The Art of Being More Effective Managers
A Short Stack PPT Developed by the
Center for Strategic Change
at George Fox University
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The Center for Strategic Change
at George Fox University
The Center for Strategic Change at George Fox University has a simple mission: To help
college and university leaders succeed.
We will accomplish this mission by serving as both a platform and resource for strategic
innovation. As a platform, we will provide current practitioners an opportunity to present
their ideas and insights to the higher education community.
As a resource, we will provide curate content in the areas of leadership, visioning, strategic
planning and organizational design.
Short stack: A short stack is a concise (short) PowerPoint presentation that focuses on a
specific topic or issue.
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The Art of Being More Effective
• Recognizing that most people can’t work any harder, this three-part series of
short stacks will look at how to work more effectively.
• This second short stack is designed for managers.
• The first short stack was for staff. The third and final short stack is for leaders.
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The single biggest determinant of a staffer’s
performance is the relationship they have
with their manager.
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As a manager, your job is not to do. Rather,
your job is to make sure it gets done.
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What Motivates Knowledge Workers
• What leaders thought: recognition for good work
• What workers said: making meaningful progress
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Your Staff Must Be Able to Answer Yes to 12 Questions
1. Do I know what is expected from me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
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Your Staff Must Answer Yes to 12 Questions (continued)
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the purpose of my organization make me feel my job is important?
9. Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my
progress?
12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
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Increasingly, your success will depend
on your ability to work with diverse
groups of people.
Diversity in ethnicity, background, age and attitude
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Keep It Simple
• People do not like working for a boss who consistently:
 Makes things too complex
 Makes things harder to do than necessary
 Can’t make a decision (or won’t stick to a decision)
 Micromanages
• KISS (no, not that KISS)
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Hire Slowly …
• The 3 C’s of hiring:
 Competency
 Character
 Chemistry
• The key: A volunteer attitude
• Imagine taking a drive with them to Chicago.
• In almost all cases, you will know within two weeks whether or not it was a good
hire. If it wasn’t, admit it, cut your losses now, and get it over with.
Mediocrity is malevolent and corrosive.
Tolerating mediocrity is management malpractice.
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A = A, B = C
• “A” people hire “A” people (because they want to look good and recognize the
value of talent [more on that later]).
• “B” people hire “C” people (because they are afraid of looking bad).
• Always try to hire people that are smarter and better than you are; it will only
make you look good.
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Fire Quickly
• How to let someone go will send critical messages to your team.
 Be firm
 Be fair
 Be fast
• In many cases, those who are let go are as relieved as you are.
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Train Like Your Life Depends on It
• As our work becomes more technical and more complex, training will become
even more critical.
 Do you view training as a cost or training as an investment?
Q
How many of you would describe the training
you received when you began your job as:
 Great
 Good
 Not so good
 Really poor
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Train Like Your Life Depends on It
• Arguably the best limo service in the U.S. is Commonwealth Worldwide
Chauffeured Transportation.
 The CEO was asked, “How do you transform an ethnically diverse work force
with little education into a squadron of fastidious Jeeveses?” His response:
“Train. Train. Motivate. Train. Mentor. Train.
Lead. Train. Train. Train.”
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Help Out, but Not Too Much
• One sign of a healthy working relationship is whether you can tell your boss,
“Hey, I’m overloaded. Can you help me prioritize?”
• But always watch out for flying monkeys.
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Keep Procedures in Perspective
• You can’t policy and procedure your way to great work.
• Don’t spend too much time developing procedure manuals or trying to hide
behind them.
• A thick procedure manual is usually the last gasp of a
dying organization.
• Trust your people.
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Welcome to Nordstrom
We’re glad to have you with our
company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding
customer service.
Set both your personal and professional goals high.
We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.
Nordstrom Rules:
Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations.
There will be no additional rules.
Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager,
or division general managers any questions at any time.
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Be a Rabbi
• While you must be attentive to everyone on your team, decide early who is
essential to your success.
• Spend 10 minutes each day mentoring your best people.
• Make their goals your goals.
• Make their future part of your present.
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Dialogue is Good … Up to a Point
• There is no data – none, zip – that suggests that the longer you take to make a
decision the better the decision will be.
 There is considerable evidence that the longer you take to make a decision
the less effective that decision will be.
• Cut to the chase
• Remember, delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Make the date for the decision the constant
and the number of meetings the variable.
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Try to Avoid Every
Meeting You Can
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When You Must Hold a Meeting …
• Don’t hold a meeting without an agenda.
• Organize the agenda into three categories:
 Inform
 Discuss
 Decide
• Don’t hold a meeting if you can cover it in a memo.
• Keep it short  60 minutes, maximum
• Assign a note taker and follow up with assignments and due dates.
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Delegate
• Don’t try to do everything.
 You are not that good (really, you are not).
 You will likely burn out.
 And you will frustrate your best people.
• Delegate:
 Small, then big
 Early
• Support the person you delegated to.
Don’t just delegate the job; delegate the authority
to do the job.
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To Delegate You Must Provide
Clear
Objectives
Resources
42 | A Short Lesson on the Art of Being More Effective | © STAMATS 2015
Delegate
Authority
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Hold People Accountable
• If you give them the training, the time
and the treasure, you can also hold them accountable.
• If people are not held accountable, they will not grow.
• And if individual team members are not held
accountable, the other members on the team get
discouraged.
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Don’t Hang Around With …
• The baloney artist
 Champion of the one-liner and cute phrase
• Urgency addicts
 Everything is critical, but no follow-through
 Crisis de jour
• The gossip
 “Hey, have you heard?”
 Gossip is always poison.
• The snitch
 Don’t believe ’em, don’t trust ’em, and don’t be seen listening to ’em.
 They always have an agenda (and you’re likely on it).
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Reward Right
• Let your people help decide how they want to be
rewarded.
 It will seldom be what you think.
 And will seldom cost as much as you think.
• They have a much better idea of what motivates them
than you do.
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Don’t Assume Treachery Until You Rule Out
Carelessness
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