solving. Here
are a few of them:
Draw the problem:
Whether or not it is a visual or spatial problem, represent it somehow as
a picture or cartoon. Be as uninhibited as you can.
Now, consider possible solutions to the problem, and draw them.
Be the problem, or part of it:
Imagine that you are the troublesome part of the machine, or the lost or
broken object, or the misunderstood message. Think hard about how you
feel. What could be done? What would help?
Imagine something completely different:
Think of, imagine, anything an object, an event, an idea; for instance,
a spiders web, or a football match, or dissolving.
Concentrate on this image in relation to the problem at hand. Whats the
link? Can you get a fresh perspective to help solve the problem?
Invert the problem:
Turn the problem inside out or upside down, or reverse it.
For example, instead of putting a product into a package, consider putting
a package round a product; instead of protecting employees from an industrial
accident, protect the accident from the staff.
Turn the problem into an opportunity:
As the ancient saying has it, every problem is an opportunity. For whom
is this a problem? For whom is it an opportunity? Where is the opportunity
in this?
Approaches to Creativity
Activity
42
Learning Creativity
area
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236 Activities for Management Self-development
Write a story:
Fictionalize the problem and the people concerned with it. How did it
happen? Who does what next? How does it end? You could get a completely
new angle on the situation.
Activity
Now choose one or more of the real problems from your work situation. Try
each of the approaches on it:
Draw it.
Be the problem.
Imagine something completely different.
Invert the problem.
Think of the opportunities that could arise from the problem.
Write the story.
Note down all ideas and possible solutions however fanciful.
In the light of the ideas you generate, reect on which of the approaches
helped you the most.
Follow-up
To become truly creative you must let yourself go a little. Try some of the other
activities for developing creativity in this book and have a go.
The books listed under Activity 41, Generating new ideas, will also be useful
here. Jane Henrys Creative Management (London: Sage/Open University, 2001)
is a collection of good papers on all aspects of organization creativity. Edward de
Bono is a prolic writer on this topic and you could try Six Thinking Hats
(London: Penguin, 2000), New Thinking for the New Millennium (London:
Penguin, 2000) or Why So Stupid? How the Human Race has Never Really Learned
to Think (Black Rock, Co. Dublin: Blackhall Publishing, 2006).
Somewhat different is John Drysdales Discovery (London: Cyan Books,
2005), which shows how valuable lessons and ideas can be found in unexpected
places including music, theatre, cinema, art and sport.
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We often get stuck in routine ways of doing things and locked in by our
assumptions about the way things should be done.
A way to overcome these constraints is to identify the attributes of the
current method and then generate a list of alternative attributes.
Activity
Step 1
Choose a current task that you suspect might be done differently or better. Note
down the method or device currently in use, with its main characteristics and
attributes.
For example, in the newspaper industry: take the threat to the conventional
newspaper in the digital age. Current medium broadsheet or tabloid conven-
tional paper.
Step 2
Take each of the attributes and consider alternatives to it. You could use the
approach in Activity 41, Generating new ideas, here.
List any alternatives that come to mind and do not attempt to evaluate
them. No matter how silly or impractical it seems, list it. With the example
above, the following alternatives are possible:
Made of: (paper) reprintable medium, reprogrammable special item, CD,
downloadable.
Attribute Alternatives
Activity
43
Learning Creativity
areas
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238 Activities for Management Self-development
Life: (disposable) returnable, refreshable, reprogrammable
Delivery: (shop or home delivery) phone, e-mail, cash point style update
of paper, mobile phone access etc.
Frequency: (daily/weekly) frequently, continuously, on access.
Step 3
Examine and evaluate the alternatives. Consider possible combinations. From
the hundreds of potential permutations, choose some of the more likely
combinations.
Examine these for practicability. Ideas might be logically or technically feasible,
but have to be, and many people may still be uncomfortable with high-tech.
delivery processes. We may value, e.g., conventional papers for other purposes
lighting res, wrapping things, etc.
Follow-up
Keep trying out this exercise with real problems. Remember the important
rule: generate as many alternatives as possible, but leave evaluation until later.
For further ideas you will nd the sources listed under Activities 41,
Generating new ideas, and 42, Approaches to creativity, of value.
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Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences suggests that human beings
possess many kinds of intelligence. He questions the idea of the single measure
of general intelligence as simply measured by IQ tests:
In the heyday of the psychometric and behaviorist eras, it was generally
believed that intelligence was a single entity that was inherited; and that human
beings initially a blank slate could be trained to learn anything, provided
that it was presented in an appropriate way. Nowadays an increasing number
of researchers believe precisely the opposite; that there exists a multitude of
intelligences, quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own
strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at birth; and
that it is unexpectedly difcult to teach things that go against early naive
theories of that challenge the natural lines of force within an intelligence and its
matching domains.
H. Gardner, 1993, xxiii
Although Gardners theory has been criticized, it accords with much common-
sense experience: we do think and learn in many different ways. There are
eight types of intelligence in this theory:
bodily/physical/kinaesthetic
linguistic
mathematicallogical
visual/spatial
musical
interpersonal
Your Multiple Intelligences
Activity
44
Learning Mental agility: Creativity: Self-knowledge
areas
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240 Activities for Management Self-development
Table A44.1 Multiple intelligences questionnaire
Score
1 not true of me
2 slightly true of me
3 quite a bit true of me
4 denitely true of me
Item No. Item 5 very true of me
1 I like to deal with problems physically, to get directly
involved, get hands on
2 I appreciate books, radio, plays, poetry, playing with words
3 I like to solve puzzles and problems
4 I have a good sense of direction where I am, which way
I need to go
5 I enjoy music listening or playing
6 I am interested in how other people think and feel
7 I like to reect on things that have happened and what
I can learn from them
8 I remember things about animals, birds, plants and so on
9 I am skilful when working with things
10 I learn well from books, lectures or tapes
11 I like logical explanations
12 I am observant, I notice what others do not
intrapersonal
naturalist.
