“I’m looking for a course”

Finding a training course that suits you is never easy.

Is it on offer the one week you CAN’T attend?

Is it being held soon enough for you?

Does it run at times convenient to you?

Is it on offer in your city or will you have to travel?

Can you afford the course right now?

Our “bite-sized” management training courses allow you to learn at time that suits you, at a pace that suits you and at no additional cost.

Hone up your management skills with one of our members’ training courses “a Bite at a Time”.

We split all the courses up into manageable sections so you can get started right away. By dividing the courses into bite size segments, you can take the part of the course you need – when you need it.

Most of the courses are provided in the form of downloadable PDF files.

“I have a question…”

I’m a lot younger than all the people in the team I manage. I want to gain their respect and be able to lead them.

This is an example of a question we received from one of our members.

When you need more information on something specific or you’d like some guidance on how to approch a situation, use our “Ask Elizabeth & Jack” page to ask your question.

Your question will be anonymous and in total confidence.

There are occasions when it’s not appropriate to ask someone at work about an issue. Your boss may think you’re not up to the job if you mention it or maybe the obvious person to ask at work may be too close to the problem to give you a balanced view.

You may feel you need independent advice on the range of options you think you have and you want to get another view.

Friends and family may not be familiar with your management situation. In some cases, the topic may require friends and family to be unbiased and not favor you in their response.

We’ll get right back to you with an answer. If it’s a topic of general interest to managers, we may also write a 5-minute guide or a manager briefing. Be assured though, if we use your question in this way, we’ll change every possible facet of it so there will be no possibility that you and your company could be identified.

Ask a Question now!

Hello and Welcome to “Managers Need to Know”.

We hope you enjoy our new site and find it useful.

This site is newly designed. It has been conceived as a response to what we’ve heard from the managers with whom we’ve been working for over 10 years.

Previously, we’ve worked with and supported managers of all age groups on a “tell us what you need and we’ll help you” basis.

That’s worked very well and continues to work well.

What we also know from our managers and from our own experience is that there is a real need for the sections on our menu bar.

Browse and enjoy……………

Dealing with Difficult People

You must address the issues. If you don’t deal with the issue, the situation won’t get
better and it usually gets worse. If you leave well alone, hoping the problem will resolve,
conflict simmers and erupts counter-productively. Coworkers feel angry.

Deciding to live with the situation long term is rarely an option.

Firstly, let’s be clear about the sort of person we are considering in this topic.

The person we are not considering is the person who has a real and genuine grievance
because they’ve been badly treated and who is complaining because they should
complain. Those people are completely justified in their complaint.

Be careful that the person you’ve been asked to “sort out” isn’t this sort of person. Do
some research before agreeing to take on the task.

Secondly, it’s more helpful to you and it’s easier to deal with if you think about the
unproductive /unacceptable behaviour rather than the “difficult person”.

The behaviours we are considering here are:

Read the rest of this “5 Minute Guide” for managers..

What Makes a Good Manager

I’m often asked for ideas on how to be a good manager and how to be a good people manager.

These are the essential skills of managers no matter what is the end product – computers, customer service or bread.

Make a list of the names of your previous “managers”. You may even want to go back to schools and when you were growing up. You may even want to consider your parents and how they managed you.

Consider also stories which stick in your mind which you’ve heard from friends and relations about their experiences of people who managed them.

Against each “manager” make 2 lists – what they did well and what they did badly.

Don’t rush this – give yourself a couple of days to ponder it all.

The aim is to give you a reminder of what works and what doesn’t work and importantly, why it works or doesn’t work.

Read the rest of this article

Question – Open door or door ajar ?

I started my management job 9 weeks ago and I manage a team of 12 people. I really want to have an “open door” policy of access to me for my team and that’s what I told them when I started. Trouble is – they took me at my word which is what I thought I wanted but I find I’m continually interupted to the point I have to stay late every night to get my own work done. My team are great. They are good workers and not time wasters. What they come to me with is important to the work. What can I do? Basically I really believe in “open door” but in practice it’s driving me nuts.

This is a question from one of our members. See our Questions and Answers section for our answer and examples of other questions we receive….

What are the Skills Needed to be a Good Manager?

The list of skills needed to be a great manager is long and varied and endless.Let’s take a look at what we like to call: “What nobody thought to tell you at the interview”.

Your managers didn’t in any way set out to keep things from you during the interview process. However and inevitably, in any interview, the main focus is usually on the specifics of the fit between you and the company and the fit between you and the goals of the organization.

Your bosses will have had in mind that the company is about to e.g. launch a new initiative or they want to re-organize the company or they want a leader for a new department or they have a specific problem which they needed someone with the ability to fix…etc. That’s all about what the company needs from you and that’s why they employed you.

What they didn’t think to mention is that there are tasks which are implicit in a manager’s job which may not have been detailed to you and it may not have occurred to you that they are explicit in your job. And…they are the skills of an effective manager.

