Benefits of Delegation

Managers often have trouble delegating.

Effective delegation is key for any manager. It will free up your time, allowing you to focus on big-picture strategic activities. it can also lead to better decision-making, because it pushes decisions down the organization, meaning that decision-makers are often closer to the problems. It also helps those you are managing develop their own decision-making skills and prepares them for future promotion opportunities

Managers often have trouble delegating. Some are afraid to give up control, explaining, "I like to do things myself, because then i know it's done and it's done right." Others lack confidence in their employees or fear that they may be criticized for others mistakes. While you may be capable of doing the tasks you delegate better, faster, or with fewer mistakes, it is not possible to do everything yourself. However, you should expect, and accept, some mistakes by those you delegate to.

Mistakes are often good learning experiences. You also should put adequate controls and mechanisms for feedback in place so you will know what is happening.

ACTION POINT: Look for opportunities to delegate tasks to others.

Delegating Effectively

Empowering others through delegation is one of the most powerful managerial tools for increasing productivity.

Managers are responsible for getting things done through other people. you need to accomplish assigned goals by delegating responsibility and authority to others. Empowering others through delegation is one of the most powerful managerial tools for increasing productivity.

Managers delegate by transferring authority and responsibility for work to employees. Delegation empowers employees to achieve goals by allowing them to make their own decisions about how to do a job. Delegation also helps develop employees for promotion opportunities by expanding their knowledge, job capabilities, and decision-making skills. Delegation frequently is depicted as having four key components:

• Allocation of duties. Before a manager can delegate authority, the tasks and activities that need to be accomplished must be explained.
• Delegation of authority. Delegation is the process of transferring authority to empower a subordinate to act for you as a manager.
• Assignment of responsibility Managers should assign responsibility to the empowered employee for performing the job adequately.
• Creation of accountability. Managers should hold empowered employees responsible for properly carrying out their duties. This includes taking responsibility for the completion of tasks assigned to them and also being accountable to the manager for the satisfactory performance of that work.

ACTION POINT: Develop your strongest team members through delegation.

Steering Your Team

Identify what each member's individual contribution to the team's work should be...

Team members should all share in the glory when their team succeeds, and they should share in the blame when it fails. However, members need to know what they cannot ride on the backs of others. Identify what each member's individual contribution to the team's work should be and make it a part of his or her overall performance appraisal.

To help monitor performance, select members of the team to act as participant-observers. While a team is working, the role of the participant-observer is to focus on the processes being used: the sequence of actions that takes place between team members to achieve the team's goal. Periodically, the participant-observer should stop the team from working on its task and discuss the process members are engaged in. The objectives of the participant-observer are to continuously improve the team's functioning by discussing the processed being used and creating strategies for improving them.

Create a performance agreement to record the details of what the team is aiming to achieve, what is required and expected of every team member, and what support will be available to them. Setting out the framework for team success clearly helps to ensure that there is a mutual understanding an common vision of the desired results and emphasizes the standards that you expect from every team member.

ACTION POINT: Create a mindset of shared responsibility for success or failure with your team.

Joy

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 16:11

Joy is more than happiness, just as happiness is more than pleasure. Pleasure is in the body. Happiness is in the mind and feelings. Joy is deep in the heart, the spirit, the center of the self.

The way to pleasure is power and prudence. The way to happiness is moral goodness. The way to joy is sanctity, loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself.

Everyone wants pleasure. More deeply, everyone wants happiness. Most deeply, everyone wants joy.

No one who ever said to God, "Thy will be done" and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joy—not just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment, here and now.

In the very act of self-surrender to God there is joy. Not just later, as a consequence, but right then. It is exactly like a woman's voluntary sexual surrender to a man. The mystics often say all souls are female to God; that's one reason why God is always symbolized as male. Of course it's only a symbol, but it's a true symbol, a symbol of something true.

The symbolism is not "sexist" either. It holds for a man's soul as well. Only when lovers give up all control and melt helplessly into each other's bodies and spirits, only when they overcome the fear that demands control, do they find the deepest joy. Frigidity, whether sexual or spiritual, comes from egotism.

We've all known people who are cold, suspicious, mistrusting, unable to let go. These people are miserable, wretched. They can't find joy because they can't trust, they can't have faith. You need faith to love, and you need to love to find joy. Faith, love, and joy are a package deal.

