1. What is different about being a manager than a supervisor?
2. Perfect Labor Storm Warnings
3. Managing to Excel - The Best Supervisory Training
4. What is the difference between a manager and a leader?
5. The Leader Within
6. Speaking Schedule
7. New Book: Coming Job Boom
8. Quotes from the Hire Authorities
1. What is different about being a manager than a supervisor?
"What is different about being a Manager?"
starts out a blog I read regularly. That's saying quite a bit
considering the hundred or so emails I receive between the time I head off to
bed (midnight-ish) and checking my emails first thing in the morning. No matter
what, I always read
Tom Foster's Management Skills
blog.
Tuesday's post was no exception. In it he asks: "What is different
about being a Manager [than a supervisor]?" This is an ongoing and growing
conversation I have with senior managers and business owners. Tom again
hits the nail on the head when he writes about a client telling Tom his hiring
woes: "[He] had been a great Supervisor, but was having difficulty [in his new
role as manager].
Tom then writes about a conversation which I've heard and participated in
hundreds of times before - it was like Tom was eavesdropping on my client
conversations!
"And did he demonstrate any of that behavior before you promoted him?" I
asked.
"Well, no, but we thought he would be able to figure that out."
"Did you ever assign him tasks, management tasks, to test him on his capability
to handle those assignments?"
Gerald narrowed his eyes, before his short answer, "No."
"So, you promoted him to a Manager level, without evidence of Management
capability, based on his success at a Supervisor level?"
This conversation is taking place more frequently than ever. Why? Because
growing companies need more managers and established organizations are
losing managers to retirement - or the competition. Loyal,
hard-working supervisors are being rewarded with a promotion to the rank of
manager without the experience, knowledge, and very likely the most important
- the capability and/or motivation to perform the duties of a manager.
Just like Tom recommended, job sampling or assigning manager-type
responsibilities ahead of a hiring or promotion is ideal. But in today's
lean and mean (aka - shorthanded and understaffed) organizations that type of
flexibility is sometimes just not practical. When tasks are assigned, it is
only on the rare occassion that any oversight and mentoring takes place.
Instead it's more like trial by fire. If you survive the experience, you
get the promotion; if not, you're stuck in supervisor h*ll for eternity.
That's too bad because the successful performer may have had just a little luck
on his side and won't be able to repeat this success in the future while the
high potential candidate who failed on this one particular project may have had
the cards stacked against him.
What's a better way to predict manager potential when you have a vacancy and a
supervisor is the only available employee to fill the job?
Let me take a step back before I answer that question and ask "what is the
worst way to predict manager potential?" The answer should be obvious at
this point: promote them and think "they can figure it out."
The better approach is to evaluate the candidate's current and potential
competence. By combining the likes of a personality, values, behavior and
abilities assessment, a hiring manager can determine not only the candidate's
potential to act and think like a manager but his motivation and ability to
learn what he doesn't know.
Authors John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade explain that video gamers will bring an
extraordinary set of skills to the corporate world in
The Kids Are Alright: How the Gamer Generation Is Changing the Workplace
. These skills include the following:
They have developed an unprecedented ability to multi-task.
They place a high value on being an expert.
They creatively solve problems.
They calculate risks and know the importance of getting a good return on
investments.
They aren't afraid of competition.
They love to win.
All of these qualities will make video gamers desirable
employees, managers, and entrepreneurs.
Read more about skilled worker shortages
in the NEW
Perfect Labor Storm 2.0
(soft and hard cover versions)
Now on Sale!
Perfect Labor Storm 2.0
(soft and hard cover versions)
Order today and save 25%.
NEW Chapters! Generational Conflicts in the Workplace, Managing the
Future Workforce, Attracting Young Employees in a Seller's Job Market plus
hundreds of new facts, trends and stats.
To order Perfect Labor Storm 2.0, call 800.803.4303. Discounts for orders
of 10 or more. Specify hard or soft cover.
3.
Managing to Excel - The Best Supervisory Training
A manager's time is precious. Too often, formal training tries to accomplish
too much.
Managing to Excel
works from the premise that if training is to succeed, learning objectives need
to concentrate on just a few key behavioral change goals.
Managing to Excel
is a collection of 12 half-day off-the-shelf workshops, each dedicated to the
development of a single critical competency.
4.
What is the difference between a manager and leader?
You may think of the words "manager" and "leader" as two concepts representing
opposite ends of a continuum. The term manager typifies the more structured,
controlled, analytical, orderly, and rule-oriented end of the continuum. The
leader end of the continuum connotes a more experimental, visionary,
unstructured, flexible, and impassioned side. Managers and leaders are not the
same. They think differently internally, and behave differently externally.
Best-selling authors and Fortune 100 consultants, Dr. Drea Zigarmi, Dr. Ken
Blanchard, Dr. Michael O'Connor and Dr. Carl Edeburn reveal the results of an
in-depth, seven-year statistical study of leadership in Corporate America.
Their new book, The Leader Within, Knowing Enough About Yourself To Lead
Others, shows how leaders exert influence and how disposition, values, beliefs,
and persona contribute to their very success-or failure.
April 2 -
Wachovia Bank, Philadelphia PA - Flashpoint: When Boomers and Younger
Workers Collide
May 16
- Sovereign Benefits Solutions HR Conference, Hershey PA
October (tentative)
- American Staffing Association Annual Meeting - Workforce Trends That Change
The Way You Will Do Business
Call 717.291.4640 to schedule Ira for your next meeting or conference.
7. Hot Off The Press! "Coming Job Boom" - Buy Today!
Ira recently collaborated with
Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder
on a new book, The Coming Job Boom. Bonnie is the author of The Public
School Parent's Guide to Success. The Coming Job Boom is the "ying" for
the "yang" of The Perfect Labor Storm. While the Perfect Labor Storm is
beginning to make managers feel like storm chasers looking for qualified
workers, high school and college students must be smiling at this Upcoming
Job Boom. For those young workers with the right skills and motivation,
the job market will make these kids feel like - well, like kid's in
a candy store!
"Leaders focus on the soft stuff - people, values, character, commitment,
a cause. All of that was supposed to be too indefinable to count in business.
Yet that's the stuff that real leaders take care of first. That's why
leadership is an art, not a science."
Tom Peters
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