Video blog: 8 things good managers must do

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Bruce Tulgan runs through 8 things in 2 minutes — tactics that will make you feel confident and effective as a manager.

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/7 Comments
7 replies
  1. Sia
    Sia says:

    These video blogs are amazing, I personally really want to see more

    this is for Bruce:
    what is the difference between, a manager, team leader, and a boss in your videos? to me they are all the same when it comes to implementing your ideas is that true?

    and if you give (or place) orders and tell your people “HOW” to do it, how can they show their creativity and talent?

  2. Matt Maupin
    Matt Maupin says:

    I enjoyed this format as well. A written transcript that accompanied the video would be very beneficial.

    I think the most important lesson in this video is “Set people up for success every step of the way. Don’t make people sink or swim.”

    I need to work on that one and will start today.

  3. Benjamin Strong
    Benjamin Strong says:

    Thank you, THANK YOU Penelope for including Bruce in your blog.

    The two minute advice he gives is just the shot in the arm necessary to help me deal with my own staff and keep the office moving in the right direction.

    One question for anyone who thinks they can help. I feel pretty confident in getting our office to run smoothly. How can you enlist your support staff in offices hundreds of miles away to get on board and support your vision? Despite the fact they are tasked with supporting us, they don’t report to me and they don’t have the same passion for the “job” that we do?

    Thanks!

  4. Matt Maupin
    Matt Maupin says:

    How about a video blog? Seriously. We are working on ways to use this resource in house to deliver messages to workers that would not otherwise have frequent contact with our Executive Director. Positive messages.

    I hadn’t been into this medium at first, but when done properly I think it could be very effective.

  5. Bruce Tulgan
    Bruce Tulgan says:

    Thanks for all the great feedback and I appreciate the questions very much too. Let me clarify: My view is that the management basics are appropriate for any person in a position of supervisory authority—from the CEO all the way down to the front lines. How you apply the management basics will be very different depending upon your position and the people you are managing…

    When it comes to fostering creativity and talent, the biggest favor you can do for someone is clarify what is up to that person and what is not. Where does the person’s discretion begin and end? Spell out exactly what is required, exactly what the parameters are, exactly where there is no room for creativity and then… within those parameters, urge people to use their discretion and creativity.

    When it comes to pure innovation, remember, the true path to innovation is not reinventing the wheel, but rather, starting at the cutting edge, knowing all the best practices, and then improving on that.

    Please keep the questions and comments coming!!

    Be strong, Bruce

  6. Tom Morgan
    Tom Morgan says:

    Wow! Bruce has the rare quality of effective and credible delivery. The video helps us focus on you and your message without alot of distraction from the background or special effects.

    I enjoyed your message so much that I just ordered your upcoming book.

    Keep up the good work.

  7. Bruce Tulgan
    Bruce Tulgan says:

    From Bruce:

    In response to the question posted by Benjamin Strong (sorry for the delay, I’m traveling), you seem to be asking really two different questions: One is how to manage staff working in a remote location, the second is how to manage staff if they don’t “report to” you directly. I hope I am reading that correctly.

    So how to manage staff remotely? There is no magic response. But the simple answer is you have to apply those eight management basics from a distance using a strict telephone and email habit. You can still meet with staff—one on one—every day or every other day or once a week if you have a sacrosanct telephone appointment. Send an email beforehand with a clear agenda of items you want to cover in the call. Then have the call and stick to the agenda. And send an email afterward summarizing the next steps you agreed on together.

    When you are in the same location together, don’t waste that time. Use that time to talk about the work and fine tune your approach and pay close attention to all the visual cues you don’t get to watch when you are in a remote location. Also I think the idea of incorporating video conferencing might be a great addition to this. It is, of course just a different technology to do the email and telephone thing.

    Regarding managing people who don’t report directly to you, that really means managing people with whom you don’t have direct authority. The answer? If you don’t have authority, you have to use influence. How?

    #1 Persuasive arguments.

    #2 Transactional power, as in, try to spell out your expectations clearly and try to gain verbal and/or written consent. Even if those agreements are not binding, they have influence.

    #3 Even if you don’t have authority, you might have some impact on detriments or benefits to that person, as in ‘one hand washes the other,’ or ‘we depend on each other, so let’s make sure we can depend on each other.’

    #4 Interpersonal trust and confidence based on shared experience and the expectation of future shared experience.

    I hope that helps. Be strong, Bruce.

     

     

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