Every time I have ever said yes to God with something even slightly approaching the whole of my soul, every time I have not only said "Thy will be done" but meant it, loved it, longed for it—I have never failed to find joy and peace at that moment. In fact, to the precise extent that I have said it and meant it, to exactly that extent have I found joy.

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— Jude 1:24

Achieving Good Teamwork

As the manager for a team, it is your job to provide the resources and support that the members need to achieve success.

To help your teams perform to the best of their ability, create clear goals. All team members need to have a thorough understanding of the goals of the team and a belief that these goals embody a worthwhile result.

This encourages team members to sublimate personal concerns to those of the team. Members need to be committed to the team's goals, know what they are expected to accomplish, and understand how they will work together to achieve these goals.

However, these goals must be attainable; team members can lose morale if it seems that they are not. To avoid this, set smaller interim milestones in the pat to your overall goal. As these smaller goals are attained, your team's success is reinforced. Cohesiveness is increased, morale improves and confidence builds. As the manager for a team, it is your job to provide the resources and support that the members need to achieve success. Offer skills training where needed, either personally or by calling in specialists within your organization or outside training services.


ACTION POINT: Create clear goals with milestones along the way for your team to achieve.

Mutual Trust

Consistency and honesty are key...

A climate of mutual trust is essential in a high-performing team--each member of the team needs to know they can depend on the others. Successful managers build mutual trust by creating a climate of openness in which employees are free to discuss problems without fear of retaliation. They are approachable and respectful and listen to team members' ideas and develop a reputation of being fair, objective, and impartial in their treatment of others.

Consistency and honesty are key, so they avoid erratic an unpredictable behavior and always follow through on any explicit or implied promises they make. Communication is at the heart of building and maintaining mutual interdependence between members of a team. Managers of high-performing teams keep team members informed about upper-management decisions and policies and give accurate feedback on their performance. They are also open and candid about their own problems and limitations.

ACTION POINT: Establish an atmosphere of mutual trust with your team.

Leading Teams

I always tell people the same things about being a leader...

Recently some words of wisdom about leading a team were sought from one of the division managers. This was the response.

I always tell people the same things about being a leader –

• Care – about the organization, your people, your performance, etc

• Set the example – you are in a fishbowl; people are watching your every move

• Don’t ask others to do something you’re not willing to do yourself

• Delegate – you can’t do it all yourself

• Don’t be afraid to make the hard calls

• Be yourself…if you’re an a__hole, be an a__hole; people will see through phoniness

• Don’t walk past a mistake – you just set a new standard

• Focus down rather than up – take care of your subordinates and they will take care of you

• Get more with sugar than vinegar

• The “Golden Rule” works

• “Servant-leader” attitude – focus on how you can best serve your organization

• Being a good leader is very hard work


ACTION POINT: Work hard at leading your team.

High Performing Teams

Successful managers are those who create, work with, and manage successful teams.

As Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler Corporation, said: "All business operations can be reduced to three words: People, product, and profit. People come first. Unless you've got a good team, you can't do much with the other two." Successful managers are those who create, work with, and manage successful teams.


A team is two or more people who meet regularly, perceive themselves as a distinct entity distinguishable from others, have complementary skills, and are committed to a common purpose, a set of performance goals, and an approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. High-performing teams engage in collective work produced by coordinated joint efforts that result in more than the sum of the individual efforts. Teams of ten or fewer members find it easiest to interact constructively and reach agreement.


ACTION POINT: Understand and utilize the power of teams in your organization.

Designing Work

This will make them most likely to achieve good results.

It is very difficult to completely change how a person performs, so try to match people to jobs that they are good at. This will make them most likely to achieve good results.

Enhance the five dimensions of work with the following:

1. Combine Tasks. Put existing fragmented tasks together to form larger modules of work. This can help to increase skill variety and task identity.
2. Create Natural Work Units. Design tasks to form an identifiable whole to increase employee "ownership" and to encourage workers to view their jobs as important.
3. Establish Client Relationships. Building direct relationships between the worker and the client--the user of the product or the service that the employee works on--increases skill variety, autonomy, and feedback.
4. Expand Jobs Vertically. Giving employees responsibilities formerly reserved for managers closes the gap between the "doing" and "controlling" aspects of the job, and increases autonomy.
5. Improve Feedback Channels. Feedback tells employees how well they are performing, and whether their performance is improving, deteriorating or remaining constant . Employees should receive feedback directly as they do their jobs.

ACTION POINT: Use the foundation above for designing the work of your team.