There are also various other possibilities being considered including spiritual,
moral and existential intelligences.
Here is a questionnaire for you to assess your own multiple intelligences.
Activity
Step 1: Multiple intelligences questionnaire
Complete the questionnaire in Table A44.1 scoring 15 for each item depending
upon how true this is of you.
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Your Multiple Intelligences 241
13 I have a good sense of rhythm and/or melody
14 I am sensitive to other peoples moods and reactions
15 I enjoy doing things independently of others
16 I notice things in the environment that others often miss
17 I enjoy physical activity walking, dancing, games,
swimming, etc.
18 I talk well and have a large vocabulary
19 I like to arrange tasks in a neat and orderly sequences
20 I can see things clearly in my minds eye (e.g. a familiar
room)
21 I nd it easy to learn songs and lyrics
22 I can help with difculties between people
23 I appreciate privacy and quiet for working and thinking
24 I am concerned about the environment and of endangered
species
25 I like to be moving, doing and touching things that I am
learning about
26 I am good at explaining things
27 I look for patterns and relationships between things
28 I nd that lms, slides, videos, pictures help me to learn
29 I enjoy listening to sounds in nature
30 I get involved in clubs, groups and social activities
31 I reect on my own feelings and thoughts and why
I do things
32 My sensory skills of sight, sound, taste, smell, touch
are keen
33 I remember best what I have done compared with what I
have seen or heard
34 I like to write things down, take notes
35 I approach tasks/problems in a logical, step-by-step way
36 I like to use charts, diagrams, mind maps, pictures to
help me to learn
(Continued)
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242 Activities for Management Self-development
Table A44.2 Multiple intelligences scoring key
Intelligence Item numbers Total score
Bodily/physical/kinaesthetic 1, 9, 17, 25, 33
Linguistic 2, 10, 18, 26, 34
Mathematicallogical 3, 11, 19, 27, 35
Visual/spatial 4, 12, 20, 28, 36
Musical 5, 13, 21, 29, 37
Interpersonal 6, 14, 22, 30, 38
Intrapersonal 7, 15, 23, 31, 39
Naturalist 8, 16, 24, 32, 40
Table A44.1 (Continued)
Score
1 not true of me
2 slightly true of me
3 quite a bit true of me
4 denitely true of me
Item No. Item 5 very true of me
37 I can easily remember tunes
38 I enjoy discussing things and ideas with others
39 I like to think about the purpose of what I am doing and
learning
40 I easily learn characteristics, names, categorization and
data about objects or species found in the natural world
Step 2: Scoring
Now score the questionnaire in Table A44.2, adding up the numbers for each
of the items listed against each of the multiple intelligence categories.
The maximum score is 25 and the minimum is 5.
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Your Multiple Intelligences 243
Step 3: So what?
Now map your eight intelligence scores on to the spiders web in Fig. A44.1.
Natural
Bodily/Physical
Intra-personal
Inter-personal
Musical
25 25
25 25
20
20 20
20 15
15 15
15 10
10 10
10 5
5 5
5
25 25
25 25
20 20
20 20
15 15
15 15
10 10
10 10
5 5
5 5
Math/Logical
Linguistic
Visual/Spatial
Figure A44.1 Gardners eight intelligences prole
The spiders web enables you to draw up a prole of your scores on each of
the eight intelligences. What does your prole mean? Here are a few possibilities
to get you thinking:
If you scored between 20 and 25 in any one dimension then you are high
in this form of intelligence; if you scored from 5 to 10, then this is an
underdeveloped area for you.
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244 Activities for Management Self-development
The prole can indicate your current preferences, and also those areas
of experience that you currently avoid. One way to work with this is
deliberately to try to use your less favoured intelligences; for example, if you
are high on intrapersonal, but low on interpersonal, then make yourself go
and talk with other people about issues that you would normally keep to
yourself.
Conversely, if you are very high on interpersonal, but low on intrapersonal,
then take time out alone to reect on what something might be telling
you, what it means for you. How do you personally think and feel about it?
If you are low on spatial intelligence, draw a picture of a situation that you
nd yourself in at work or at home.
Another possibility is that you might nd that you are high on an
intelligence that you dont get an opportunity to use at work. In this case,
what sort of work would enable you to exploit your talent? Who, in your
organization, uses this sort of ability? Go and talk to them, exploring how
you could do more with what youve got.
These are only a few of the possibilities arising from assessing your multiple
intelligences. To take this further, you probably need to read more about the
idea and consult with other people about what this might mean for you.
Follow-up
Howard Gardners classic text is Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple
Intelligences (New York: Basic Books, 1993). A more recent book is a useful
review of the theory and a discussion of issues, additions and criticisms:
Intelligence Reframed. Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (New York: Basic
Books, 1999).
As ever, there is a great deal on the web. Enter multiple intelligences and
this will bring you more than you can deal with. You could start with infed,
which is an independent not-for-prot site put together by a small group of
educators: www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm.
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Too much change in too short a time can result in stress and disorientation in
rats and humans.
Coping with and adapting to change call for great effort in terms of
emotional stability and of learning new skills and new knowledge.
Mental agility or exible intelligence is an ability potential or realized
which all of us have to some extent. Unlike this old-fashioned and xed view
of intelligence as associated with crude tests of general intelligence or IQ,
mental agility can be improved with practice like any other skill.
Mental agility is the ability which allows us to do several things at once,
switching our minds and resources from one topic to another, making
hundreds of decisions as we do so, storing information, recalling it in short,
what we all do in a multi-task situations.
