The Middle Manager of the Future: More Coaching, Less Commanding
Skilled middle managers foster collaboration, inspire employees, and link important functions at companies. An analysis of more than 35 million job postings by Letian Zhang paints a counterintuitive picture of today's midlevel manager. Could these roles provide an innovation edge?
^ADJ: This is something that most strategies miss - how are we going to increase the skill of our middle managers to be more effective?
How we developed our Vision, Mission, and Strategy
If you don't know where you want to go, how on earth do you know how you'll get there? And if you don't know, don't expect your team to know either.
^ADJ: I love this strategy question: "What are the biggest challenges that could prevent us from achieving success?"
Strategic Planning for Resignations
Inevitably, someone in your team will resign despite your best efforts to retain them. Here I dive into what one should do leading up to the day.
^ADJ: Scenario Planning and having organisational awareness is often forgotten about!
6 Steps to Make Your Strategic Plan Really Strategic
Many strategic plans aren’t strategic, or even plans. To fix that, try a six step process: first, identify key stakeholders. Second, identify a specific, very important key stakeholder: your target customer. Third, figure out what these stakeholders want from you. Fourth, figure out what you want from them. Fifth, design your strategy around these requirements. Sixth, focus on continuously improving this plan.
^ADJ: Critical point "The sixth step is continuous improvement. Recognize that no matter what you decide, there is no certainty in the result once you embark on implementation via an action plan and scorecard."
Pick one and own it
What if your company could have only one single advantage over the competition? This exercise will make your positioning and strategy stronger.
^ADJ: Interesting question, what is one the advantage you would double down on?
How Curiosity Can Make Your Meetings — and Team — Better
Do you find meetings with your team disintegrate into dysfunction and chaos, resulting in ineffective decision-making, inadequate solutions, and team members — including yourself — with deflated morale? “Team” is a misnomer for these bodies; “group” is more accurate. Group members are accountable to the boss but not to each other; they often work in individual silos, oblivious to the bigger picture. At best, groups are inefficient and ungratifying; at their worst, they make consequential mistakes through poor communication and bad decisions. To turn your group into a team, you need curiosity. Curiosity encourages you to pause before problem solving and engage your team members in productive conversation, rather than talking past each other. It invites colleagues to contribute their honest perspective. And with a newfound understanding of collective and individual frustrations, you can learn to empathize with each other, work better together, and become a team invested in a shared outcome rather than individual agendas.