We Believe God Is Present through Faith

Enlighten the eyes of your mind...

Ephesians 1:18

And so when we pray there's no question of God being present or absent. Our feelings may say, "I don't feel anything." So what? We're not our feelings. We decide to believe God is there because that's what our faith has revealed to us, and if you are dong a contemplative practice long enough you know this is true without anybody having to tell you because you have sensed and experienced some little touch of the presence of God.

But it's a process, dear friends, and the taste that we have of God can continue to develop into ever deeper levels of intimacy that are absolutely inconceivable to us in the beginning--beyond anything, as Paul says, we could imagine or dream of is the closeness of God's presence.

And it's a closeness that is totally loving, concerned, nourishing, supportive, sympathetic, empathic -- every human relationship that is beautiful and good and true all rolled into one and multiplied millions of times over.

Ephesians 3:20

Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine...

On this day

The following happened:

1777	American soldiers won the first Battle of Saratoga during the Revolutionary War.
1796	President George Washington's farewell address was published. In it, America's first chief executive advised, "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all."
1906	Addressing the annual dinner of The Associated Press in New York, Mark Twain said there were "only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe ... the sun in the heavens and The Associated Press down here."
1957	The United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, in the Nevada desert.
1970	"The Mary Tyler Moore Show" debuted on CBS.

1975 The couple below walked the aisle.

Then they danced:

34 years and the dance goes on.

Happy Anniversary!!!!!

Designing Work

Well-designed jobs lead to high motivation, high-quality performance, high satisfaction, and low absenteeism and turnover.

Job design refers to the way tasks are combined to form complete jobs. It involves trying to shape the right jobs to conform to the right people, taking into account both the organization's goals and the employees' satisfaction. Well-designed jobs lead to high motivation, high-quality performance, high satisfaction, and low absenteeism and turnover.

Jobs vary considerably however any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions:

• Skill variety; the degree to which a job requires a variety of different activities so that the worker can employ a number of different skills and talents.
• Task identity: the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work.
• Task significance: the degree to which a job has an impact on the lives of other people.
• Autonomy: the degree to which a job provides freedom and discretion to the worker in scheduling their tasks and in determining how the work will be carried out.
• Feedback: the degree to which the worker gets direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his or her performance.

As a manager you can maximize your team's performance by enhancing these five dimensions. Skill, variety, task identity, and task significance combine to create meaningful work. Jobs with these characteristics will be perceived as important, valuable, and worthwhile. Jobs that possess autonomy give workers a sense of responsibility for their results. Jobs that provide feedback indicate to the employee how effectively he or she is performing.

ACTION POINT: Enhance the five dimensions, skill, variety, task identity, and task significance to maximize team performance.

How to Develop and Implement a Plan

Planning equals profit - Bill Aldrich

Goals require an established strategy for achieving them. A plan should be developed and implemented as part of the strategy. The following steps can be used to develop and implement a plan.

• Define your overall goals, by asking questions such as "Why do we exist" and "What do we do?"
• Thoroughly analyze your working environment, to identify opportunities you can exploit and threats yo may encounter.
• Use the results to set objectives that you want to meet. These will create a standard against which to measure your progress.
• Formulate a plan to achieve those objectives--what needs to be done, by whom, and by when.
• Implement the plan, clarifying roles and providing support.
• Monitor your progress to ensure you are on the right track.

ACTION POINT: Use the steps above to develop plans, large and small ones, that can be implemented and achieved.

Setting Your Goals

...goals should contribute to the mission, vision, and strategic plan of the organization...

There are five basic rules that can help you set effective goals. always make your goals, SMART:

Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Reachable and Time-bound.

• Specific goals are meaningful only when they are specific enough to be measured and verified.
• Measurable goals need to have a clear outcome that can be objectively assessed. They also need to have clear benchmarks that can be checked along the way.
• Aligned goals should contribute to the mission, vision, and strategic plan of the organization and be congruent with the values and objectives of the employee implementing them.
• Reachable goals should require you tot stretch to reach them, but not be set unrealistically high.
• Time-bound Open-ended goals can be neglected because there is no sense of urgency to complete them. Whenever possible, goals should include a specific time limit for accomplishment.

ACTION POINT: Write down three SMART goals that you want your team to achieve in the next five years, and then plan how you will reach them.

Managing a Team

To be a successful manager, you need to, motivate your team to excel.