Consider the mental agility requirements of the parents job, e.g.:
Prepare breakfast for four people simultaneously with:
nding and putting together two lots of dinner money
cleaning two pairs of shoes
listening to the news on the radio
brushing two lots of hair
talking lovingly to partner
talking lovingly to children
dealing with sundry contingencies all in 30 minutes.
How did you get on?
There are many forms of complex work, which we learn and then do
instinctively. The teacher in a classroom, the retail supervisor, the team manager,
Coping with Complexity
Activity
45
Learning Mental agility: Emotional resilience
areas
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246 Activities for Management Self-development
all pursue multiple tasks, observe thousands of stimuli, attend to a few, make
appropriate multiple responses and so on. And all without much conscious
thought about the complexity of the situation. We dont usually reect on our
complex skills and how this learning may be applied as a general skill to new
situations.
Activity
This activity invites you to work on certain multiple tasks and consciously
reect about how you are adapting to the skill requirements of doing several
simultaneous tasks.
Step 1
Find a free hour for this activity (a tough task in itself ). Now choose six tasks,
suitable for your particular circumstances, e.g. if you are at work, these could
include:
writing a paper or notes for a meeting
planning your key outputs for the next six months
catching up with your e-mails
telephoning three or four people you need to contact
talking to a colleague about something which interests them
preparing statistics
lling in government forms (an Inland Revenue form is ideal)
planning the best new arrangement for your workspace
reading a management book
doing The Times crossword.
Step 2
Estimate how long each task will take; add up the total time and halve it (you
only ever have half the time you need).
Now, try to complete all the tasks in that time. Dont do them sequentially,
do them all at once, switching from one to another.
NB: If you nd switching from one task to another hard, then do it
mechanically. Number the tasks 1 to 6; divide your allotted time and, using a
dice, change tasks after every 3 or 5 minutes. This will be difcult at rst, but
your exibility will improve.
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Coping with Complexity 247
Step 3
Now reect on your experience. Note down your responses to the following
questions:
1. How did I do in terms of completing the tasks?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
2. What feelings did I have during this experiment? (Record all the phrases/
adjectives that spring to mind.)
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
3. Have I ever felt like this before? When? What was the outcome then?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
4. Could I have been better organized or better prepared? How would I do it better
next time?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
5. How can I increase my general ability to deal with multi-task situations?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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248 Activities for Management Self-development
To exercise and increase your mental agility, repeat this experiment in other
situations. The important thing is to be aware of what you are doing and when
you are doing it.
Always make time for reection afterwards. Without this you may miss the
learning potential of your own experiences.
Follow-up
Complexity is a topic in itself. For a simple introduction to Complexity Theory
you could look at Sardar and Abrams Introducing Chaos (Thriplow: Icon Books,
1999, 2003). Biologist Roger Lewins book Complexity (London: Phoenix, 1993)
critically examines the ideas of complexity.
Ralph Stacey applies these ideas to management and organizations in
Complexity and Creativity in Organisations (San Francisco: Berrett Koehler, 1996).
Since then, the same author has written a number of related books, including,
with Douglas Grifn and Patricia Shaw, Complexity and Management: Fad or
Radical Challenge to Systems Thinking? (London: Routledge, 2000); Complexity and
Group Processes: A Radically Social Understanding of Individuals (London: Brunner-
Routledge, 2003); and, as Editor with Douglas Grifn, Complexity and the Experi-
ence of Leading Organisations (London: Routledge, 2005).
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The nature of leadership and managerial work demands the ability to think
through complex matters, to think quickly on ones feet and to switch rapidly
from one problem to another.
There is a widely held belief that intelligence is innate and cannot be developed
through training. This idea comes from early psychological theories which have
long since been questioned and rejected. Current thinking suggests that the kind
of mental abilities that make up intelligence can improve signicantly through
experience and practice. The following activity is designed to give you practice
in thinking quickly on your feet.
Activity
You need ten ling cards or small pieces of paper, and a tape recorder.
Step 1
Write one of the following topics on each of ve cards:
home working
self-managed team working
e-commerce
workaholism
safety.
Just a Minute
Activity
46
Learning Mental agility: Social skills
areas
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250 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 2
On each of the remaining ve cards, write one of the following audiences:
group of government inspectors
party of visiting Korean business people
visiting party of nal-year university undergraduates
party of South American tourists
group of senior citizens.
Shufe the two sets of cards separately and put the two piles face down.
Step 3
Turn on the tape recorder. Pick up the rst card on each pile and talk for one
minute on the revealed topic, to the indicated audience. After a minute, pick
up the second topic and audience cards and talk for another minute. Repeat
this until you have used all the cards.
Play back the tape to review how well you did in keeping to the topic and
relating it to the audience in each instance.
Obviously, if you wish, choose your own topics and audiences to suit your
situation better.
Follow-up
Thinking skills come with practice, so the more you can exercise them, the
more they will develop.
You should be able to nd plenty of opportunities for this in the context of
your work. If you want to test yourself on IQ-type tests, there are many of these
on the web. Management and business bookshops also sell practice versions of
the Princeton Test the one most often used for selection to Business School
MBA programmes.
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An extensive study of managers concluded that the helicopter mind
quality is a key determinant of success. This is the ability to think in both
concrete and abstract terms, and to move rapidly between the two, linking
abstract ideas to specic actions and vice versa. Leaders and managers who
think in this way are good at linking theory to practice so that each improves
the other.
Whether thinking moves up to the abstract or down to the specic depends
on the questions asked: Why? questions move you up, How? questions move
you down.
