This page links to previously-sent management tips. To view an archived tip, simply click on one of the links below:
#54 Stop Working on Urgent Problems
Take a look at how you currently divide your time. Do you get the little, unimportant things completed first because they are easy and their completion makes you feel good?
#53 Multitasking Doesn't Work
Multitasking was once heralded as the best way to do more in a day. Then people started realizing that speed and accuracy (and sanity) suffered. Rather than multitasking, try a new strategy known as “chunking.”
#52 Stress Awareness
While each person is different and has different events and issues that cause stress, there are some issues that almost universally affect people. These are the stressors you most want to understand and take measures to prevent.
#51 Getting Your Point Across
When we're trying to get a point across to someone else we often think long and hard about what we want to say. That is the wrong way to go about it. Instead of focusing on what you want to say to get your point across, you should focus on what you want the other person to hear.
#50 Lead the Team: How to be the Person Others Follow
Leaders are hard to find. They exhibit a unique blend of charisma, vision and character traits that attract people to follow them. To follow, people must feel confidence in the direction in which the leader is headed.
#49 Preventing Predictable Decision Making Errors
Predictable errors are preventable errors. And a few simple techniques, like those below, can help you steer clear of the most common wrong turns.
#47 It's Not Your Imagination—Your Boss Is Ignoring You
Many people are paying close attention to signs that they may be next up for a layoff. Job shedding has accelerated since the start of the year, so here's one sign to watch out for: the boss's cold shoulder.
#46 The 10 Essentials of Delegating
You will not be an effective manager unless you learn how to delegate. The question, "Should I be handling this?" must be asked frequently if you are to develop your associates, build a strong team, and avoid being swamped.
#45 How to Raise Your Visibility at Work
Used to flying below the radar at work? Think not being noticed will keep your job safe? Not anymore. The best strategy now is to figure out how you can raise your visibility at work — in positive ways.
#44 A Practical Guide for Developing Leaders
Here's a practical guide for developing leaders, adapted from June Delano with Monitor Executive Development. While the guide does not include everything a leader needs to learn, it does offer ideas for developing people before and during new leadership assignments.
#43 What Great Managers Do Differently
Great managers break every rule perceived as "conventional wisdom," when dealing with the selection, motivation, and development of staff.
#42 Top Ten Reasons to Quit Your Job
Susan Heathfield, a management and organization development consultant with about.com offers these top ten reasons why you might want to quit your current job.
#39 Lead Through Listening
As a business leader, you have to listen, get the facts, determine the problem, and help resolve the situation.
#38 The Two Most Important Management Secrets
Your expectations of people and their expectations of themselves are the key factors in how well people perform at work. Part 2: The Galatea Effect — The Power of Self-Expectations
#36 Learning on a Time Budget
If finding the time to read an entire management book is an problem or if you think that most business and management books fill pages with lengthy explanations and really only have a few core ideas, cliff notes for managers might be the answer.
#35 Read any good management books lately?
After reading a good book on business or self-improvement, if you simply put it down and say "that was a good read," you may as well have read a novel. Reading a book is one thing. But to incorporate what you've read into your life, you'll need to take it a step further and actually study the material.
#34 Screening a Candidate by Phone
Susan M. Heathfield of About.com says, “The telephone interview saves managerial time and eliminates unlikely candidates.” A list of prepared questions help the process go smoothly.
#33 Mistakes New Managers Make: The Four Biggies
By avoiding these four common mistakes, you’ll be well on your way towards becoming an excellent manager. This week — Mistake #4: Failing to Seek Help
#32 Mistakes New Managers Make: The Four Biggies
By avoiding these four common mistakes, you’ll be well on your way towards becoming an excellent manager. This week — Mistake #3: Becoming Too Authoritarian
#30 Mistakes New Managers Make: The Four Biggies
By avoiding these four common mistakes, you’ll be well on your way towards becoming an excellent manager. This week — Mistake #1: Becoming Buddies with Employees
#29 Cure Employee Negativity
How you address negativity depends on whether you control it and how it started in the first place. The timeliness of your intervention also has an impact.
#28 Bored Employees Are More Disgruntled Than Overworked Ones
Businesses may realize far more negative consequences from bored employees than from those who report having “too much work”. Employees who are bored have lower job satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, and pride in their employers compared to all other workers.
#27 Seven Steps to Riding out a Downturn
Employees who are anxious about their futures — especially during a challenging economy such as now —can adversely affect a company’s profitability by delivering poor customer service, being less intellectually engaged in their jobs, and making plans to leave.