Teams are the cornerstones of most public and nonprofit organizations. successful team leaders understand what makes a team effective and what can lead to failure. To be a successful manager, you need to be able to plan and design the work of your team, delegate tasks effectively, monitor progress, and motivate your team to excel.

Planning is a key skill for any manger and starts with having a good understanding of the organization's objectives. It involves establishing a strategy for achieving those goals using the personnel available, and developing the means to integrate and coordinate necessary activities.

Planning is concerned with ends (what needs to be done) and means (how those ends are to be achieved). In order to create a plan, managers must first identify the organization's goals--what it is trying to achieve. Goals are the foundation of all other planning activities. They refer to the desired outcomes for the entire organization, for groups and teams within the organization, and for individuals. Goals provide the direction for all management decisions and form the criteria against which actual accomplishments can be measured.

ACTION POINT: Set goals and plan for achieving them.

Valuing Diversity

The labor market is dramatically changing.

Understanding and managing people who are similar to us can be challenging, but understanding and managing those who are dissimilar from us and from each other is tougher. As the workplace becomes more diverse and as business becomes more global, managers must understand how cultural diversity affects the expectations and behavior of everyone in the organization.

The labor market is dramatically changing. Most countries are experiencing an increase in the age of their workforce, increased immigration, and, in many, a rapid increase in the number of working women. The globalization of business also brings with it a cross-cultural mandate. With more businesses selling and manufacturing products and services abroad, managers increasingly see the need to ensure that their employees can relate to customers from many different cultures. Rich McGinn, of US telecommunications giant Lucent Technologies, said: "We are in a war for talent. And the only way you can meet your business imperatives is to have all people as part of your talent pool." Workers who believe that their differences are not merely tolerated but valued by their employer are more likely to be loyal, productive, and committed.

ACTION POINT: Value the differences in your people.

Basic Thrust of Christian Spirituality

God replied, "I am who am." Exodus 3:14

The basic thrust of Christian Spirituality might be summed up in two texts from the Old Testament which speak to the fundamental situation of the human adventure. The first is from Exodus: "I am who am" (Exod. 3:14). God thus reveals himself as unlimited being. Isness. Everything that is must be in relationship to his infinite being, and in fact, penetrated by it. The other text is from Psalm 46:11: "Be still, and you shall know that I am God." We are thus invited to open ourselves completely to this infinite being, to the reality of the God who is; who penetrates, surrounds, and embraces us at every moment. God is the atmosphere that our spirit needs to breathe in order "to live, move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

Psalm 46:10

Be still, and know that I am God...

A Gentle Soul

I attended a rosary recently for a 95 year old man that was carried home when the sweet chariot swung low. It was held at the church where the man had been a founding member 50 years ago. In between each rosary the comforting words of the gospels assured us of the promise of redemption and the hope of heaven.

After the rosary one of the son’s spoke about the man. He spoke of the conversations around the table growing up with the man. Conversations about sports, family matters and the politics of the day. Conversations that encouraged him to have goals and to work hard. An influence that encouraged him to strive to be a good man. A man like his father.

He told of the time when 18 boys showed up to play baseball and didn’t have a coach. He said it was his dad that said he would coach, even though he had never coached before. He went on to say how his dad got a book and learned the game and those boys had a team and a season because his dad said he would coach them.

The man’s son in law spoke next. He read words written by a daughter paying tribute to her father. Heartfelt words that chronicled the life of the man from his birth at the start of WWI to the settling down and raising of a family in a slice of America called Tulsa. In between there was service to his country, his community and his family. A member of the greatest generation, he was remembered as a kind, polite, gentle soul who always said “thank you” and “please.”

The man’s other son was also there. I have the privilege of working with him. His style is to let his life speak more than his words. It occurred to me that was how he paid tribute to his father. A 10th grade friend of the son who was there confirmed this in a few brief moments of conversation. The friend said the man’s son had a “squeaky clean” reputation and was “quite the pitcher” in his day. He now has a son who is also “quite the young pitcher” for the high school team he plays on. It seemed the step of faith into coaching years ago was still bearing fruit. I also think those kitchen table conversations about goals, and hard work and honor bore fruit as well. They are all evident in the character of the departed man’s sons and daughter.

As the service ended I was touched by the deep love this family had for their father. The gentle soul departed but his influence lived on.

Handling Conflict

Discuss the issues openly and honestly with all parties...