For example, the task of selecting people can be analysed in this way:
WHY? To produce enough to meet orders
WHY? To get good enough people to work the machines
TASK SELECT PEOPLE FOR JOBS
HOW? Assess skills needed, test applicants for these
HOW? Study existing staff, develop tests to demonstrate skills
A Helicopter Mind
Activity
47
Learning Mental agility: Balanced learning habits:
areas Creativity
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252 Activities for Management Self-development
Once the Why? questions are answered, moving down again with How?
questions can help generate new alternatives and ideas. In the example above,
the answer to the Why? question can become the new task from which to
generate more How? ideas (as illustrated in Fig. A47.2):
TASK To produce enough to meet orders
HOW? Get more people to work machines or get faster machines
HOW? Offer overtime or recruit more people
The Activity below offers you an opportunity to practise using both How?
and Why? questions to analyse activities and facts relevant to your work.
WHY?
HOW
APPLY?
HOW
APPLY?
Theory of substances
turning from liquid
to vapour and back,
absorbing and
releasing heat
HEATED WATER TURNS TO STEAM
Steam engine
Heat stores, heat
pumps, refrigeration
FACT
Figure A47.1 How and why thinking
If you start with a statement of fact, you can ask: WHY is this true? And
HOW can this be applied? For example, see Fig. A47.1.
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A Helicopter Mind 253
Activity
Choose a current and problematic task or fact connected to your work.
Write the task, activity or fact in the middle of a sheet of ipchart of paper and
build your answers to the How? and Why? questions around it. It will look
something like Fig. A47.2.
In doing this activity, and in your thinking in general, you should aim to ask
both How? and Why? questions and not just one or the other. This is the way
to develop a helicopter mind, so that you can both hover above the problem
and get right down to the details (or vice versa), and repeat this as often as you
need to understand the situation truly.
W
H
Y
?
H
O
W
?
HOW?
Figure 47.2 How and why activity
Follow-up
You may nd it useful to use some of your How/Why analyses as the basis for
discussion with others who share the same concerns.
If you are interested in IQ, then The IQ and Psychometric Test Workbook, by
Philip Carter (London: Kogan Page, 2005) is a self-test book. If you want to go
further and improve your IQ rather than just measure it, then you might enjoy
Philip Carter and Ken Russells Increase Your Brainpower: Improve Your Creativity,
Memory, Mental Agility and Intelligence (Chichester: Wiley, 2001). And if you
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really like that sort of thing, then the website for the intelligence club, MENSA,
is www.mensa.org.uk/mensa/global/resource.html.
On the other hand, the whole concept of IQ is increasingly challenged as
rather narrow. Tony Buzans Head First (London: HarperCollins, 2000)
suggests thinking about your many forms of intelligence (see also Activity 44,
Your multiple intelligences, and the sources listed here) will be useful.
Daniel Golemans inuential Emotional Intelligence (anniversary 10th edition,
New York: Bantam, 2005) is amplied in a number of related books such as The
Emotional Intelligence Quick Book: Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ
to Work, by Travis Bradberry and Jean Graves (New York: Fireside/Simon and
Schuster, 2005).
254 Activities for Management Self-development
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The theme of this book is self-development, which holds that for real learning to
occur you need to take personal responsibility for your own learning.
This means moving from:
Dependence or accepting uncritically any instructions from teachers and
other people with formal authority as the right way to do things, to:
Independence or taking and ideas from teachers and authority gures as
suggestions which you may try out and evaluate for yourself, adding them
to your repertoire of skills and practices if you judge them to work.
The independence philosophy can be overdone and lead to an obstinate
unwillingness to accept any guidance from qualied people.
Interdependence or mature dependency means making full use of the advice
from people with genuine expertise and experience. In this way, wisdom is
passed from person to person and generation to generation, so that we can
benet from others past successes and failures and, in turn, pass on what
we consider to be useful knowledge.
Activity
Step 1
Make a list of six or so major tasks or activities which you have to perform in
your work: preparing budgets, negotiating and bargaining, designing new
products or procedures, providing leadership for a team or group, advising
Managing Your Dependency
Activity
48
Learning Balanced learning habits
areas
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256 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 2
Take each of these in turn, go through the questions below, stopping at the rst
one that you can answer yes to. Put a tick in the appropriate column of Table
A48.1 for each task or activity depending upon which of questions a, b, c or d
you rst answer yes to. There should be only one tick in the table for each
task or activity.
(a) In terms of the practical ability to carry out this task or activity, do you see
yourself as expert, and that you can reliably deal with it?
(b) If no to a, is there an expert or source of expertise that you know of who
could provide you with help on this task?
(c) If no to a and b, do you believe that somewhere an expert exists a
procedure, approach or person who can provide a reliable solution to
carrying out the task?
(d) If no to a, b and c, is this then one of those tasks or problems for which no
known solution exists at this time, and therefore that you have as good a
chance as anyone else of nding one?
Step 3
Now treat each of your answers as a statement to be tested. Consider what
evidence you have. Are you really fully competent? Can the expert really
Table A48.1
Task/activity Are you an Do you know Do you believe Or is it an, as yet,
expert? of an expert? an expert exists? unsolved problem?
others, selling things or ideas, planning operations, interviewing and so on.
Write them down in the rst column of Table A48.1.
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Managing Your Dependency 257
produce results? Can you track down an expert or authoritative source of
knowledge on the problem?
Consider whether your personality leads you to believe in, seek out and
rely on experts, or whether you tend to go it alone. Does this help or
hinder you?
It will be particularly useful if you show your conclusions to someone else who
is familiar with the same tasks and problems, and who will give you an honest
opinion about your conclusions.
Does your organization have a culture of relying on experts or of nding its
own solutions? Does this work well or not?
Follow-up
You may nd it useful to follow up this activity by exploring what expertise
exists to deal with problems facing you. Try sources on the web, within your
own organization, in libraries or in educational institutions in your area.
John Burgoynes Developing Yourself, Your Career and Your Organisation.