Read more of this article…

Congratulations S on your new job !

Hi S,

Congratulations! Thanks for letting us know about this great news and you’re very welcome. We love to hear about success stories and get a buzz from knowing we played a small part.
So.. that’s the next stage in your life-dream achieved. Well done and what a great adventure it will be for you and K . Jack and I have visited that part of Australia many times and we know you’ll love it. Jack says “if we get out there later this year, can I get a ride on one of your huge earth moving machines – please?!”

Talk soon…..
Elizabeth

Open door or door ajar ?

Question

I started my management job 9 weeks ago and I manage a team of 12 people. I really want to have an “open door” policy of access to me for my team and that’s what I told them when I started. Trouble is – they took me at my word which is what I thought I wanted but I find I’m continually interupted to the point I have to stay late every night to get my own work done. My team are great. They are good workers and not time wasters. What they come to me with is important to the work. What can I do? Basically I really believe in “open door” but in practice it’s driving me nuts.

Answer

We really sympathise with your situation, T. You had no choice but to start as you did. In your situation (of which we know more detail) your team had to feel comfortable about their access to you and to trust that they had all the access to you that they needed. By now, they will be comfortable with you and trust in your support so now you can ease them into being on a longer rope.

You need 2 things – a “door ajar” policy and a schedule of times when people can come to see you .

How about creating an occasion to meet briefly with your whole team? You could even make it a half -hour special coffee break, bring in coffee and cookies or get the team to bring their own drink and you bring cookies – whatever seems right and fits best for you. Don’t make too big a deal of it but use it as a “we’ve done a great job so far” situation or a “thanks for a good start”.

Tell them you really appreciate the communication between all of you. Say that now you have all been working together for 9 weeks, and you’ve proved you all work well together, you’d like to suggest a few refinements. If appropriate, you might also say that you also have a special project of your own which has been assigned to you. Say there’s a deadline on it of 2 weeks from now and you have to work on that. Don’t over play your own work though – the team still needs to feel important to you but it’s ok to gently remind them that you have your own tasks. Say that you feel everyone can now adjust to “normal access”.

1. Describe that you’d like to try out – just for a month – a system where you have a couple or just one “open door” time per day when you can see the team. Decide times to suit yourself – e.g. one morning and one afternoon – perhaps 10-11am and 4-5pm. The early one would allow you to get your own vital tasks done before 10am and the afternoon time would be just before day end (so you can be pretty sure people won’t over-run that session). On a good day, this should allow you 6 hours of time for yourself. Have an appointment list for the whole work week hung near your door for the team to sign up to your “open door” sessions. Make the appointments in blocks of 10 minutes, and ask that the team work co-operatively and consult together to sign up according to their needs. The team are likely then to self regulate and not over-run because they know they are taking someone else’s time. In 2 x one hour sessions per day, you could see the whole team every day if necessary. We hope you don’t need that but to begin with, the team are assured they have the access they need.

2. Say that for the rest of the day, outside the 2 sessions, your door will be “ajar” and you should actually half close it. Say that of course you can be interrupted but only for emergencies.

3. Say you’ll review how the new system is working after a month. That should give enough time to let the new system embed and work well and reassure the team.

Caution – don’t put the new system in place during a crisis. If a crisis develops, suspend the system for a day or so but re-instate it after the crisis passes. Don’t scare the team. They had a bad time before you arrived and you don’t want to spook them into thinking you’re withdrawing from them just when it’s starting to go well.

Hope that helps.
Elizabeth

Why should I join?

In life, there are two commodities that are very limited:

TIME and MONEY

In the average week of every manager, TIME is very limited.

You only have so many hours in the day to invest in your management skills.

AND…

You only have so much time and money to invest in learning

those skills.

So, when you’re looking for resources to help you be the best

manager you can be, you want something AFFORDABLE and CONCISE.

The bottom line is this:

You want information that is relevant to your current needs

- and you want to instantly understand that information so you can actually use it

- and you’d rather not have to get a second mortgage to pay for it!

What if you could pick and choose from a selection of short (but meaty) guides, articles and reports – all based on sound management theory – that were instantly applicable to your management role?

What if they were all written in clear, straightforward language?

You’ve got it! Right here at Team Effective.

Those of you who have already joined Team Effective, understand the benefits. Great decision!

Even if you’re not looking for help and solutions today, be sure to stop by and take a “sneak peek” at the to see all the benefits our managers  receive.

It going to be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

“Even a correct decision is wrong when it is taken too late.” - Lee Iacocca, CEO of Chrysler

Team Effective is packed with information TO SAVE YOU TIME, STRESS AND MONEY… and increase your skills – which will mean a higher salary for you.

Team Effective will help you gain all the skills a manager needs. You’ll receive immediate help, focused practical advice, ongoing support and a wealth of material that you can refer back to, time and time again.

To your success !

P.S. Time = Money. Save more of both by joining right now.

« Previous Page — Next Page »