There are five basic approaches managers can use to try to resolve conflicts. Each has strengths and weaknesses, so choose the one most appropriate to your situation:

• Avoidance: not every conflict requires an assertive action. Avoidance works well for trivial conflicts or if emotions are running high and opposing parties need time to cool down.
• Accommodation: if you need to maintain a harmonious relationship, you may choose to concede your position on an issue that is much more important to the other party.
• Competition: satisfying your own needs at the expense of other parties is appropriate when you need a quick resolution on important issues, or where an unpopular action must be taken.
• Compromise: this works well when the parties are equal in power, or when you need a quick solution or a temporary solution to a complex issue.
• Collaboration: use this when the interests of all parties are too important to be ignored. Discuss the issues openly and honestly with all parties, listen actively, and make careful deliberation over a full range of alternatives.

ACTION POINT: Know when to use avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise and collaboration to manage conflict.

Understanding the Causes of Conflict

Conflicts can also result when people or groups disagree over goal priorities...

Disagreements frequently arise from semantic difficulties, misunderstanding, poor listening, and noise in the communication channels. Communication breakdowns are inevitable in work settings,, often causing workers to focus on placing blame on others instead of trying to solve problems.

Conflicts can also result when people or groups disagree over goal priorities, decision alternatives, performance criteria, and resource allocations. The things that people want, such as promotions, pay increases, and office space, are scarce resources that must be divided up. Ambiguous rules, regulations, and performance standards can also create conflicts.

Individual idiosyncrasies and differences in personal value systems originating from different cultural backgrounds, education, experience, and training often lead to conflicts. Stereotyping, prejudice, ignorance, and misunderstanding may cause people who are different to be perceived by some to be untrustworthy adversaries.

ACTION POINT: Empathize with the other parties in the conflict, and try to understand their values, personality, feelings, and resources. Make sure you know what is at stake for them.

Managing Conflict

Conflicts exist whenever an action by one party is perceived as preventing or interfering with the goals, needs, or actions of another party.

Conflict is natural to organizations and can never be completely eliminated. If not managed properly, conflict can be dysfunctional and lead to undesirable consequences, such as hostility, lack of cooperation, and even violence. When managed effectively, conflict can stimulate creativity, innovation, and change.

Conflicts exist whenever an action by one party is perceived as preventing or interfering with the goals, needs, or actions of another party. Conflicts have varying causes but are generally rotted in one of three areas: problems in communication; disagreements over work design, policies, and practices; and personal differences.

ACTION POINT: Manage conflict effectively to stimulate creativity and innovation.

Negotiating Well

Always go into a negotiation with a concrete strategy.

Careful attention to a few key guidelines can increase a manager's odds of successful negotiation outcomes. Always start by considering the other party's point of view. Acquire as much information as you can about their interests and goals. Always go into a negotiation with a concrete strategy. Treat negotiations the way expert players treat the game of chess, always knowing ahead of time how they will respond to any given situation.

The following guidelines can be used to negotiate:

• Begin with a positive overture, and establish rapport and mutual interests.
• Make a small concession early on if you can. Concessions tend to be reciprocated and can lead to a quick agreement.
• Concentrate on the issues, not on the personal characteristics or personality of your opponent.
• If your opponent attacks you or gets emotional, let them blow off steam without taking it personally.
• Pay little attention to initial offers, treating them as merely starting points.
• Focus on the other person's interests and your own goals and principles while you generate other possibilities.
• Emphasize win-win solutions to the negotiation.
• Make your decisions based on principles and results, not emotions or pressure.

ACTION POINT: Negotiate well by using the guidelines listed above.

The Ninth Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control

[God's] steadfast love...never ceases...
Lamentations 3:22

The ninth Fruit of the Spirit is Self-control. Self-control as a fruit of the Spirit is not the domination of our will over our emotions. It is rather our awareness of God's abiding presence and is the result of the infusion of God's steadfast love. hence our former compulsive reaching out for security, affection, and esteem, power and status symbols ceases. in particular, there is no energy for sexual activity apart from commitment and genuine love. When Moses asked God who he was, the answer came: "I AM THAT I AM." This text is still under scholarly investigation, but one likely meaning is "I am for you." The inward assurance of God's unwavering love enhances our freedom of choice and action. Out of that interior liberty, self-control arises spontaneously. We know in spite of our weakness that God will give us the strength to get through every trial and temptation.

Lamentations 3:22
the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end...

Negotiating

Managers spend a lot of time negotiating, and need to be able to do it well.