#26 The Cranky Middle Manager Manifesto
Wayne Turmel, author and weekly podcast host, offers these core beliefs about management and how to get more satisfaction out of your management job.
#25 Decision Making Made Easy
Instead of using “gut feel” or other haphazard means, Lyndsay Swinton (Management for the Rest of Us) suggests using Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Analysis as a simple yet effective method to improve your decision making ability.
#23 Making Change Stick
How many times have we seen politicians or business leaders talk about change? Dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. Yet how many of them take steps to make change happen? It's easy to talk about change but much more difficult to make change happen.
#22 Tackling Tough Q & A Questions
Here are a few practical tips for preparing for question-and-answer periods, particularly when you expect difficult questions from skeptics.
#21 Selling Your Ideas to Management
Your great research or business idea won’t be implemented unless you convince your supervisor, co-workers, and funding sponsors that it is feasible and will be profitable. Failure to accomplish this is the main reason excellent ideas fall by the wayside.
#20 Are You Strategic?
Here are three principles to help managers climb the “strategic” summit.
#19 Quick Follow-ups Move Projects Forward
Do you find projects running behind on a regular basis, or employees unmotivated to get tasks done? You may want to tweak your management style to include this quick follow-up technique.
#18 Don't DO Anything
Your job as a manager is to "plan, organize, control, and direct." Don't let yourself waste valuable time by falling back on what you did before you became a manager. We know you enjoy it and you are good at it. That's why you were promoted. Now you need to concentrate your efforts on managing, not on "doing."
#17 What’s Strategic Planning Anyway?
Strategic planning concerns anything that will bring results in anything from 1 year to 5 years or beyond. It’s good management practice to raise your head above the daily grind every now and then, and take action now to positively affect your future.
#16 Dare to be Slow
Remember that someone who manages time well actually responds to some things more slowly than someone who manages time badly.
#15 Network to Win
While networking with an individual client may give you some quick rewards, networking with other businesses and creating referral sources will give you long-term results.
#14 Three Keys to Beat Procrastination
Procrastination occurs for a number of reasons and in varying degrees. All of these reasons are internal, and really have nothing to do with the task itself. So if you have a few unfinished projects looming over your head and you can’t seem to muster the initiative to get them done, put these three procrastination-busting tips into play today.
#13 What’s the Opposite of Micromanagement?
There has been a lot of focus on micromanagement. It’s a popular and frequently correct diagnosis for management ills. However, if micromanagement is the wrong way to do things, what’s the right direction for a lab manager to take?
#11 When to Use (and not use) E-mail
The “e” in e-mail means “electronic” NOT “everything,” so consider the following before going on e-mail autopilot.
#10 Top 10 Management Mistakes
Managers come from different walks of life, possess various characteristics, and have their own philosophies regarding how to manage a business and employees.
#9 Do the Most Important Thing First
Productivity guru Gina Trapani calls this "running a morning dash." When she sits down to work in the morning, before she checks any email, she spends an hour on the most important thing on her to-do list.
#8 Ten Employee Retention Tips
There are many ways to keep your prized employees happily on board. AllBusiness.com shares some tips to help improve employee relations and ensure that your lab keeps the best of the best.
#7 Five tips to being a better manager
From the American Management Association Set aside one hour each day to absorb new information. Don't let yourself be the person who is unaware of a major development or situation that needs attention.
#6 Simple Steps to Better Communication I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Robert McCloskey
#5 The Importance of Being an Approachable
Manager
As a manager, much of your success rests on
the shoulders of those working for you. Therefore it is very important
to maintain a positive, productive relationship with your employees,
and one of the most important things to strive for as a manager
is to remain open and approachable.
#3 Get the Most out of Training
Training is important. It’s the one way
to improve the quality of your workforce with the staff you have.
#2 Being the Bearer of Bad News
As a manager, there are many opportunities
to share good news, recognize staff members for accomplishments,
and to enjoy a few moments focusing on a job well-done. However,
not all news is good news and unfortunately, delivering bad news
is part of the job.
#1 Five Reasons for a Meeting
Before you hold your next meeting, be sure
you and the others at the meeting know why it's being held. Meetings
can drag on and feel like a waste of time if the goals are not clear
to all in attendance.David Allen, founder and President of a management
consulting, coaching, and training company (www.davidco.com),
offers these five reasons for holding a meeting
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