The Happy Burro

Times are tough all over. Your budget rarely gets increased. Your fixed expenses are going up. As a manager, you have more daily priorities than you have people or time to accomplish them. And then you get one more request, urgent, from the ‘top’. How do you balance all this while ensuring you are prepared for the coming year and another budget reduction?

1. Be the best. Whatever your job, do it like Michelangelo carved marble. Do your work so well that those before you, those that work with you, and those that come after you must pause and say, “There lived a great manager.”(from Martin Luther King Jr.).
2. Return on Talent. Now is not the time to back off on performance appraisals, rigorous and disciplined hiring, or rewarding your best people. You need the right people, in the right jobs - right now.
3. Innovate. Sacrificing the future to live through the present? That will not work for long. Reward new ideas in the area of continuous improvement - thus keeping alive the entrepreneurial spirit of your team.
4. Continuous Improvement. Get better at what you’re already good at. Your work will suffer if you don’t take time to ‘sharpen the saw.’
5. Strategic Quitting. ala Seth Godin and The Dip. You didn’t get to be a manager by doing everything. You chose to systematically quit doing some things so that you could be the best at others.
6. Resource the vital few. With a limited budget, you cannot give resources to everything. What are the critical drivers to success in the near term and longer term for your organization? Focus on these areas first.
7. Celebrate success. Even going a month with no one in the department getting sick could be a good time to cheer!
8. Involve everyone. Let your team help figure out how best to deal with the budget issues your organization is facing. Don’t work alone.
9. Rest. Take one day a week and do not work. Seriously - no BlackBerry, no email, no files, no papers. Give your brain a break. You’ll get more done in six days than seven in most cases. Resting is that powerful.
10. Stop Perfection. Don’t try to ensure everything is 100% perfect. Sure, you cannot waver from policy or law. What about other outputs? Does your demand of perfection end up with a 5% better product and a 45% drop in morale? Think about it. Not everything has to be perfect.

What do you do in your organization as a manager to contribute to the bottom line in tough times?

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(re-post from April 2008)

Stumble it!

Joe Raasch :: Nov.14.2008 :: Innovation, Leadership ::

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