(London: Lemos and Crane, 1999) provides a guide to taking over managing
your development in the context of work.
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There are ve stages to learning a new skill or ability:
Becoming aware of inadequacies in the way you do things and sensing a
need for new behaviour.
Identifying the behaviours involved in a new skill or activity.
Practising these behaviours.
Seeking and getting feedback on your performance.
Integrating the behaviours into your repertoire of skills and abilities.
Lifelong learning is especially vital for managers and leaders because of their
challenging and changing responsibilities. We used to believe that most human
learning was done in the rst ve years of life; but more recently, we have
become aware of the need and potential for continuing learning throughout
life. Being able to learn from everyday experience is a skill in itself.
Learning to learn is therefore a new and vital activity for managers and leaders.
This activity helps you to reect on how you acquired your existing repertoire of
skills and abilities, and also with thinking about what you need to learn next and
in the future.
Activity
Step 1
Think of two incidents in the past year where you have been successful high
spots or peak experiences the sort of thing you would talk about in a
promotion interview to demonstrate your strengths.
Learning to Learn
Activity
49
Learning Balanced learning habits: Self-knowledge:
areas Sensitivity to events
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Learning to Learn 259
Now describe these events what actually happened and what did you do
exactly? Write these down and be as specic as you can.
Event 1
What happened?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What did you do?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Event 2
What happened?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
What did you do?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 2
From these two events, what were the key skills and qualities that enabled you
to do what you did and to achieve a successful outcome?
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260 Activities for Management Self-development
Write these down in column 1 of Table A49.1. Then answer these two questions
for each key skill or quality:
(a) Where did I learn it from?
the boss?
school/college?
from doing the job?
a book?
from my colleagues? etc.
It is also useful to recall over what period of time and at what stage in your life
this skill/ability was learned. Do this by remembering the latest time when you
are sure you did not have the skill or ability and the earliest time you did.
(b) How did I learn it, i.e. what process was involved? For example, by:
being told something?
imitating somebody?
puzzling it out for myself?
accident or on purpose?
through emotional or intellectual channels?
etc.
Table A49.1 Learning skills
Skill/ability Where did I learn it from? How did I learn it?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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Learning to Learn 261
Step 3
From the data generated in Steps 1 and 2, write down the insights you have had so
far about how you learn.
When you have noted as much as you can, reect on the following questions
about your learning processes. Write down any additional insights you get from
answering these questions:
(a) Do the ve stages of learning a new skill or ability t with your learning
experiences or not?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(b) Do you learn different things in different ways? If so, what things and in
what ways?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(c) Thinking about other people that you know well, are there any learning
processes that they use which you do not?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(d) Do you learn from receiving inputs being told or shown something?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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262 Activities for Management Self-development
(e) Do you learn from imitating other people or by observing the success and
failures of their actions?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(f) What is the place of emotion and feelings in your learning? Is learning
painful, pleasant or what for you?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 4
Find a friend, colleague or perhaps a trainer or facilitator and discuss your
reections with them. Working with other people in this way sharing, listening,
questioning, reecting together is a key learning process in adults and one
you need to employ frequently if you are to become the lifelong learner and the
manager and leader that you can truly be.
Follow-up
Learning how to learn is not easy and is, perhaps, the ultimate leadership and
management skill. Understanding your learning processes is one way to improve
your ability to learn. Work on this, and the rest of the managerial skills and abilities
come much more easily.
New approaches to learning include the use of Gardners eight intelligences
(see Activity 44) and a related eld that has become known as Accelerated
Learning. Most books on this are written for teachers rather than learners.
Exceptions are Ricki Linksmans How to Learn Anything Quickly: An Accelerated
Program for Rapid Learning (Replica Books, 1999) and Colin Roses Accelerated
Learning for the 21st Century: The Six-Step Plan to Unlock Your Master-mind (New
York: Dell, 1998). You might also be willing to try Lynda Hudsons Revise and
Remember (Older Children, Students and Adults): Study Aid Latest Accelerated
Learning Techniques, (Firstwayforward CDs, 2004), which is described as a self-help
hypnotherapy CD.
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A different approach, using seven modes of learning, is Tom Boydells Doing
Things Well, Doing Things Better, Doing Better Things: A Guide to Effective Learning
(Shefeld: Inter-Logics, 2001), available electronically at [email protected].
Everybody learns more and more easily in a Learning Company. Mike Pedler,
Tom Boydell and John Burgoynes The Learning Company: A Strategy for Sustainable
Development (2nd edition, Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill, 1996) contains ideas and
101 Glimpses on what a Learning Company is. Peter Senge and colleagues The
Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organisation
(New York: Doubleday Currency and London: Nicholas Brealey, 1994) is full of
interesting material on learning disciplines, disabilities and systems thinking.
Learning to Learn 263
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We sometimes say she or he is very clever of someone who is highly qualied,
implying that they are more able than the rest of us. Professional qualications
are often taken as a measure of a persons worth, and people of ability are
handicapped by the lack of them. But basic ability is only one part of obtaining
professional qualications; opportunity and chance are often of equal signicance.
Another critical aspect is application sticking to the task and this includes
skills in studying. Study skills are different from some other components of
academic success because you are not born with them and you do not acquire
them by chance. You have to learn them.
Study skills are important whether you are professionally qualied or not.
They are important to all leaders and managers because they contribute to
that illusive skill of being able to learn from ones own experience (see Activity
49, Learning to learn).
Start by looking at your own study skills. There is insufcient space here to
become procient in all these skills, but this activity will help you make a
diagnosis and provide pointers for your next steps.
Activity
Step 1: Questionnaire 1 study tasks
The very best way to use this questionnaire is to complete it prior to some period
of study, and then after to see if you feel you have made an improvement.