Negotiation is a process by which tow or more parties exchange goods or services and attempt to agree upon the exchange rate for them. Managers spend a lot of time negotiating, and need to be able to do it well. They have to negotiate salaries for incoming employees, cut deals with superiors, bargain over budgets, work out differences with associates and resolve conflicts between members of their team.

There are two general approaches to negotiation: distributive and integrative bargaining. distributive bargaining assumes zero-sum conditions, that is: "Any gain I make is at your expense," and vice versa. Integrative bargaining assumes a win-win solution is possible. Each is appropriate in different situations.

Distributive bargaining tactics focus on getting an opponent to agree to a deal that meets your specific goals. Such tactics include persuading opponents of the impossibility of getting their needs met in other ways or the advisability of accepting your offer; arguing that your position is fair, while theirs is not; and trying to get the other party to feel emotionally generous toward you and accept an outcome that meets your goals.

Integrative, or win-win, bargaining is generally preferable to distributive bargaining. Distributive bargaining leaves one party a loser, and so it tends to build animosities and deepen divisions between people. On the other hand, integrative bargaining builds long=term relationships and facilitates working together in the future. It bonds negotiators and allows each to leave the bargaining table feeling that he or she has achieved a victory. For integrative bargaining to work, however, both parties must openly share all information, be sensitive to each other's needs, trust each other , and remain flexible.

ACTION POINT: Understand the two type of negotiations distributive and integrative.

How to Provide Feedback

Keep feedback descriptive and fair rather than judgmental.

Providing regular feedback to your employees will improve their performance. The following methods are effective for providing feedback.

• Talk about the job. Keep feedback job-related. Never make personal judgments, such as "you are stupid and incompetent"
• Give detail. Avoid vague statements such as "you have a bad attitude" Or "I'm impressed with the job you did." The recipient needs to understand exactly what they have or haven't done well.
• Use goals. Keep feedback goal-oriented. It's purpose is not to unload your feelings on someone.
• Make it attainable. When delivering negative feedback, make sure you only criticize shortcomings over which the person has some control.
• Ensure a good fit. Tailor the feedback to fit the person. Consider past performance and future potential in designing the frequency, amount, and content of performance feedback.
• Be non-judgmental. Keep feedback descriptive and fair rather than judgmental.
• Explain your reasons. Explain to the recipient why you are being critical or complimentary about specific aspects of their performance.

ACTION POINT: Use the tips above to provide effective feedback.

Giving Feedback

Most managers will enthusiastically give their employees positive feedback but often avoid or delay giving negative feedback, or substantially distort it, for fear of provoking a defensive reaction. However, improving employees' performance depends on balanced and considered feedback.

Providing regular feedback to your employees will improve their performance. This is because:

• Feedback tells the person how well they are progressing toward those goals. Positive feedback gives reinforcement, while constructive negative feedback can result in increased effort.
• The content of the feedback will suggest ways that the person can improve their performance.
• Providing feedback demonstrates to a person that you care about how they are doing.

As a rule positive feedback is usually accepted readily, while negative feedback often meets resistance. When preparing to deliver negative feedback, first make sure you are aware of any conflict that could arise and think about how to deal with it. Ensure that negative feedback comes from a credible source, that it is objective, and that it is supported by hard data such as quantitative performance indicators and specific examples.

ACTION POINT: Provide feedback, positive and negative as needed to improve your teams performance.

Effective Approaches to Teaching Skills

Making it clear to the learner what is really required of them, and why this is important.


There are several useful approaches to teaching skills to others. Below are some of them:

• Being prepared - Knowing ahead of time what you want the outcome of your skills training to be. This works because unless you know where you want things to go, you won't know how to conduct yourself to get there.
• Listening - Keeping communication lines open and indicating to others that their opinions are important. The key to effectively teaching a skill is often expressed by the learner, but overlooked by the manager when they fail to hear it.
• Using questions - Presenting a concept, options for applying it, and the consequences, then asking the learner what they will do. By asking rather than telling an employee how best to apply a new skill shows respect, and because it allows them to think it through for themselves, it helps them to learn faster.
• Being positive - Correcting mistakes in a positive way, not in one that is patronizing or makes others feel worthless and inferior. This helps motive the person you are teaching.
• Being honest and upfront - Making it clear to the learner what is really required of them, and why this is important.
• Setting performance targets - Indicating the acceptable level of performance you expect from those you are teaching and holding them to it.

ACTION POINT: Consider the approaches above when teaching new skills.