To get an estimate of your existing level of study skills, complete
Questionnaire 1 (Table A50.1) by circling 3, 2 or 1 for each of the 16 questions.
Study Skills
Activity
50
Learning Balanced learning habits:
areas Professional knowledge: Self-knowledge
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Study Skills 265
Table A50.1 Questionnaire 1 study tasks
This is a big This is something This is not a
problem for of a problem problem for
me for me me
For each question, circle one number 1,
2 or 3 in the columns at the right
Here are some tasks which have to be
achieved for successful study
How difcult is it for you to
1. decide on a suitable place for studying? 3 2 1
2. decide when to study, or for how long? 3 2 1
3. choose your goal (i.e. precisely what 3 2 1
you want to learn)?
4. decide how to achieve your goal (i.e. 3 2 1
what study activities to perform)?
5. obtain or reach people, books and other 3 2 1
resources?
6. deal with lack of desire for achieving your 3 2 1
goal, once set?
7. deal with dislike of activities necessary to 3 2 1
reach your goal (e.g. you want to learn
Spanish but you hate reading)?
8. cope with doubts about success 3 2 1
9. estimate level of knowledge or skill 3 2 1
start and nish and also during study to
determine progress?
10. deal with difculty in understanding 3 2 1
some part or through lack of fundamental
knowledge at some stage?
11. be able to concentrate? 3 2 1
12. be able to remember? 3 2 1
13. be able to apply knowledge gained to 3 2 1
real-life situations?
14. deal with frustration arising from speed 3 2 1
to learning, material containing opinions
rather than clear-cut facts?
15. be able to overcome laziness or inertia 3 2 1
despite interest?
16. nd fellow learners for mutual stimulation 3 2 1
and companionship?
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Scoring
Add up the circled numbers.
The measurement that matters is one which matches you against yourself
and not against some mythical standard. However
If you scored less than 20, you have few study problems (at least as revealed
by this questionnaire).
If you scored between 20 and 30, you do have some difculties. You need to
do more work on your study skills.
If you scored over 30, it is highly likely that your innate ability is being held
back by inadequate study skills.
Step 2
Remembering that this questionnaire is only as valid as you think it is, go back
through it and look at the questions where you circled 3. Then study the ones
where you circled 2. Where are the difculties?
For example, an inability to concentrate or to maintain motivation (both very
common study problems) may be caused by a huge variety of things. There may
be a very simple reason, such as working in a noisy or unsuitable environment; or
it may be exceedingly complex. Lack of concentration is a frequent result of
emotional upset, and lack of motivation may stem from a deep-seated fear of
failure, perhaps developed in childhood.
There are a wide variety of possible interpretations of your results. You
might nd it helpful to think through your results with a supportive person
who can help you reect.
Step 3: Solutions
Whatever your study difculties, the good news is that there are answers, things
that you can do to improve your skills. Depending on where the difculties are
located, here are some possible ways forward:
Set yourself a STUDY DIARY, giving specic periods on given days of the
week for study (Questions 2; 6; 7; 11; 15).
Find a good PLACE for you to study (this may be combined with time)
(Questions 1; 2; 5; 15; 16).
Establish a SELF-TESTING procedure (Questions 6; 8; 9).
Establish a rigorous PRACTICE ROUTINE (Questions 6; 7; 11; 12).
Join a suitable study CLASS (Questions 4; 5; 9; 10; 15; 16).
Consult an EXPERT or TUTOR (Questions 4; 5; 9; 10).
Set yourself a detailed ACTION PLAN (Questions 3; 4; 5; 9).
266 Activities for Management Self-development
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Study Skills 267
And especially:
Find a supportive FRIEND or ALLY to talk, to swap ideas, to counsel, to
encourage, to discipline, etc. (all questions).
These are only some of the possible solutions (see Follow-up).
Step 4: Questionnaire 2 study skills
So far we have been considering overall study tasks the problems to be
overcome when studying usually alone and without a tutor; but there are also
specic skills involved in studying, such as reading, writing, etc.
Now complete Questionnaire 2 (Table A50.2).
Table A50.2 Questionnaire 2 study skills
Rarely Sometimes Usually
For each question, circle one number 1, 2 or 3 in the
columns at the right
Here are some tasks which have to be achieved for
successful study
Do you
1. decide in advance what you are going to study and 1 2 3
where?
2. set yourself goals and subgoals (e.g. I will read this 1 2 3
book between now and then; 30 pages here, etc.)?
3. meet your deadlines especially with regard to 1 2 3
written work, reports, etc.?
4. read fast enough to read all the books you need 1 2 3
to read on any given matter?
5. skim or scan through books using contents pages 1 2 3
and indexes, before deciding what to read?
6. consciously read for a purpose (i.e. to gain specic 1 2 3
material and not just to get everything)?
7. nd it possible to concentrate when listening to 1 2 3
lectures or talks?
8. take notes when listening to talks or lectures? 1 2 3
9. know how to use library systems to nd the books 1 2 3
or information you need?
10. write key notes (i.e. headings and sub-headings 1 2 3
rather than continuous prose)?
11. feel at ease drawing up reports or writing papers? 1 2 3
12. express yourself well in writing? 1 2 3
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Scoring
Questionnaire 2 focuses on several key areas of study skill:
organizing yourself and your time
reading
listening to talks or lectures
note taking
writing.
You should aim to be consistently circling 3s in this questionnaire.
Good study skills and habits take time and purposeful practice to master. You
need to keep practising over time and with persistence until you have developed
these useful habits. Good luck.
Follow-up
There are many, many books and resources on study skills. Search the web or
consult your local training department, library or college and they will be
certain to have something to offer.
Some of the references in the previous Activity will also be relevant here. In
addition, Oliver Caviglioli and Ian Harriss Mapwise: Accelerated Learning
Through Visible Thinking (Stafford: Network Educational Press, 2000) is an
excellent description of how to use mapping to look at note taking, memorizing
and developing ideas.
The Good Study Guide, by Andrew Northedge (Maidenhead: Open
University/McGraw-Hill, 2005) covers ways of studying, essay writing and
preparing for examinations.
268 Activities for Management Self-development
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Your learning cycle is founded upon the key learning experiences in your life. This
Activity, taken together the previous Activities 49, Learning to learn, and 50, Study
skills, will increase your learning abilities, which is a major goal of this book.
In adults, learning happens when we become dissatised with our behaviour
in the light of various experiences. If we are open and willing to learn,
reecting on our experiences can give us clues to new and more satisfying
actions.
On the other hand, adults have so much accumulated experience that often
this past experience gets in the way of the new: I have 10 years experience of
interviewing, I think I know most of what there is to know!
Unexamined life events are not experiences just things that happened.
Experience is generated when we reect. And this reection can lead, often in
small ways, to changed perceptions of situations and new ways in which we
might act. This process or learning cycle looks like Fig. A51.1.
Activity
Each of us is a unique blend of inherited characteristics modied over time by
all sorts of experiences some pleasant, some less so. And it is often these
painful experiences that teach us the most.
In this activity you are invited to re-live some of these past experiences.
What made them so important in making you the person you are today?
Your Learning Cycle
Activity
51
Learning Balanced learning habits:
areas Self-knowledge: Sensitivity to events
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270 Activities for Management Self-development
Step 1
Think of the key learning experiences in your life those that led to signicant
change in your long-term actions and behaviour.
Pick three, four or ve of these key learning experiences. They may have
been short or long in duration, but they must have resulted in a discernible
changes in the way you behaved. Give each a title or phrase to label it. Here
are some examples:
being punished
going to school for the rst time
rst love affair
having a baby
becoming able to work a personal computer
broken leg
university degree
being praised.
1. Experience
Observing and
reflecting on
the consequences
of action in a
situation
4. Action
Acting or trying
out the plan in
the situation
3. Planning
Planning actions
to influence the
situation based
on newly formed
or reformed
understanding
2. Understanding
Forming or reforming
understanding of a
situation as a result
of experience
Figure 51.1 A learning cycle
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Your Learning Cycle 271
Step 2
Take a piece of paper for each experience and label it. Divide the sheet into
eight parts with horizontal lines and makes some notes in response to the
following questions:
1. What happened?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
2. What started it?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
3. What did you learn?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
4. What words describe how you felt while it was happening?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
5. Who else was involved?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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272 Activities for Management Self-development
6. Did they help or hinder your learning? How?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
7. How would you describe the learning process?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
8. What were the key characteristics of this event as compared with others in
your life when you didnt learn as much?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Step 3
When you have completed sheets for three, four or ve key learning experiences,
look back through them and seek out and connections and commonalities that
you can see in how things started; in how you felt; in who was involved, etc.
Can you see any patterns in your learning experiences?
Note these down.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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Your Learning Cycle 273
Now look back through your learning experiences and make two lists: what
factors helped you to learn, and what hindered your learning?:
Factors assisting learning Factors hindering learning
(i) (i)
(ii) (ii)
(iii) (iii)
(iv) (iv)
(v) (v)
(vi) (vi)
etc. etc.
Your key learning experiences are the source of the skills and abilities that you
possess today. Understanding your learning cycle and patterns will help you get
the best lessons from your future experiences as a manager and leader.
Follow-up
This activity is closely linked with the previous Activities 49, Learning to learn,
and 50, Study skills. The books listed there are also relevant here.
The learning cycle is found in David Kolbs Experiential Learning (London:
Prentice-Hall, 1985), which is a good book on how adults learn. Building on this,
Peter Honey and Alan Mumfords Using Your Learning Styles (Maidenhead: Peter
Honey Publications, 1986) and Alan Mumfords Effective Learning (London:
CIPD, 1999) offer analyses of your learning style and useful ways of thinking
about better learning.
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Talking to yourself according to the playground joke is a sign of madness. In
art history, madness and creativity are often closely linked and that what was
once described as lunacy would now be called non-conformity or even genius.
It is often the abnormality in famous people, a deviation from some norm, that
makes them outstanding. This is linked to psychologists concepts such as
divergent and convergent thinking or vertical and lateral thinking. It seems
that a certain amount of experimentation and playfulness is necessary for
creativity and learning.
This activity is simple, straightforward and powerful. Youll need a tape
recorder, a private room and some uninterrupted time.
Activity
Step 1
Go into your room, lock the door, switch on the tape recorder and begin
speaking to yourself. Do not address any audience or person, real or imaginary.
Speak to yourself.
You may nd this quite difcult or it may be quite natural to you. If you nd
it hard, you may need several starts before you get into it.
If you have any doubts, play back what youve said and check whether you
are really speaking to yourself.
Conversations with Yourself
Activity
52
Learning Self-knowledge: Creativity
areas
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Conversations with Yourself 275
Step 2
When you have mastered talking to yourself, start on any specic problem or
difcult situation facing you. Keep talking until you have said everything you
wish to say about this situation.
Step 3
Play back the tape. Listen until you are satised that you understand yourself.
Step 4
Wipe off the tape before leaving the room whether you achieved Steps 2 and
3 in their entirety or not. This is extremely important.
Step 5
Repeat Steps 14 periodically as a means of getting in touch with the problem.
This activity is a formal way of thinking aloud a more respectable
occupation than talking to yourself. The theory is that whenever we speak, we
speak to an audience. We always try to impress or achieve a specic effect upon
another or others. We rarely, if ever, speak to ourselves to nd out what we really
think.
Creativity seems to be only partly a conscious process. There is only so much
that can be done by the conscious mind. Often the aha! or eureka!
experience comes after we have slept on or dropped a problem to think about
something else. The assumption is that the unconscious mind worked
somehow on the original situation and emerged with a solution or
breakthrough.
Try it you may break that block youve been struggling with for so long.
Follow-up
The books suggested in Activities 41, Generating new ideas, and 42, Approaches
to creativity, offer ways forward in developing your thinking and creativity.
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The ancient dictum know thyself is as applicable to todays leaders and managers
as it was to the sages who coined it. To know myself how I act and behave; what
my strengths, weaknesses and learning needs are; what motivates and excites me;
what scares and dismays me; the effects I have on others; and the effects different
people have on me are all important aspects of managing myself and leading
others.
When were going out, or off to an important meeting, we may check out how
we look by glancing in the mirror. Knowing ourselves requires this sort of
information, this reection from some mirror. Backwards review is a reective
meditation which creates the mirror for ourselves. It is very simple and also quite
profound. It takes practice to develop.
Activity
Step 1
This is a simple yet profound activity for becoming more aware of yourself and
your situation. You can do it at any time, but it works well after any signicant
episode: after an argument, an important meeting, a momentous event, at the
end of a year. It takes practice to develop this skill, but it is a fundamental way of
developing awareness and consciousness.
It is perhaps best done at the end of each day, just before you go to sleep.
Backwards Review
Activity
53
Learning Self-knowledge: Sensitivity to events
areas
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Backwards Review 277
Step 2
Find a quiet place to be and do the activity. You can do it sitting up, lying
down, walking whatever, as long it is a place for yourself free from
interruption and distraction.
Step 3
Now begin to go through the events of the day (or meeting, week, month, etc.)
in your mind:
Work backwards, starting with the most recent happenings.
Try to recall what happened in each event or episode what did you do?
What were you thinking at the time? What feelings were you having?
What did you actually want to do at that time and what did you actually do?
What were other people doing and what were their thoughts, feelings and
wishes?
(As you can see by now, this simple exercise is quite a challenge. Do not
give up.)
Try to picture, to visualize, what happened. Take each episode in turn
going slowly backwards, bringing the picture of it into your mind.
(Some people nd it easy to see pictures in their minds, others nd it very
hard.)
What did you do? What were others doing?
How did you feel? What were your thoughts? and so on.
Step 4
Keep going as slowly as you like until you get to the end (actually the
beginning) of the day (or meeting, week, etc.).
Dont be discouraged if you dont get this far and can only manage a few
episodes or hours back. You could start just with an hour or so, and gradually
extend the time.
If you work to develop this skill, you will become much more conscious of
yourself, your actions, your thoughts and your feelings. You will also gain
insights into those of other people, and see more clearly what effects them and
how their actions, thoughts and feelings affect you.
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This reective skill is one that you can use whenever you need it, especially
perhaps when your mind feels dull or you need to be extra vigilant.
Follow-up
You follow this Activity by taking lots of practice. If you like it and want to
explore further the processes of managing yourself, try Mike Pedler and Tom
Boydells Managing Yourself (London: Lemos and Crane, 1999).
278 Activities for Management Self-development
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MI K E P E DL E R J OHN B UR GOY NE T OM B OY DE L L
A MA N A G E R

S GUI DE TO
SELF
DEVELOPMENT
A
M
A
N
A
G
E
R

S

G
U
I
D
E

T
O
S
E
L
F
D
E
V
E
L
O
P
M
E
N
T
CREATIVITY SOCIAL SKILLS SELF-AWARENESS
EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE VIRTUAL LEARNING
PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE MENTAL AGILITY
PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS SELF-MOTIVATION
FI FTH EDITI ON
More than 50 practical,
self-contained activities to develop
your management potential
A MANAGERS GUIDE TO SELF DEVELOPMENT
has become the indispensable guide for building
management skills. Now in its fifth edition, with a strong
how toapproach, this practical self-development book
helps new and experienced managers improve their
managerial performance. It provides:
A complete picture of the skills and
competencies required of a manager from
change management to coaching.
A flexible, self-development programme
to do alone, with a colleague, or in a group.
Part One introduces a framework of 11 key managerial
qualities. Diagnostic activities help you to discover
your strengths and weaknesses, and identify your own goals
for self-development.
Part Two features more than 50 practical activities to help
you develop your skills and abilities. These include:
Networking Finding a Mentor Handling Conflict
Managing Upwards Getting to a Yes
Collaborative Working Planning Change
Being A Coach Using Communication Tools
This has become one of the must have books on any managers shelf.
Thought-provoking, insightful and focused on how to build practical management skills,
it is bang up to date for the dilemmas that face managers today.
Chris Bones, Principal, Henley Management College
The message of this book is profound and its framework for
personal learning and development is effective. It can take you as far as you want to go
to control what you can in a turbulent world your own learning.
Simone Jordan, Director of Learning, NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
Mike Pedler is a leading
academic and consultant on
management and leadership
issues. He is Professor of
Management Learning at
Henley Management College
and a visiting professor at the
Universities of York and Lincoln.
John Burgoyne is Professor of
Management Learning at
Lancaster University and Henley
Management College. He
recently completed a
secondment as consultant to the
Council for Excellence in
Management and Leadership.
Tom Boydell is a director of
Inter-Logics, a small multi-
disciplinary practice specialising
in work around critical
communications in complex
organisations, strategic
partnerships and multi-agency
networks.
Fully updated
and revised from
best-selling
fourth edition
www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk
19.99
COVER DESIGN: JAN MARSHALL
SPINE
17mm
PAGE WIDTH
189mm
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MATT LAMINATE OVERALL
SPOT UV - PLEASE USE ARTWORK v12b
FIFTH
EDITION
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